Children, Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel

Quarterly Hearing

Witness: The Minister for Home Affairs

Thursday, 27th April 2023

Panel:

Deputy C.D . Curtis of St. Helier Central (Chair) Deputy B. Porée of St. Helier South (Vice Chair) Connétable M. Labey of Grouville

Witnesses:

Deputy H. Miles of St. Brelade , The Minister for Home Affairs Ms. K. Briden, Chief Officer, Justice and Home Affairs

Mr. R. Smith, Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police

[14:27]

Deputy C.D . Curtis of St. Helier Central (Chair):

Welcome to this quarterly hearing of the Children, Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel. Today is 27th April 2023. I would like to draw everyone's attention to the following. This hearing will be filmed and streamed live. The recording and transcript will be published afterwards on the States Assembly website. All electronic devices, including mobile phones, should be switched to silent. So we will begin with the introductions of the panel members first. So I am Deputy Catherine Curtis , the Chair of the panel.

Deputy B. Porée of St Helier South:

I am Deputy Porée , the Vice Chair of this panel.

Connétable M. Labey of Grouville :

My name is Mark Labey , Connétable of Grouville . I am a member of that panel.

Deputy C.D . Curtis : Minister?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Sorry, I am just going to put my phone to mute. I am Helen Miles . I am Minister for Home Affairs.

Chief Officer, Justice and Home Affairs:

Kate Briden, Chief Officer for Justice and Home Affairs.

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

Good afternoon. Robin Smith, Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Okay. Thank you. So this hearing will be for one and a half hours. We have quite a lot of questions. So I have the first question, but before I move on to that I would just like to say on behalf of the panel that we thought we would like to thank all the teams who have worked on the L'Ecume recovery operation and to extend our condolences to the bereaved families.

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police: Thank you very much.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Now, if we move on to our questions, so the first one is about the transfer of justice powers. So, Minister, at our last quarterly hearing you advised that the background work to formalise the transfer of justice powers to you would be concluded by Easter and that the Chief Minister would then make an order to the States to formalise this. So please could you update us with the status of that?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Yes. The status of that is it is still ongoing and officers are still working to identify the other legislative responsibilities that need to be transferred to me.

[14:30]

So I have just spoken to one of the officers prior to the hearing and I am assured that that should be complete by the end of May. So, as things stand at the moment, I remain officially the Minister for Home Affairs with policy responsibility for justice as was set out in the report in 2023 where the Chief Minister made the Article 30 list of ministerial responsibilities.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Right. Okay. Thank you. So by the end of May. So now if I can just move on to a question about the taskforce on violence against women and girls, please could you clarify the timeline for the report on this?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Yes. Originally, I was expecting the taskforce to be able to report by April 2023 but we had quite a low take-up on the public engagement so we extended it. So now the taskforce is due to submit their recommendations to Government by July 2023. We have had researchers to the Island this week to present their findings to the taskforce and the taskforce will be using the remaining time to develop their recommendations in consultation with the stakeholders and the other experts in the field.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

So you are thinking of that for Government, to Government, by July?

The Minister for Home Affairs: Yes.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

So when do you think it might be open to the public, the report published?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

I would anticipate shortly after it has been received by me. I see no reason to withhold the findings and I certainly will not have any input in changing any of those findings. I might make comments on recommendations, but the report will be what the report is and it will be put into the public domain.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Okay. Thanks. So another question on that: who is on the taskforce?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Now, that is a good question. We have a range of stakeholders. It is chaired by Kate Wright, who is also the chair of the Jersey Community Relations Trust, and then we have representatives of all the necessary government departments. So that would be C.Y.P.E.S. (Children, Young People, Education and Skills), States of Jersey Police, but we also have representations from local charities, so that would be Jersey Action Against Rape, that would be the Jersey Domestic Abuse Service, Victims First Jersey. I think there is somebody from Brook on the taskforce. It is fairly wide. Vic Tanner Davy from Liberate is a member of the taskforce. So it is wide enough to be able to consult with stakeholders but narrow enough to get stuff done.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Right, okay. So all the people who would have a contribution to make in the organisations?

The Minister for Home Affairs: Yes.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Okay. So my next question was what was the response rate to the public engagement, and you mentioned it was slow at first?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Yes. At first it was slow, despite all the publicity that we did. So the various elements had the response rates ... and I have them here in front of me, so the general public survey we had 326 responses. From a victim's testimony submission we had 28 submissions. The heat map, which was the locations where people were asked to say where they felt particularly unsafe, we had 279 responses. We also had a piece of work done with children and young people and that received 1,789 survey responses, which is very good. That was across all schools. We also conducted 12 focus groups with secondary schools, the Jersey Youth Service and also the Jersey Football Association. We had focus groups with victims and survivors from a range of backgrounds and using different services, and for the professionals we had 41 responses to the survey and we undertook 13 interviews. So, all in all, the taskforce have done a very comprehensive job. Given the size of our population I think I would be satisfied that the research has been done properly. We have used U.K. (United Kingdom) experts in this field as well and I am looking forward to reading the report and addressing their recommendations.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

I was going to ask if you were confident that it would provide an accurate picture of what is happening, but it sounds like you are because of that response.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

I think it was well worth extending that engagement time and having a rethink about how we could best engage with the majority of people.

Yes, okay. My next question was: has the Government looked at work in other jurisdictions in relation to preventative work for violence against women and girls and, if so, which ones and what has been learned? You have already mentioned U.K. experts.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Yes. We have had experts from the U.K. Violence against women and girls or gender-based violence, another way of putting it, is internationally renowned as a public health issue and internationally there is a lot of research and information about tackling this and approaches to tackling it. So I am really confident in the team that I have, particularly the 2 policy officers who have been supporting the taskforce, that they have been looking very widely, both academically and within the charitable sector, to make sure that we can tailor the best possible solution for Jersey.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Yes. So it will be interesting to see what comes out of this and new ideas and so on. In the Youth Parliament debate on 28th March, in response to a question about rape convictions in Jersey, Deputy Jeune advised that existing work was under way between the police and the Law Officers' Department to improve a victim's experience of reporting rape or sexual offences and made reference to an action plan that was 68 per cent complete. So we were wondering about this action plan and what it is.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

I think what you are referring to is the rape and serious sexual assault action plan that is an action plan between the Law Officers' Department and the States of Jersey Police to make sure that they are following best practice. I do not know if the Chief Officer wants to address that, but certainly the R.A.S.S.O. (rape and serious sexual offence) plan comes from initiatives in the U.K. and has been extended to Jersey.

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

As you will have seen in other jurisdictions, getting a sensible conviction rate, particularly for rape and serious sex offences, is a challenge not just for our jurisdiction but also for others. There is a whole host of reasons why that is and that is the reason why with Alison Fossey working with Howard Tobias and colleagues in the Law Officers' Department and also supported by barristers in the U.K. we have, as the Minister has described, the R.A.S.S.O. action plan, which is as she has described. We do need to improve our conviction rate for what is a very hard crime to convict. We also need to work harder on keeping those victims of those crimes engaged in what is sometimes a very lengthy and intrusive process. Coincidentally, only tomorrow I am speaking to Robin Merrett. Operation Soteria is transforming the investigation of rape in the U.K. and tomorrow morning I am

meeting by Teams Robin Merrett, who leads on Operation Soteria - that is S-O-T-E-R-I-A - to explore how we can do that. The final thing is not just the enforcement side of things but how do we keep victims of horrendous crimes engaged in the process, because we have a very high percentage of those that do not continue with the complaint. We have met with a company called Influence at Work, which the Government have used before, to encourage people to use the COVID vaccination. So it is not just about enforcement but also looking at behavioural science: what can we do to encourage people to stay with the judicial process? So it is not just policies and procedures, it is also looking at different ways to achieve the right aim.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Yes, that is interesting that people do not sort of lose faith in things as they are going along, so thank you for that. Minister, would you support a review of the criminal justice process, including the current court sentencing guidelines?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Are you talking about the criminal justice process per se or just in relation to sexual offences?

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

For this question it is in relation to sexual offences, but if it was bigger it would be an interesting question.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Okay. I think the elements of the criminal justice system work quite well within their own right in that most agencies have a direction of travel. They have policies and procedures. They have guidelines from national organisations. I think what we can improve is the partnership working across those agencies and I think that was the foundation of the R.A.S.S.O., the rape and serious sexual offence plan. So I would be less inclined to support a root and branch review of the criminal justice processes, but I would certainly probably concentrate on partnership working between those agencies. Having said that, I have not had the opportunity to read the taskforce report and I have not had the opportunity to consider their recommendations in great depth. So you are asking me now before I read the report and that would be based on my long experience of the justice system, but I am not saying that that would not be an appropriate step to take if that was the recommendation from the taskforce.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

So wait and see, yes. At our last hearing, the panel heard that the Law Officers' Department was producing the rules of court that are required in advance of the Domestic Abuse (Jersey) Law coming into force. So please could you provide an update on that work?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Yes. I am very pleased to say that yesterday I launched the Appointed Day Act for the Domestic Abuse Law. If it had been the day before, we would have been able to debate it on 13th May. As it is, it is now due for debate on 13th June. So we obviously briefed you on the work. Through liaison with the Law Officers and the judiciary we reached agreement that the law would be brought into force as a priority with the rules of court to follow, and I am sure that the courts will be able to manage their procedures so that the law can operate until the rules are made. So that law will, if subject to satisfactory debate on 13th June, be in place on 20th June, which is obviously great news for everybody.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

It is good news, yes. Seeing as the Appointed Day Act will be put forward before the rules of court are ready, do you see any risks in that of the courts managing their own procedure before the rules of court are agreed and developed?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

No. I think if there was a particular issue around the rules the judiciary would have been clear that we would need to wait, but through the conversations that we have had they are satisfied that they will be able to manage that process without the rules, yes.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Okay. So I expect there has been plenty of consultation about that?

The Minister for Home Affairs: There has.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Could you outline the relationship or the protocol between the Government Executive and the Law Officers' Department and advise whether the Government can provide strategy direction to the Law Officers' Department?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

The Law Officers' Department operate independently of Government.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Yes, I do understand that is essential but I am thinking more of what governance is there and things like that.

They act independently of Government so they have their own governance arrangements. Strategically, one of the things that I have asked to resurrect as a result of having the justice portfolio is the Criminal Justice Systems Board. It is something that we started in about 2015 and that is chaired by the Bailiff but attended by the Chief Minister, the Minister for Home Affairs and other key players across the justice system. The point of that board is so that we can set some strategic direction around criminal justice. For various reasons I do not think that particular board has met since about 2018. Underneath that board we have a criminal justice working group and certainly under my leadership that has been resurrected and that group is meeting regularly. That is the operational leads and chief officers from across the criminal justice agencies and they are meeting regularly to discuss areas of concern. The rape and serious sexual offences agreement would be one of them. What that body does, and that is why we set it up many years ago, is to encourage that partnership working and a shared understanding of operational matters across departments.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

That is interesting, yes. Just on the Domestic Abuse (Jersey) Law specifically, how will the new legislation be reviewed to assess for any gaps? For example, the new head of Jersey Women's Refuge was recently quoted in the Evening Post saying that there were some gaps, it was missing some areas.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Yes. I think what was reported in the newspaper was about the domestic violence protection notices and also I think she was particularly ... there was 2 other areas. One was about strangulation and the other one was about economic crime.

[14:45]

I think there are 2 schools of thought around the economic crime, and the definition of coercive control within the Domestic Abuse Law may well be sufficient to encompass any form of economic control. We will not know that until we start using it and the lawyers have an opportunity to see how that law is working. The area about strangulation I am not sure should go into the Domestic Abuse Law. I am not sure whether that should sit somewhere else. We would have to take some advice on that. Again, I think it is important to note that I think these are areas that the taskforce will be looking at and, again, I will be carefully considering their recommendations about how to bring that forward. The area of domestic abuse protection notices again is an interesting one because that was in the first draft of the Domestic Abuse Law. For various reasons following consultation it was taken out, which has left us with domestic abuse protection orders, which are issued by the court

post-conviction. So, again, I am expecting the taskforce to examine that in particular and we will revisit whether we want to put those notices back in. But for me I think the urgency ... this was passed by the States Assembly in 2022 and it has taken a year to come into force, which in my view is too long, so I am very pleased that by summer we will have that in force to give the tools to the police force and other people to crack down on domestic abuse in a very constructive way.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

That is good news that it is happening, yes.

The Minister for Home Affairs: It is.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

So just to move on but still to do with the same area of criminal justice policy, Minister, what can you tell us about your plans and preparatory work for a new criminal justice policy?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

In my ministerial plan I have included reference to preparatory work for the development of a new criminal justice policy and it is something that I would like to see delivered in my term. The existing policy that we are relying on was written in 2007, so we are 25 years [sic] down the road. Having said that, there is still not a lot wrong with that original policy.

Deputy C.D . Curtis : Yes, I was just reading it.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Yes, the pillars are there, it is all good stuff, but we have moved on and we are doing other things. So the substantive work is not planned into the policy programme until after 2023 because obviously we are doing more pressing things until then. The youth justice policy, which is nearing completion, will form part of the overall criminal justice strategy but we felt it was important to have that separated off. So in terms of the policy, it will really cover the main areas, so your criminal justice values. A particular area for me is criminal justice statistics. We still do not have a central repository which tells us how the criminal justice system is working. If you look at the Home Office, you look at the Ministry of Justice, you have those. We have very good statistics coming out of individual agencies but that is not really telling us how the system is performing. I think that will be something that probably comes out of the taskforce as well. It is very important that any policy focuses on victim care. We have always said we put victims at the heart of the criminal justice system. In reality, that is not really true and we have to bring them back to the centre of the system. We have other things

in train; for example, I signed off something to lodge the planning application for the new sexual assault referral centre, which hopefully, if all goes well, given a fair wind, we should be able to move into by the end of 2024. Again, that will help put the victim at the heart of the process. One of the streams of the policy will be about partnership working. We have already covered that in an earlier question. We have to achieve things together for the good of the Island and we have to work out how we can smooth out some of the wrinkles between departments to put victims at the centre of the process. Early intervention, that strand of the strategy will be picked up by the Building a Safer Community framework. Again, we all know all the research shows that it is better to put a fence at the top of the cliff than an ambulance at the bottom on the beach. Enforcement: are we still doing enforcement in an appropriate way? That is going to be a particular theme. Dealing with offenders: so it is how we operate, whether offenders are dealt with in the community or whether they are dealt with in prison. Then, finally, it is about rehabilitation and clearly my wish is that we take a very rehabilitative focus to our criminal justice rather than a punitive or retributive one.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

I was looking through that old report and there has certainly been progress on things like the restorative justice and so on since then, has there not?

The Minister for Home Affairs: Yes.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Do you think there is sufficient information available for both victims and accused persons on how the criminal justice system in Jersey works?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

I think if you know where to look for it there probably is and I think if you fall into one of those systems individual departments will give you a very, very good service. But again I refer to my previous ... systemically we do not have a justice website. We do not have a criminal justice system website, so there is an opportunity to rationalise all that. Again, that comes out of the partnership working. Certainly, under the old criminal justice working group there used to be a communication stream but again these things need funding. But there is no point having a gold standard criminal justice system if nobody knows about it and people are not very clear about what they are entitled to and what sort of service they should expect.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Yes. So it would be good if there was something people could easily look up online.

The Minister for Home Affairs: Yes.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

So the next question I have has been submitted by a member of the public, something that the panel are interested in anyway as well. Research has found that juveniles with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder are 19 times more likely to be incarcerated than their neurotypical peers. To that end, what steps is the Minister taking to identify and support individuals with F.A.S.D. (foetal alcohol spectrum disorder) who have become involved with the criminal justice system?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

I think it is important to note that F.A.S.D. is just one in a variety of neurodiverse conditions and we are getting much better now at working with people who are neurodiverse. But when it comes to F.A.S.D. specifically in the criminal justice system, if I talk about the prison first, the prison has a substance misuse therapist and that person meets with every prisoner who comes into custody. They will carry out a brief assessment and that person is qualified to establish the symptoms, both physical and behavioural, of F.A.S.D. If F.A.S.D. is detected or suspected, they are referred to the healthcare department. So as far as supporting prisoners that have a diagnosis of F.A.S.D., healthcare can give medical support and then the substance misuse therapist can offer one to one support and link in with other prison departments if that is required. If the substance misuse therapist thinks that F.A.S.D. might be an issue, they can be assessed via G.P. (general practitioner) and referrals will be made accordingly. So once there is a diagnosis of F.A.S.D. both the healthcare department and the substance misuse worker work together to support that particular prisoner. That is for prisoners who have F.A.S.D. or may have F.A.S.D. Clearly, F.A.S.D. starts in pregnancy and although La Moye has not recently held any pregnant prisoners who are alcohol dependent, if that was detected there would be an immediate but slow detox and that would be done in partnership with specialists in that area. So currently prisoners requiring an alcohol detox are placed on a standard 9-day detox, but if a woman was pregnant that would be done immediately with obviously close care. So the pregnant woman and the unborn child would be fully supported by prison healthcare and, of course, there would be supervision and oversight from the maternity department at the hospital for antenatal support, advice and ongoing patient support and care.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Okay. So that is quite a lot in the prison. Is there any consideration through the criminal justice system before someone gets to prison? Because F.A.S.D. can mean somebody cannot control themselves.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Certainly, from a probation perspective there are alcohol awareness programmes, alcohol study groups, and most of the staff within the Probation Service would be aware of that and able to offer support. From a Public Health perspective - and I do not speak for Public Health; that is a different department - they are already involved in several areas to work with all agencies to understand the impact on F.A.S.D. A lot of that is in collaboration with colleagues with maternity, Health and Community Services. I think they have a campaign that is either under way or about to start, which is about the zero alcohol in pregnancy campaign. That specifically relates to preventing F.A.S.D. So it is no alcohol limit is safe during pregnancy. It began in December 2022 and it has 3 phases. So the first phase is raising awareness of people in the general public and those who are already pregnant. The second one is about upskilling key professionals because although people might end up in the criminal justice system, it is more likely to be health visitors, it is more likely to be G.P.s and other health professionals that are going to come in contact with people. The third strand again with all the public health messaging is to disseminate those messages in non-healthcare settings and to normalise zero alcohol consumption in pregnancy. So that would be through agencies like Brighter Futures, through the Baby Steps programme at N.S.P.C.C. (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children), just really getting that message out that let us prevent it, so do not drink in pregnancy, basically.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Yes, that is good. Just one more thing on that. When I was reading about it, I read about the trauma- informed justice systems. There are some new developments that are happening in Australia and Canada and so on. Are you considering anything like that in your new criminal justice policy?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Yes, as part of the training widely across the system, already all practitioners are trained in A.C.E.s, adverse childhood experiences, and most of the practitioners over here, if they have not already, will be trained in trauma-informed care.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

That is good. So that is already happening now?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

I think it is well known across the piece now, is it not, really, about the impact that trauma can have on behaviour and, of course, that bad behaviour then leads pathways into the criminal justice system. Again, it comes back to the other strand about early intervention, about having an appropriate philosophy for criminal justice that avoids criminalising people who do not need to be criminalised.

The Connétable of Grouville :

We thought that was particularly relevant considering the statistics that we have just been exposed to about alcoholism within the Island. We thought that was ...

The Minister for Home Affairs: Second only to Lithuania again.

Deputy C.D . Curtis : Yes, it is terrible.

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

Just to add to the Minister's comments around A.C.E.s, so adverse childhood experiences, all of my staff, apart from the newest, have all received A.C.E.s training from a training team from South Wales to better help us understand why some young people behave in the way they do, to provide them with more information rather than just seeing it as, frankly, when I started my service, naughty children, so we have a better understanding about why that has happened.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Thank you. So I think now we are going to move on to your questions.

The Connétable of Grouville :

Indeed. The 3 services I am focusing on today, Minister, I would like to start with the Jersey Ambulance Service. Recently released Demand and Capacity Review Summary Report for the Ambulance Service suggested that more emergency ambulance cover is required. Please could you advise us on how the recommendations in this report will be addressed?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Thank you. As we have mentioned, the Demand and Capacity Review has now been published. It is being shared with staff. It did not tell us anything that we were not expecting, really. The report highlights the needs for additional staff to provide capacity required in order to meet the service relief rates and the standards and also the key performance indicators. Underlying that is a particularly growing ageing population in Jersey and people who require the service of an ambulance perhaps more than previously. The report also recommends some internal changes to help facilitate the additional capacity by reutilising current resources in a different way and that has been very helpful. So, you will remember that we got some investment money through the Government Plan for 2023. Recruitment for those posts has already started, initially with the clinical positions to prioritise patient care. The response to the adverts so far have been positive and some of the other roles are nearing the end of the job evaluation process so that we will be able to advertise those.

[15:00]

Some of the statistics following the move to the Ambulance Response Programme are generally good, we are ongoing to make further improvements, but this somehow relies on the recruitment of the additional staff and support for the demand and capacity model in the Government Plan for 2024.

The Connétable of Grouville :

Our particular concern, I think, was that we are aware of the recruitment issues that this service has and we were just wondering what the timescale would be for making those changes and increasing emergency ambulance cover.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

It is as soon as possible; the adverts are out. I think we are benefiting from the revised system model that has been put in by the H.R. (human resources) services to get people recruited very quickly to do away with a lot of the bureaucracy that we have seen around the recruitment process, so as soon as possible. In the same way as teachers, nurses, doctors, there is a general shortage of these sorts of staff across the piece. Kate, I do not know if you want to say anything else about that.

Chief Officer, Justice and Home Affairs:

I think the key thing is, as the Minister said, it is as soon as possible. The resource in the Government Plan was phased in a realistic way to enable us to press the go button as soon as the Government Plan was approved and that is on the way, as the Minister said, starting with the clinical posts. So we have 2 paramedics and 2 emergency technicians out at the moment and then that will be built up incrementally through the year. We have a number of other posts where the job descriptions, which are new, are just being finalised and evaluated and then they will go out for recruitment as well. There was also a separate part in the Regulation of Care business case that impacted positively in perhaps ambulance in terms of preparing for that regulation of care. One of those posts is an analytical post which is being done in the current Health and Community Services analytics team. That is really helping ambulance follow on from the Demand and Capacity Review with a much more regular and high-quality analysis of what is happening so that we can make resourcing decisions with real-time information, which is great. Demand and Capacity Review gave us a great platform but then that can be used to so, it is as quickly as possible but still has to be in an appropriate place to be delivered. I think we will see the need to get that right and so far I am confident we are.

The Connétable of Grouville :

We were noting that the capacity review report was dated 26th January. Was there any particular reason why its release was delayed?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

I think it was very much because it had not been shared with staff groups.

Chief Officer, Justice and Home Affairs: Yes, exactly.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

We are waiting to have consultation with the staff groups and we did not want it launched in the media before they had an opportunity to reflect upon it.

The Connétable of Grouville :

We would also like to reflect on the funding to ensure that there is adequate funding coming forward. The Demand and Capacity Review recommended that more full-time equivalent staff were required in certain areas. Please could you clarify how far the additional funding approved by the last Government Plan will go to address that and can you clarify how much more funding is required? In other words, have you got enough money to do this?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

I think what we did in the Government Plan 2023 was we phased the money so it was not being spent all the way through. So I think, providing that we can get those positions filled where we are at the moment according to the Demand and Capacity Review, and providing we get the other parts of that, not necessarily the non-clinical parts, we will be all right but that certainly may change in the future. I do not know what is going forward bid wise.

Chief Officer, Justice and Home Affairs:

Yes, so there is one element of the lower acuity service in terms of getting the patient transport service right and the stretcher transfers right and then ensuring that we have enough at ambulance technician level. The Demand and Capacity Review did suggest that we needed a little bit more in that area than we had put in the business case for this year, and so we are looking at what that looks like for 2024 onwards. But of course we are at a very early stage of looking at what the 2024 Government Plan looks like and obviously Ministers have got to consider that position in the round.

The Connétable of Grouville :

Because we are constantly concerned about manpower, et cetera.

Chief Officer, Justice and Home Affairs: Yes.

The Connétable of Grouville :

We have suggested the next question might be something that might be worth a written reply but we were just going to ask a clear breakdown of the F.T.E. (full-time equivalent) and how they are affected by the service areas within the Ambulance Service. Obviously that might not be something you can detail here.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Yes, I think it will be better if we provided that in a written reply.

The Connétable of Grouville :

Thank you very much, Minister. We were told obviously that the reference to the 11 new front line staff roles for the Ambulance Service were approved as part of the last Government Plan. Could you please provide us with an update on that recruitment? I believe we have already gone down have you achieved that 11?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Which Government Plan, the 2022 plan?

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

The one we have just had, yes.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

The 2023 plan? The recruitment is ongoing for that.

The Connétable of Grouville :

Yes. How many of those 11 new roles have been filled so far?

Chief Officer, Justice and Home Affairs:

So they are the 6 clinical posts for which we are out for 2 paramedics and 2 ambulance technicians at the moment, so there will be 4 appointed imminently. There will be 2 more ambulance technicians to go and then the remaining 5 are the management and support posts and the specialist paramedics. The job descriptions for those are the ones I mentioned earlier that are just being finalised and then will be out for recruitment. So, of the 11 we have 4 recruitments live and 7 to come.

The Connétable of Grouville :

Just we noted the 3 job adverts recently and we just wanted

Chief Officer, Justice and Home Affairs:

Yes, and that is a mix of so for paramedics, for example, we are recruiting for 3: 2 of them are new from the plan and one of them is an existing vacancy.

The Connétable of Grouville :

Next, could you provide us with an update on overall staff turnover and any new recruitment strategies that are being considered?

Chief Officer, Justice and Home Affairs:

I have not got an actual turnover figure for ambulance in front of me but obviously we can add that to the written response to you. The general feel across J.H.A. (Justice and Home Affairs) services as a whole is that turnover is about where it normally is, it is no higher and no lower. What we have done, and all departments across government have done this, is just done a comprehensive exercise of strategic workforce planning, looking at what we need in our services, complemented for us by these sorts of Demand and Capacity Reviews, and then thinking about the skills mix and the appropriate approach for the future. That gives us some key areas of focus for this year. Recruitment and retention is one of them, succession planning is another, and well-being which is an important issue that is ancillary to the question you have asked but nevertheless very important and that is the beginning of a 13-point strategic workforce plan. That is for J.H.A. as a whole and then each bit will be applied on a service-specific level, so that provides the background context for this work we are doing in ambulance, it has a joined-up approach behind it.

The Connétable of Grouville :

The other issue we had, the use of agency staff, is that still a requirement?

Chief Officer, Justice and Home Affairs: Yes, it is.

The Connétable of Grouville : Yes, sadly.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Can I just ask an extra question to do with that?

The Connétable of Grouville :

Of course.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Do you get any feedback on why there might not be people applying for positions? Is it because of cost of living particularly? Do you get that feedback?

Chief Officer, Justice and Home Affairs: Yes.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

So you are still getting that?

Chief Officer, Justice and Home Affairs:

Yes, it varies because if we go out in a normal recruitment way, an advert, you do not get the feedback from the people that have not applied. If we go out through an agency then we do because you get good quality feedback from the agency you have engaged to do that. We have done that with ambulance posts in the past and it is fair to say the cost of living in Jersey is a factor. There has been a lot of analysis done by the central teams in government on various different types of posts. You will probably be aware from the other side of the panel's work in terms of teachers, for example, in terms of if you take the salary and then the totality of the cost of living, how does that benchmark against cities in the U.K., for example? We are in the queue for that to be done for ambulance, and also fire and rescue roles, which will really help because it helps to be able to frontload that for candidates and give them information to consider so they do not just look at a housing price and think they have the total picture. So we have done some broader awareness work for ambulance around that and we obviously continually want to get feedback on the reasons why people do and do not apply and change what we can.

Deputy C.D . Curtis : Okay, thanks.

The Connétable of Grouville :

The Demand and Capacity report did not mention staff overtime, and clearly with agency staff and shortages, can you confirm if this was an aspect that the review has considered?

Chief Officer, Justice and Home Affairs:

It certainly was, although I have not got the detail at the front of my mind.

The Connétable of Grouville :

Again, that can be part of your written reply.

Chief Officer, Justice and Home Affairs:

Yes. Our approach would always be to get a permanent sustainable staffing model that reduces the need for regular overtime. It was needed in extreme events but the idea is to have a sustainable model that works well for us and for our staff without a heavy reliance on overtime.

The Connétable of Grouville :

Do you require, for example, overtime to cover shifts?

Chief Officer, Justice and Home Affairs: At the moment we do, yes.

The Connétable of Grouville :

Just as a supplementary to this, I was at the briefing about the 4-site hospital plan on Friday, and the Minister had to leave at some stage, but I did ask the question if they had surveyed the ambulance staff with regards to the extra workload that could potentially result from that. I was told that they were planning to include that, so they perhaps were grateful for the nudge, shall I say? Are there any plans to launch a mobile ambulance service where people can be treated in their own homes through a physician response unit, which is currently available in the north-east of England, for example?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

I do not think we have any plans to do that. If you think about physician response units in the U.K. they are often quite a distance away from hospital facilities, so I think the model here is probably different, although we are recruiting for specialist paramedics who will be able to perform different procedures potentially in the home or on site to prevent people being brought to hospital. But, no, we have not got any plans about establishing a physician response unit in the same way that you would conceive of one of those in the north of England because they have helicopters and all sorts, have they not?

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Well, one we were looking at was in London, in a very busy area of London, and I think the main purpose was to stop people having to go into hospital and just treat them at home. So, that one was in a city, in a built-up area as well.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

You have got already things in the hospital like the rapid response unit, so people going to hospital, they are getting discharged early, and then in partnership with Family Nursing and Home Care they can be cannulated, for example, and then sent home without having to remain in hospital. So, I think part of that will be broader than the focus on the Justice and Home Affairs responsibilities around an emergency service.

The Connétable of Grouville :

I had the benefit of that service at Jersey Post when they thought I was having a heart attack, so I am very grateful for their attendance. I was not, incidentally. If I can move on now, Minister, to questions about the Jersey Fire Service. At our last hearing in February we heard about the various recruitments under way for the Fire and Rescue Service. Please can you provide us with an update on that?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Once again, as with ambulance, the business case was approved by the Council of Ministers and the Assembly, and that involves a phased approach to investment, again linked to recruitment, really. Initially, the Chief Fire Officer has appointed a new Deputy Chief Fire Officer on a fixed-term contract who will provide support for the course of the year and the next year, both to further the development activity but to also enable time to develop a full recruitment process. She is a former senior firefighter from London Fire Brigade, so she is certainly finding it an interesting place to work and certainly adding value, immediate value, to the team at Fire and Rescue Service. A further station commander position is currently being appointed and a key vacancy is being filled in the fire safety area, so we are getting on board with those. Outside of those, a big recruitment campaign is due to be run in the second half of this year with the aim of getting candidates who can be trained to be on-call firefighters, as well as providing a talent pool so we can draw for permanent firefighters from 2024 and beyond according to the phasing of the money. So, again, it is a work in progress trying to encourage people. One of things that I think the new Deputy Chief Fire Officer will bring is experience of recruiting diverse communities into the Fire Service, particularly women, and she has done that. We do have a rather traditional workforce within the Fire Service, so I think there are opportunities in the new recruitment focus to look more broadly to try and encourage people to join the Fire and Rescue Service.

The Connétable of Grouville :

Excellent. Maybe our new deputy chief would have some input into this next subject; it is about high-rise residential building fires. What risk mitigations are in place for the Fire and Rescue Service to deal appropriately with high-rise residential building fires?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

We have an interim policy and procedure in place and we draw as much as possible from national best practice but we obviously have to tailor that to the limited capacity of firefighters that we have available. So the focus then this year for the new deputy chief is the establishment of a replacement training and assessment programme for the instant command team with accreditations for that process with Skills for Justice.

[15:15]

The Connétable of Grouville :

Excellent. We were wondering what the height is in high rise in this context because we were not aware how many buildings might be impacted in Jersey.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

I think the fact that we always said that we have the highest proportion of high-rise buildings outside of London, of anywhere in the U.K.

The Connétable of Grouville : Oh, really?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Yes, we think we have spoken about that before.

Chief Officer, Justice and Home Affairs:

It is or was 26 but could be more depending on future developments.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Yes. So of course you have to take that into account with the Waterfront development and any of the other developments that we need to have the firefighting capacity to deal with those. Of course, that is balanced by having much better building safety standards for modern buildings. The other thing to mention is that we are due to take delivery of the new aerial platform at the end of this year, I think, the purpose-built one.

Deputy B. Porée :

May I just ask a supplementary?

The Minister for Home Affairs: Of course.

Deputy B. Porée :

Have these fire height regulations been taken into consideration with the new building plans?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Yes. The planning element of that is strictly controlled and again that will be following national best practice in order to be able to get the planning permission and the building control here.

The Connétable of Grouville :

Excellent. Okay, thank you. I am now going to move on to mental health incidents responded to by the police, which is a subject we mentioned very early on and we were very concerned about. At the panel's hearing in February, the Chief Officer, yourself, referenced separate meetings of both the Minister for Health and Social Services and Minister for Infrastructure to discuss mental health- related incidents and the progress with Clinique Pinel particularly. Please can you provide us with an update about the joint working between the police and those departments and ministries?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

I am happy to start if you want to finish it.

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

You start, Minister, because it is good news, and then I will finish off.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Yes, really, really good news. Excellent progress has been made, and thanks to the Minister for Infrastructure as well for really driving this forward. The Chief and I were grateful to be asked to visit in the middle of March to see the new place of safety suite up at Clinique Pinel; that is nearly completed. I think it is due to be operational by the end of June. It will be a significant improvement on how those experiencing mental health crises are treated and it will have a very beneficial impact for the police. I do not know if you want to pick up from there.

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

Thank you, Minister. The visit to Clinique Pinel really was very impressive. There is still some building work to be done but we will now have a purpose-built suite to take people in crisis to a far more suitable place rather than whether it is E.D. (Emergency Department) or indeed on occasions at the police station which, of course, is the worst place to take a patient.

The Connétable of Grouville : Absolutely.

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

As I mentioned before, mental health incidents were up 89 per cent from 2019.

The Connétable of Grouville : Yes, very alarming.

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

Six hundred and thirty-five in 2019; 2022: 1,197. So we have a challenge in the Island, and we are no different to any other jurisdiction, but the Police Service is having to respond. In fact, just while the Minister was providing her answer, I had a look at our command log over the last 24 hours and we have had 4 in the last 24 hours. That is about average; so it says mental health as a criteria. Now that can be one thing from a complete crisis to the other end of the scale. I am very grateful to Deputy Karen Wilson , Deputy Tom Binet , Rose Binet and particularly our Minister because we have made some really good progress, particularly over the last few months. I also have a callout as well to Andy Weir, the Director of Mental Health, who facilitated the visit for myself and the Minister. That being said, we still have a challenge. We have a challenge in the Island about how often the Police Service so we are looking at how we can better triage the response; it is better to triage with a mental health professional. But I am pleased to report that thus far this performance year, so 1st January to date, we have seen a reduction of 29 per cent. That is 309 so far this year; ordinarily last year we had 435 at this period last year, so a drop of 29 per cent, which is encouraging. The final point is the collaboration between the Police Service, Health, Andy, and indeed Ministers is very, very strong. There is a genuine determination to try and resolve this but, despite the reduction, the numbers are still very high.

The Connétable of Grouville :

I would just like to say this panel have been very concerned about those figures indeed and we are very grateful as well for a triage unit that is now up and going to be online soon and that is going to be wonderful. Thank you, Chief and Minister. We are going to move on now to the subject of financial crime. Minister, your delivery plan has referenced that the resourcing for the Financial Intelligence Unit in the States of Jersey Police would be at 95 per cent capacity by the end of March. Please could you confirm whether that target has been met?

The Minister for Home Affairs: Sorry, can you repeat the question?

The Connétable of Grouville :

Certainly. Your delivery plan references that the resourcing of the Financial Intelligence Unit in the States of Jersey Police would be at 95 per cent capacity by the end of March this year. Please could you confirm whether that target has been met?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

I think I will pass that over to the Chief.

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

As the panel will be aware, we have an inspection by MONEYVAL in September.

The Connétable of Grouville : That is our reference too.

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

As you may also be aware, that preparation for that inspection is years in the making, and indeed there was only a meeting yesterday with the Political Steering Group to talk about progress with the enormous amount of documentation that has now been uploaded and sent to the MONEYVAL inspectors. They are due in the Island around September. As part of that preparation for the MONEYVAL inspection, the Financial Intelligence Unit, which is partially under my command, so I am the accountable officer in terms of all things budget, but over the last year or so there has been a transition to make the Financial Intelligence Unit, that is the Jersey Financial Intelligence Unit, independent, as indeed it should be, independent of police, independent of anyone, as is the case in other jurisdictions. That has required some additional funding, including a director in charge of the Financial Intelligence Unit, and a significant uplift to now around about 30 financial investigators as well as other different similar grades but to look at essentially financial crime. This is not only important from an inspection point of view because they will be inspected and they will be under quite considerable scrutiny, quite right too, but it is not just about MONEYVAL, it is about properly protecting this Island from terrorist financing and money laundering, which is important not only to keep those criminals away but also for the future prosperity and the reputation of Jersey. So I am pleased to say that we are now just up to the recruiting levels that we said we were going to do. I forget the exact numbers, it is around 30 or so. The Financial Intelligence Unit is still contained within the police station. That is because it provides the appropriate security, not only the physical security but also from a software point of view, but there will be a time, probably not in the next year or so, where they will transition out of the police station into their own completely independent location.

The Connétable of Grouville :

My next question, Chief, was entirely about MONEYVAL and the preparation for it. One thing that we would like to ask as well as an aside, how much has been spent by the States of Jersey Police to prepare for MONEYVAL currently?

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

Connétable , we do not have an exact number to that; we have not calculated that. If I could hazard a guess, it would be many thousands of pounds because it is that important, and indeed the rigour and the process and the preparation and the completion of documentation in preparation to MONEYVAL, the majority of which was sent only yesterday, I am pleased to say, with enormous support from the economy team within government who have overseen this, they have navigated effectively the Island to this position. I have not got a direct number, Connétable , but I would suggest it is many thousands of pounds. It is an enormous effort.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Would you be able to give that to us in writing at some point?

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

Whether I can properly calculate the amount of time, I am not absolutely certain.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

I think what I can say is that the Financial Intelligence Unit saw over £700,000 uplift in staffing in 2022 to cater for the increased demand, so many hundreds of thousands in order to prepare for MONEYVAL.

The Connétable of Grouville :

I think a supplementary question would be: do you think we will be prepared?

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

One thing I can say, an enormous amount of effort, not just by government but by the Financial Services Commission, States of Jersey Police and a number of other partners, are preparing us for this. I am deeply impressed with the amount of work that has gone in. Of course, we are at the behest of inspectors that come from various corners of the world to come here but we have got still an enormous amount to do as we prepare ourselves for the inspection in September. There is quite a schedule now prepping as we move to September.

The Connétable of Grouville :

Excellent. Thank you very much. Our next line of questioning refers to police data. At the panel's last hearing we asked for some further details about the number of search warrants being granted in Jersey in the past 5 years and the damages paid following entry to a premise under a deficient search warrant. Can you give us more detail?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

I can do. I think we said last time we had been able to determine that in 2022, 63 per cent of the warrants that were executed by the Drug Squad were successful and that is defined by finding the drug commodity or cash relating to proceeds of crime that they were looking for. Thirty warrants were recorded as being executed and 19 of which were successful. I think as we said last time, the police do not currently hold reliable data in relation to the number of warrants executed, nor the success of the warrants across the whole force because it tends to rely on officers to individually record the information because it is not just drugs, it is firearms, sexual offences, indecent images of children and many more. But what the police have undertaken since the request from yourselves last quarter is, alongside the analytics team and the digital invasion team, they have initiated some I.T. (information technology) fixes to their systems to ensure that the data surrounding warrants across the force can be held, accurately read, and then analysed to provide that sort of information. Did you want to say any more about that?

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

Just to add to that, we have currently no complaints recorded with regards to compensation being paid for conducting an erroneous warrant. That sometimes can be if you go to the wrong address, et cetera, so there are currently no complaints and no compensation has been paid via legal action in the last year.

The Connétable of Grouville :

Thank you very much. It is just obviously about this data we were anxious that it would be recorded because of the obvious cases and very public.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

It is not not recorded. It is recorded but it is not just held in a place that is centrally easy to get the information out as a single statistic.

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

If I may say something, thanks to the Scrutiny's prompting, we are now looking with our data teams to look at how we can better collate that because I genuinely agree and believe that that sort of data is of interest to not only the panel but also to Islanders.

The Connétable of Grouville :

Yes, that is our belief as well. Do the police have an audit of data to assess the suitability, fitness for purpose of what is collected?

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

In what specifically are we talking about there?

The Connétable of Grouville :

I mean data in general. You have already intimated that the data collection is now a little bit more forward in the mind. Is there a process whereby there could be an audit of that?

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police: Just for warrants or ?

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Or to see what would be most useful for more data collection and might help guide how things are going and give more information generally as well.

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

So I can provide more information by a written response, if you like.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Yes, so like an audit of data collection and what has been collected.

[15:30]

The Minister for Home Affairs: Have a look at the Chief's dashboard.

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

This is something I have prepared earlier but I share this with you because I was looking at this when I was referring to the decreases in the number of mental health incidents. So this is, as the Minister has described, the Chief's dashboard, and this is a sea of greens and reds, and it is effectively all the dials that States of Jersey Police look at that refreshes every day. It is from crime detection, crime reduction, we look at our operational productivity, the numbers of incidents, welfare, anti-social behaviour. We also look at our own resources, the number of police officers that we have currently got set against our establishment, how many people we bail because that is where demand is, and also repeat offenders, young people who are committing crime. Then finally we also look at our average response rates, so how quickly are we responding to calls. You are very welcome to have a copy of this if you would like it in written form. That is just some of the data that is powered by something called Power BI and it is always working behind the scenes providing us with updated data.

Deputy C.D . Curtis : That would be great, yes.

The Connétable of Grouville : Are you happy with that?

Deputy C.D . Curtis : Yes.

The Connétable of Grouville :

Excellent. Thank you very much, Chief, and thank you, Minister.

Deputy B. Porée :

So it will be my turn now for a little while. So, the questions are around the area of criminal offences, confiscation funds. My first question is: at the last panel hearing we asked for some further details about the cash flow and funding from the Criminal Offences Confiscation Fund, but we have yet to be provided with any further details on such queries. Could you please advise why that information has not been provided to us at this point?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

I was under the impression there was a private briefing yesterday about finances.

Chief Officer, Justice and Home Affairs:

Yes, we did not have a chance to cover it. So, apologies for the delay in coming back to you on it. We do now have a document which we will share with you. It needs a narrative written just to explain the funding lines but I can show you the indicative position. So, it does not matter, you cannot see the figures, but just really quickly indicatively. This is the example from the firearms range and what you see here is the very stages of the allocation of the money through each Government Plan and then the point at which we draw it down from the fund when we need to spend it. So that is what we will write and explain but visually you can see it is not one line of expenditure, and that is why those figures you picked out for us did not match in the Government Plan, but we only properly pulled out these figures a few days ago, so apologies for the delay. We will write to you explaining this and then you will see the illustration that I have shown to you will come to life.

Deputy B. Porée :

Thank you. So for the purpose of the hearing we will receive that information in a much better detailed

Chief Officer, Justice and Home Affairs:

Yes, it will be this table but it will come with a narrative.

Deputy B. Porée :

Thank you. So, this question area are topics which were raised with the panel by members of the public. So to the Minister, are you aware of any challenges facing Islanders in obtaining visas for international or European travelling? For example, we have heard from Islanders who have had problems with booking appointments with an embassy in the U.K. and they need to get flights or get there at very short notice, say for countries like India, for instance, those without the British passport.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Yes. I can appreciate why this is a matter of concern for any Islander that is affected and it is incredibly inconvenient but it is not within my area of responsibility. Ultimately, it is for those jurisdictions to decide how they conduct their entry requirement process. We know that India has been a particular problem and the specific advice published on the gov.je site about India to assist with that is called Applying for an Indian Visa for Jersey Citizens. So, whereby we are always willing to help, there is nothing that we can do about another country's entry process.

Deputy B. Porée :

Thank you for your opinion on that even though it is not your remit. But, again, just so we can have a bit of how you feel about this, do you yourself think there are any other ways to make it easier for Jersey residents to obtain visas to travel to some countries, say for instance, France? Although it is not your area, would you have an opinion either way as to making the obtaining of these visas easier?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

I am not aware that there is an issue for any other jurisdictions other than India in particular. Jersey citizens would just obtain visas in the same way as any other citizen of Great Britain and the Islands.

Deputy B. Porée :

Thank you. Sorry to push you about that.

The Minister for Home Affairs: Sorry, I cannot be more helpful.

Deputy B. Porée :

No, that is fine, I was pushing you a little bit. Thank you. Again, Minister, could Jersey provide its skilled workers with a visa vignette for their passports or travel documents to replace the Jersey immigration stamp that is currently in place?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

I was talking about this issue with the immigration team yesterday to try and understand what the actual issue is. This issue only affects a quite small amount of people. It is my understanding that when you make an application through a visa application office and you get a visa, it is one of the sticky vignettes that sticks in. Now, that is then valid for the period of the visa. If you want to stay longer or you want to have your entry clearance changed to a different category, you are then required to visit the Immigration Department in Jersey. Jersey do not provide vignettes because apparently they are incredibly expensive because they have anti-forgery things in them and the likes. So what Jersey do is they put what we call a "wet stamp", so literally a stamp in an ink pad, and it goes into the passport to extend the length of stay that somebody could be in Jersey. It is my understanding that it is the non-recognition of that wet ink stamp that is causing problems to a very small number of people when they try to come back into Jersey. So, in order to try and rectify that situation and help people, our team have been liaising directly with airlines; sometimes they have been going through the Home Office. We have been using the common travel area policy team in the U.K. to reinforce the information in that country to say that you do have permission to come to Jersey. The caution is usually not taken by the border force staff, it is by the airlines, because the airlines, as a result of carriers liability legislation means that U.K. Border Force could charge them a fixed penalty of £2,000 if they carry a passenger without the proper documentation, so what is happening is the airlines in the countries are becoming reticent to allow people to come in on their wet stamp. So the short answer to the question is, it would be prohibitively expensive for Jersey to go down the line of producing their own vignettes because it is a very small amount of people, it is really not many at all, so the way that we have been doing it is trying to increase information. Bear in mind that Jersey Customs and Immigration do receive phone calls from airlines at any time to reassure them that that wet stamp in the passport is the correct one. The specimens of the Crown dependency wet ink stamps - because it is not just Jersey, it is Guernsey and the Isle of Man as well; it is a Crown dependency issue - are shared with the National Document Forgery Unit and they are distributed to the relevant border agencies so that when somebody does turn up with one of those stamps, they know what the Jersey stamp should look like and that is an attempt to limit the disruption to passengers travelling.

Deputy B. Porée :

That may be some of the problem because it is not always recognised by other airports and people often are left stranded trying to make their way into Jersey. I was going to ask about had there been any data collected in this issue but you did say the numbers are very low.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

The numbers are very, very small because it is only when Jersey Immigration extend a permission or change a permission, so you might be coming on a visa and they change that to "indefinitely to remain", for example.

Deputy B. Porée :

It would be interesting at some point to try and collect some data because this issue has come from different people in the community from also different angles. So although the numbers are small, it is enough to affect different people.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Yes, I can feed that back into the department and we will get them to collect some of that.

Deputy B. Porée :

Thank you for that. So with regards to that, the fact that people can get stranded in airports, is there a system where individuals who experience those issues can contact the Immigration in Jersey directly? Is there a system where they can get hold of

The Minister for Home Affairs:

They can pick up the phone, they can email, they can contact but it really is for the airline. I would think that the airline will be reluctant to take the word of the passenger travelling, so it is very much about working with the common travel area policy team within the Home Office to get that information out to different airports. Of course, now that we have a greater level of people coming over on permits that may be extended, it is probably going to be easier to target those particular airports as well.

Deputy B. Porée :

Thank you for that. Minister, please could you provide us with some more details on your ministerial delivery plans for the States of Jersey Prison Services?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Certainly. We have a few elements of delivery plan, so the first one is about reducing reoffending which was very much about embedding a new culture focused on a rehabilitative model to reduce offending and that is about providing prisoners with the right interventions and the right environment

while they are in prison. The whole kind of ethos of that is that when prisoners are released, we want to release better neighbours. People are going to reintegrate into the community upon release and it is incumbent on us to make that the best possible experience for the prisoner and for the community, so we have made significant progress in that area. We have had a needs analysis of the prison population that has been produced by the Forensic Psychologist and the Deputy Head of Probation, so every prisoner has an identification of their treatment needs while they are there, the intensity of that need and then the sequence of that. We have created 2 what we call intervention facilitator posts at the prison as part of the operating model and we have had 8 applications for that which are currently being sifted for interview and training places have been secured for those individuals, and there will be new group treatment programmes as well within this calendar year. So, we have widely adopted a "releasing better neighbours" focus, meaning that rather than eliminate all risk in custody, the environment is being normalised and to a certain extent desecuritised. I think when you came to listen to Dame Anne Owers we had a lot of conversation around the table about how that is happening. I think one of the most important things, and one of the things that I am really delighted about, is that we created some kind of realistic work environments and training which means that prisoners secure more aspirational employment upon their release. So we have training in place for accredited industrial cleaning, barbering, hairdressing, bicycle repair. We have also reinstated the carpentry, the bricklaying, and the decorating.

Deputy B. Porée :

We were very lucky to have been allowed a visit. It was very positive.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Yes. So, all the things that we kind of should be doing we are working forward. Again, those will provide realistic work opportunities for prisoners when they are released. So, we have been focusing on some coaching and really kind of a seamless transition upon release. I am pleased to say that I think prison and probation staff are probably working more closely together than they have in a very long time, continuing to work in a very aligned way to address what we call the 7 pathways which are those evidence-based things that we know reduce risk of reoffending and criminogenic needs: so accommodation, employment, education and training, children and families, financial benefit and debt, attitudes, thinking and behaviour, drugs and alcohol and mental and physical health. So all of those things, you cannot focus on one, you need to focus on all of them, and we have investment in all of those areas. The second element of the delivery plan was about embedding a new operating model. I think it is fair to say that when you change any operating model there can be challenges around that. What I would say is that the new model is providing better opportunities for staff training. We have an aspiration to professionalise the role of prison officer and offer qualifications up to and including degree level in leadership and rehabilitation, so it is very much more about social work with offenders and understanding what will change behaviour rather than the kind of securitisation element of it.

[15:45]

So, a new operating model has been embedded, working well with senior managers. We have a review of how middle managers are working and also some reviews about healthcare and the administrative model.

Deputy B. Porée :

That sounds very promising, does it not?

The Minister for Home Affairs: It does, yes.

Deputy B. Porée : A long time coming.

The Minister for Home Affairs: Yes.

Deputy B. Porée :

Thank you. So my next question, the Independent Prison Monitoring Board published its annual report for 2022 earlier this month. They noted that instances of mental health issues affecting prisoners at La Moye Prison is high. Can you advise what the prison is doing to address those challenges?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Yes. I think it is safe to say that the model for healthcare has moved on quite significantly from the 2022 period when the I.P.M.B. (Independent Prison Monitoring Board) report covers. We are working much more closely with Health and Community Services. Again, the Chief Officer mentioned Andy Weir, the new Director of Mental Health, working very closely with the prison and we are reviewing and transitioning to a new and much more informed model of health, specifically around mental health. The healthcare team is now led by an experienced mental health practitioner seconded from Health and Community Services who is leading on the review of healthcare provision in the prison jointly with the Prison Service Manager; that is very positive. Attrition of directly employed healthcare staff through this change has been really well managed to take on Health and Community Services staff on secondment for the duration of the review. The model previously was that we would recruit medical professionals and then train them as prison officers. That model is no longer; healthcare is being provided by healthcare professionals. So some of the improvements so far, we have a sleep clinic, a pain management clinic, and what that does is gives G.P.s alternatives to prescribing medication to suppress symptoms, which can be difficult in a closed institution. Again, I have mentioned the prison governor working closely with the new Head of Mental Health. I think what I would say is the prison feels well supported by Health and Community Services and around mental health and there is definitely a sense of partnership in moving forward to provide a better service. Also, we are getting a lot of support in terms of finding off-Island places for people that cannot be treated here due to the nature and severity of their mental illness because people who are mentally ill should not be in prison, they should be treated in appropriate facilities.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

I wonder if we could move on, because we are short of time, to this one and maybe go back or get some in writing later.

Deputy B. Porée :

So, moving swiftly, this set of questions is about Building a Safer Community Strategy, okay? Minister, what progress has been made with the action plan for year 1 of the Building a Safer Community Strategy?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

The draft Building a Safer Community framework is almost complete; it has been written. Dr. Ian Skinner has come and written that on my behalf after a lot of consultation. We held a workshop with key partners to discuss areas that the draft strategy should include and I think within the next few weeks we are holding a second workshop so that they have an opportunity to contribute to the draft strategy. I think as a matter of course we will be inviting Scrutiny members from your panel to come and attend that. I think, Catherine, you attended the first one, did you?

Deputy C.D . Curtis : I cannot remember.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

I think you may have done, yes. There will then be a short period for those partners to feed back on the strategy and for that feedback to be considered, and then we are in a position to go live with it. So, again, I am very happy to offer a separate briefing to the panel to outline the main aims. I have got it here in draft form but in short we look at the challenges and the opportunities presented by this framework, talk about the importance of community safety, why we need a strategic approach, because we have lots of policies and strategies going off in different directions and we need to pull

that together. We look at the risks and opportunities and then we look at the way forward, so what that community safety framework will look like, a quick guide, and what the critical success factors are and obviously how we are going to measure it, and how we are going to know that we are successful. So, as I say, it is here, and it is very close to completion.

Deputy B. Porée :

Thank you. At our last hearing, which was February, we heard that the Substance Misuse Strategy would be presented to the Council of Ministers on 14th March. Please could you confirm if that has happened; also what would be the next steps of the strategy?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Because of an overrun on 14th March when we were in the lovely parish of Grouville , it was bumped to the next meeting which took place Tuesday just gone, in the equally lovely parish of St. Lawrence , where we had a very comprehensive presentation from Professor Peter Bradley, who is the Head of Public Health Department, and Stephen Gay, who is the author of the report. It was very well received by the Council of Ministers and it is due to be lodged as a report before the States Assembly.

Deputy B. Porée : Thank you.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Sorry, will that be an in-committee debate?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Well, the actual strategy will be lodged as an "R" but we have talked about having in-committee debates about specific areas of that strategy.

Deputy B. Porée :

So could you give us a date when that will be presented?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

It should be lodged in the next couple of weeks, I would have thought, yes.

Deputy B. Porée :

So, please could you provide the panel with an update on the Emergency Planning and Civil Contingencies Law?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

We have had the preliminary work done by 2 experts who have come over to review the current legislation. Stage 1 was the evidence gathering and assembly of it and they have consulted very, very widely. We are expecting the third stage, which will conclude with the submission of the report, to happen on around 12th June and conclude by 30th June, the 2 deliverables really, the report and the recommendation of the aims and the objectives of a new Civil Contingencies Law and associated guidance. Then there will be a separate working department bringing together the evidence that has been gathered from interviews which is not immediately relevant to the new law but which could be considered downstream. So, it is a really important piece of work, it is something that has been in the planning. Certainly Kate, the Chief Officer, has had a significant role to play in this. She is really the expert in all things civil contingency, and I am very confident that the draft law that we are going to get is going to very carefully and considerately meet the needs of Jersey moving forward.

Deputy B. Porée :

Thank you so much for that. I have only got one last question, and it is still with the emergency planning. Last weekend the U.K. had its first phone-based emergency alert test. Please can you confirm what option the Government of Jersey has for public communications in an emergency situation, if anything at all?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

The only thing that I can think of off the top of my head is the texting service that we used for COVID, which reached everybody in Jersey who had access to a mobile phone. Again, that sort of reporting, emergency reporting, will come through the civil contingencies work and we will have recommendations around that.

Deputy B. Porée : Thank you.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

I would just like to ask a question to do with road safety.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

I am so pleased because we brought P.C. (Police Constable) Flats with us.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

I know, I really wanted to get to this question. Will the police be promoting any road safety campaigns this year such as the Let's Look out for Each Other campaign that was run in previous years?

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

The answer to that question is yes, there will be a number of campaigns, and not just those high- profile ones which we link to the national road safety calendar, for example, the Winter Check campaign last year during the colder months which we saw over 2,000 cars stopped, over 400 users issued with fix notices relating to lighting to vehicles, et cetera. That campaign is also delivered in collaboration, which all the best campaigns are of course, with our Honorary Police colleagues with which we could not do it without them and also D.V.S. (Driver and Vehicle Standards). We of course have other campaigns throughout the year - which it may be a bit grand to call them "campaigns", more like operations - which relate to anti-social driving and also periods in the run-up to the festive period, also around drink-drive campaigns and that sort of thing. As the Minister is aware, I would say that issues of speeding and road-related issues is without doubt probably in the top 3 of the emails that I receive. We know and recognise, and that is across the board, both States of Jersey Police, Honorary Police, Government, et cetera, that this is a hot topic, a continually hot topic for Islanders; road safety, that is.

The Connétable of Grouville :

I completely concur, Chief, absolutely.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

I think as a St. Helier Deputy I get told a lot about concerns to do with cyclists. Will there be any specific campaign to promote safety on shared-use spaces for pedestrians and cyclists?

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

The challenge around cycling and of course there is also not only anti-social driving but e-scooters has received quite a lot of publicity in recent days. Indeed, in the street only the day before yesterday I was with Deputy Renouf , who I just happened to bump into in the street, and we were discussing some of the challenges we have with e-scooters: the benefits of a green environment compared to no regulation, no insurance, pavements, and that sort of thing, and that is something that the Island will have to wrestle with. You may be aware that only very recently in Paris they had some form of referendum where they voted as a city to remove all e-scooters, which may have been a surprise to other people. So that is something that we need to carefully negotiate. In terms of cycling, just in the period I have been here I have seen, I do not know, a dozen cyclists go through. There is the enforcement side of things and indeed we have signage at each end of King Street, Queen Street, et cetera. I go back to explaining why people should not cycle in those areas. So we can use enforcement but I am also keen to use behavioural science side of things in which it becomes unacceptable. Why is it unacceptable? Because it is an issue of safety. Now we have a number of older people, we have young children, whatever, and we do not want people going through. Only the other day I stopped a youngish guy on his pushbike on his way back from having worked in one of the local restaurants, and he just simply did not know. He was incredibly pleasant and incredibly apologetic, so that may be an issue of signage and whatever. So it is a mixture of enforcement, it is also a mixture of explaining why we would not want that to happen.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

So do you have a plan on how you might be able to do that with the public information and

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

No formalised plan that I could share with you now but, suffice to say, in the same way that we are discussing e-scooters and anti-social driving, that is part of one of my inspectors, Inspector Callum O'Connor, who is responsible for P.C. Flats who has been surveilling you throughout the whole of this

Deputy B. Porée :

He did scare me before.

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

He is a very innovative officer supported by we have had some great support from Deputy Binet as well in terms of some resourcing, because we want to get better data. There is really good data which can direct us where we need to be; that is called Stats 19. Indeed, Deputy Binet has been very helpful in providing additional resource so that we can get our people to start looking and gathering that data which ultimately will keep Islanders safe.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

If I can, just a couple of questions more. It was drawn to our attention that some Islanders had noticed children not wearing cycle helmets, which is the law, is it not, for children aged 13 and under, so apparently there are quite a few children going around on their bikes with no helmets. Are there any plans to try and address this issue?

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

It is certainly not something that has come into my inbox but I think that is something that Government in particular and Government comms team could help with.

[16:00]

Again, that may be a mixture of enforcement, it may also be it is just a really sensible thing to keep your children safe, and I think that is a much better driver than it is the threat of a police officer stopping you without a hat on. But, again, I say that in the way that we would be collaborative, so whether that is a media campaign with Government or whatever but I, as you know, would happily participate in that.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Yes, and particularly the Headway charity. It was part of an initiative to get children to wear helmets came out of the Headway charity, so I think some kind of public information campaign, I agree with the Chief, just to remind parents that children should be wearing helmets on their bicycles.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Yes, maybe people do need a reminder now perhaps.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Yes, and also through the schools as well when children are cycling to school, they should be doing so wearing their helmets.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Yes. It was announced by Government some of the revenue gained from increased parking prices which took effect from the start of March this year would fund some road safety improvement measures. So, might that be used for the police to support road safety campaigns?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

I think they have obtained funding for 3 posts. So you have your road safety officer, your road safety co-ordinator and then you have your technical support. A road safety officer is going to be appointed in the summer and that is going to be the Government strategic lead in road safety, so we will be working very closely with Callum, being the Roads Traffic Inspector. Again, as the Chief already alluded to, it is going to allow much better data sharing, more collaborative. To have somebody focused on this area as their day job I think will make a difference.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

We did have a question about fireworks. Is it possible to carry on?

The Minister for Home Affairs: Yes.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Great, okay. Minister, in December last year you provided a response to a public petition and said that you would bring forward proposals to revise the regulations relating to the availability of fireworks. Please could you confirm when you plan to start that work?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

The work has already started and it is practically finished. I had a meeting earlier this week to make some decisions about what are going to go into the pyrotechnics regulations, and officers will be asking the law drafter now to make amendments to the existing draft to reflect that. I had a brief meeting with the Comité des Connétable s as well earlier this week. So once that is back from the drafter, key stakeholders will need to be consulted; again, the Comité des Connétable s will have a view and, of course, this panel will share those regulations with you. Unfortunately, just due to timetables, we are probably not going to be able to complete the work in time for bonfire night this year but they certainly should be well in time for the following Guy Fawkes Night. Again, with the regulations, what we have tried to do is balance that between providing protection to vulnerable people and animals, and I think it is clear that the current arrangements are insufficient. Any new regulations will have greater controls on the availability of the type of fireworks and especially the louder and the generally louder types. Of course, there is an extant petition as well. It has about 2,700 signatures I think now which might make fireworks with a bang illegal to prevent the stress of animals. So, we have said that some of the big fireworks, the ones that make the most noise, will not be allowed to be used outside of specified fireworks nights, for example. We have asked for different regulations around firework displays. We have looked at public use of fireworks and when they can be restricted, whether it has to be to firework nights or displays. We have also made sure that any displays that take place in parishes do so only with the consent of the Connétable , which is not currently in the regulations. So, that is just a very brief overview. Obviously, they are bit more complicated than that but as soon as they are back from the drafter, we will share them with you.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

So it will be some reassurance for pet owners.

The Minister for Home Affairs:

I really hope so. Again, not just pet owners, vulnerable people as well who can be terribly disturbed by loud unexpected bangs.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

Yes. I just wanted to ask an extra question. How is P.C. Flats doing? Has there been any response to ?

The Minister for Home Affairs:

Nobody has stolen him yet.

Chief Officer, States of Jersey Police:

He is a bit thin. He does not talk very much but he never needs a day off, he works 24 hours a day, and is incredibly smart. He is an image of one of our police officers. But all joking apart, it has generated, as the Minister is aware because it was her idea to bring him along and remove him from his place of duty, yes, as we said before, it is a bit of fun too, but I defy anyone not to put their foot close to their brake or check their speed when they see P.C. Flats. Now we have more than one P.C. Flats and what it has done, yes, there has been some social media activity which we anticipated, but also it has got people thinking about their speed. If it means that we deploy him - and we have stolen the idea from another place - if it deters people to just look and think about their speed, that is a good thing.

The Minister for Home Affairs: It has done its job.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

That is great. Well, thank you for that. If we could ask a few questions in writing?

The Minister for Home Affairs: Yes, of course.

Deputy C.D . Curtis :

I think we did mention some already, did we not? Okay, so I think we will finish there then. Thank you very much.

Deputy B. Porée : Thank you.

The Minister for Home Affairs: Lovely. Thank you, nice to see you.

Deputy C.D . Curtis : Thanks.

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