Overseas Aid - Mr D Wimberley, Christian Aid - Transcript - 6 February 2007

CORPORATE SERVICES SCRUTINY SUB-PANEL

Overseas Aid Review

TUESDAY, 6th FEBRUARY 2007

Panel:

Senator J.L. Perchard (Chairman) Connétable J.L.S. Gallichan of Trinity Connétable D.J. Murphy of Grouville Connétable S.A. Yates of St. Martin

Witnesses:

Mr. D. Wimberley (Christian Aid Jersey)

Also Present:

Mrs A. Thomson (Adviser - Oxford Policy Management) Miss S. Power (Scrutiny Officer)

Senator J.L. Perchard:

Welcome, Mr. Wimberley. Thank you for your submission and for coming to see us today. I understand you are familiar with the terms of reference and what the Corporate Services Panel are looking at achieving from our review. I will just draw your attention, Mr. Wimberley, to a little bit of paper on your left there; if you would like to have a quick scan over that. It is not going to do you any damage I do not think, but I would just like to draw your attention to that.

Mr. D. Wimberley (Christian Aid Jersey): No.  I will not abuse it.  That is all right.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

As I say we have received your submission and you are here in person. I wondered if I could advise you to make some opening remarks as to why you feel so passionately about this and perhaps we will start a dialogue as you go through.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

Well, thank you very much for, as I said in my submission, inviting the public to go through this exercise because I think it is time to look again. As I was thinking in preparation for this, I read one of the things on your website which was just the history, just the rundown of what happened in that year of 2005, and it really did change the ball game so you have a right to, you know, look again at this whole question. I must start with a caveat which is that what I say about (a) and (d) which is the comparability of our aid program and the extent and scale of it, is not the view of Christian Aid nationally. Christian Aid nationally has no view on Jersey's internal affairs. I had to make that absolutely clear for you and for the media. On the other hand what I say about (a) and (d) is the view or is -- the outline went to the committee of Christian Aid in Jersey. Christian Aid is a very large organisation in Jersey and I would say that what I say now is in line with the way those people would think if you quizzed them. I will not go into that. I did write about it quite extensively in there, but I just wanted to make that really, really clear so that I do not cross any wires. In fact, what Christian Aid said about (b) and (c) is in the document, they were basically happy with it. I wanted to really put what we discussed later in the frame of real people, because I read something recently on the internet about courtrooms and the way that it is

easy for it all to become very abstract and objective. I suppose this is an exercise in rationality what I have written, but really I brought her along[1]- she is my granddaughter - and I will come to her in a

minute. I just want to describe a project that I heard about at a Christian Aid conference because it is a

real person saying: "This is what we did in Peru." She was an Indian lady and she introduced this project with slides about water, just taking water. She is a Christian Aid partner and the project of her group was to take water into the different villages and, no doubt, Christian Aid had some sort of role in developing that as a project. Then she showed us pictures of the villagers with their donkeys carrying these great big pipes up this little track and presumably dropping them off at intervals. So, you know, it is the work and the donkey and the -- all Christian Aid provided was a little bit of possibly government support in terms of developing the project and the tiny little bit of capital. That is what we are talking about. We are talking this tiny little bit of capital; the pipes, the standpipe at the end, and the effect of it was green vegetables just bursting out of this garden. You can just imagine the effect of water in an area to a climate like that. The kids can be clean, everybody can wash, and finally the fun. She had a wonderful slide of this kid playing in the water. I mean, you know, water! We take it for granted; we take the beach for granted; we take the tap for granted. For them this was like a new life. So, all that because of a little bit of capital. If we compare our situation here, we started with, I do not quite know what in Neolithic times, then we went on to the parish pumps, and then we went on to our present water supply provided collectively reaching nearly everybody. So I think there is something in there. The other project that I was privileged to hear about and -- I sat opposite the guy at dinner afterwards who had presented this and he was such a mild, humble person, yet what he had just described and the pace of which they were running this thing, you know, you have to be humble in the face of that. It was in Sierra Leone and the organisation that he was part of was into community development in the villages. The villages have been ravaged; this is post-war. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, and most people left to go into the cities because it is marginally safer. Their job is to recreate the village life and make it economically viable and village-by-village; discussions on how do we go forward, income generation, a few hoes, seeds, the wherewithal to build a village centre, water; whatever it takes, micro-credit, training the women to just keep tally of how much they were selling and how much it was costing and the thing rolled. It was just one village after the other. It was like a, sort of, wave of greenness and life going right the way across and I thought: "Cripes, and here is this guy just sitting there " Again, the

amounts of capital they were talking about are tiny, tiny slivers of capital which is what we are talking about, overseas aid. We are talking about financial assistance[2]. So, the moral arguments I have

gone into quite a lot in that paper, but I could not show you Joe. That is Joe and he lives on one of my kitchen doors. I call him Joe and I think he is lovely. This is my granddaughter Emily[3] , who was

born 6 months ago, and I just want to bring to you those 2 people because, in fact, she is closer to me. I

have talked to her; we have had a good chat together. I never talk to Joe, but the fundamental basis of this whole debate is that they are equal. They are the same. The abolition of slavery; we are going to commemorate this year the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in 1807. That whole campaign, the whole moral force of that campaign - and it is completely relevant to what we are talking about with overseas aid - was the fact that these 2 people are equivalent. They are the same. That is where Wilberforce could appeal to hundreds of thousands of people across the country. It was petition, after petition, after petition, after petition, after petition. It was not a band of heroes. Without the tens and hundreds of thousands of people supporting them they would have got nowhere and it was based on that equivalence. So is the United States constitution; it is there in the UN charter. If we had a written constitution in the United Kingdom it would say the same thing. I also think the response to the tsunami in Jersey proves that people here think the same; they have accepted that. I did not do an executive summary, did I? I forced you to read it all. As an executive summary, I would hope that you recommend that Jersey accepts the target of 0.7 per cent of GNI for overseas aid. I do not presume to say what date we should set for this but it certainly should be comparable to jurisdictions that we negotiate with all the time and I mention in there the various target dates that other countries have adopted. I think we should agree to frame the discussion about our overseas aid budget and the scale of it in terms of GNI and get away from various other odd calculations like proportion of tax which nobody else uses.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

Can I just stop you there for a moment? While your introduction was very nice and very interesting, it was very flowery. We need to talk turkey now. We are talking 0.7 per cent is your recommendation. You do not want to use any other mechanism to measure Jersey's contribution; can you tell me why not?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

Because other countries all compare on that basis, so if you are part of the world community, which I think Jersey is, in all other respects comparability is the name of the game. For instance, if we look at our police authority, Graham Power writes a report in which he uses commonly accepted definitions of crime figures, detection rates and all the rest of it, so that you can compare the performance of our police with the performance of the X county council or whatever. We do exactly the same --

Senator J.L. Perchard:

Can I ask you, Mr. Wimberley, if we had a policy of relating our aid to tax revenues as we currently have, for example 2.4 per cent of our tax income, it will be then converted into GNI.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

It will be by others, yes.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

But by people like yourself and anybody --

Mr. D. Wimberley:

By the bank(?) and so on.  They will simply convert it, yes.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

But you do feel that Jersey needs to be specific GNI rather than part of our tax bracket?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

I think it just makes it so much easier for us to feel part of -- I mentioned the MDGs and why the Millennium Development Goals have been adopted and how important they are, and if we see ourselves as part of that movement in the same way that when we eventually address climate change in a holistic Island-wide way, we will look at working with other countries. That is the name of the game.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

GNI is the measurement just so that we can apply it to the international standard.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

Yes, and so that we can look at ourselves and say: "We are doing this", otherwise it muddies the waters. I really do think it is a strange way to go about things. I did notice also that I think it was the Treasury Minister saying that the problem with the percentage of GNI is that if there is a downturn then it becomes less. Well, that is fine, that is the whole point, that percentages are percentages. We are wealthy. We can afford 0.7 per cent because certainly other people have done it, but if we go down then the percentage goes down. That is par for the course.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

What about a date?  Not ideally, but realistically.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

What I would like to see - which was I suppose is point 3 of the summary - is a group set up to -- I think

we should formally adopt the 0.7 per cent and possibly with a target date. Then we should set up a group to see how we are going to do it and take up the point that one of your people, I forget who, mentioned of absorbability and how can we scale up the aid program by a factor of 4 and still maintain the quality, and that is important. I think there should be a group looking at both those questions and I have ideas on how one could get the value without necessarily apparently spending the money. I think there are ways of being clever with this 0.7 per cent. As far as a date goes, take the median, take the average of the dates that other countries have done. I would really say we can afford it. You know, I think that one or 2 of your contributors have been very eloquent in saying: "Look, we can afford it. We are one of the richest jurisdictions in the world and, goodness me, if we cannot afford it then, you know, nobody can." You only have to go to St. Ouen's Beach on a summer afternoon and look at the gismos that people are playing with to see that there is plenty of that.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

Okay. Well, that is fine. I am happy. Unless anybody wants to discuss the detail of Jersey's policy of upgrading its overseas aid budget and how we do it, then he has made his position. It is absolutely clear, is it not?

The Connétable of St. Martin :

I have listened to Mr. Wimberley and I admire his enthusiasm. Perhaps I should ask would he be disappointed if we could not achieve that target by 2020 or 2025?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

Oh, yes, that would be a dereliction.

The Connétable of St. Martin :

We had discussed this previously today and one of the facts that has come out of this is if we got -- what was the target for 2010?

Senator J.L. Perchard:

On 2.4 per cent of our tax take the target for 2010 would be ...?

The Connétable of Trinity : £10 million.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

No, the awards for 2007 would be £10 million.

The Connétable of St. Martin :

In order to get to £10 million you would have to put another 1.5 per cent on GST and that will go down like a lead balloon.

The Connétable of Trinity :

It has to get towards 0.7 per cent. If you want to get £22 million, you should be.

The Connétable of St. Martin : At this moment?

The Connétable of Trinity :

Yes, more than 1.5 per cent on GST.

The Connétable of Grouville :

Which I would say to you is politically unacceptable from the Council of Ministers point of view, I would think.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

Yes, I would like to take that point up. It is obviously interesting to you as politicians. What do they, "they" the public, think? When you say 1.5 per cent on GST it sounds awful. It sounds, as you say, politically difficult. But look at the way that public sentiment is moving on this whole issue and as I have said we are 2 sides of the same coin. Us, the people and you, the States, are the same, only we have elected you to do certain things. I think that the way the public are moving you could say "we are determined to do this because it is right and we will find ways of doing it without saying 1.5 per cent on GST." I noticed that Maurice Dubras had an interesting idea about relating carbon foot print and some kind of scheme for levelling that down so that we use less and taking out the cash gain from that and, quite rightly, sending it to places where they do not use any carbon. So I think there are clever ways which is why 2010 is probably too soon for the 0.7 per cent. I think to work out clever ways will probably take until 2012. Go for that and set up a group that is really going to do the work on this. I do think the response to the tsunami was just amazing and that built on the fact, as I mentioned, of Jersey's past but also built on the history of the Occupation. If you look at those pictures, if you look at those crowds, you think: "Crumbs, it has changed the ball game." I have a quotation here. See if you know who it is. Can I just read it because it is really interesting because this is a major political figure in the UK: "Making poverty history is a task for which we all must share responsibility. Britain is doing a lot, now other governments must meet the challenge. By going further and faster and by resolving that whatever the ups and downs of our domestic politics, Britain will always seek to be in the lead in the great struggle to rid the world of poverty." Who said that?

Senator J.L. Perchard:

Blair?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

Cameron. He comments that the game now is that you cannot be behind because you lose conviction points, you lose morality points and although it sounds as if it might be difficult: "1.5 per cent on GST, we might lose political credibility", in fact it is the other way around. I think you do not lose political credibility and it is a "believe me" thing. If you want to test it, let us set up a citizen jury and play that game.

The Connétable of St. Martin :

I made that comment because I think we are all supportive of point 7 but we do not agree about is the timescale. I do not think it is the remit of this sub-panel to discuss the rights and wrongs of point 7. It is not, Chairman, I believe.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

Well, to review the States' policy for upgrading the Island's overseas aid budget is the first point of our terms of reference. So we can bounce around within those parameters.

The Connétable of St. Martin :

My particular interest, Mr. Wimberley, is the Overseas Aid Commission. I would like you to talk about your interaction with the Overseas Aid Commission.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

It is time to move on to this section, yes.

The Connétable of St. Martin :

I would like to get your opinions and your comments on your experience with the commission, your dealings with the commission and do you think that they have a good policy, an average policy or no policy at all?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

In respect of exactly which area?

The Connétable of St. Martin :

Distribution of money. I gather from your comments about your work in Peru, this must be classified as development aid. I am totally naive. I find this very interesting because at the end of this session I am going to have to comment on what I have learnt and I have learnt quite a bit in this last day and a half. The Overseas Aid Commission selects grants for aid. What is your opinion about the way they do that?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

Anything I say would just be personal opinion now because Christian Aid in Jersey has no dealings with the Jersey Overseas Aid Commission at all. You could say that itself is a problem and it would be much more exciting if the 600 volunteers - and they are not one-off volunteers - were given a chance to have an influence on the way the money was spent. I think that would be a fantastic process of raising people's awareness of what development aid is about because there are serious misconceptions about it. If you involved people with a process of somehow being involved I think that might be quite exciting. It would also build the constituency.

The Connétable of St. Martin :

I have got a couple of questions that might follow on quite rapidly. You have no involvement with the local commission therefore the Overseas Aid Commission deal with Christian Aid UK. Christian Aid UK state they have a project in Peru or Venezuela or where ever.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

Those 2 projects were not Jersey-funded.  I just met those people at conference.

The Connétable of St. Martin :

I just wonder where the Jersey money goes?  Do you know where that goes or not?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

No, I have not followed which money goes where.

The Connétable of Trinity :

Does all your money go to the UK, Christian Aid?

Mr. D. Wimberley: Yes.

The Connétable of St. Martin : Yes or no?

Mr. D. Wimberley: All of it, yes.

The Connétable of St. Martin :

There is a yawning gap appearing, I see. You do not know what happens to your money but it would be

rather nice if you did know.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

It is just because I have not researched it. If I had taken the trouble to research that and read stuff about grants then I would know which particular projects have been funded. I could click and find out.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

You do not think it is important to know, that you have not found out?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

No, at the level that I was writing this, no, because that is not the way my mind works, whether it is Venezuela or Sierra Leone, in terms of what I am saying to you about the things that I think are relevant at this stage in Jersey.

The Connétable of St. Martin :

We are interested in the performance of the Overseas Aid Commission.  I think we are interested.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

Yes, I can understand that.

The Connétable of St. Martin :

So I suppose the first question is we would like to know that the money that you raise --

Mr. D. Wimberley: We raised £65,000, yes.

The Connétable of St. Martin :

That went to Christian Aid UK and how much did the Overseas Aid Commission grant?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

It was about £100,000. It wobbles a lot. It wobbles about a lot which they could have beefed about but they did not. What they wrote was very complimentary.

The Connétable of St. Martin :

We are going to be interviewing the Overseas Aid Commission tomorrow. We would like to know these things because I think of particular interest is what is the efficiency of that selection process and are the people of Jersey, Christian Aid and the States getting value for money on the way the money is used.

Mr. D. Wimberley: I do not have any --

The Connétable of Trinity :

Oxfam is similar to Christian Aid. They send all their money to the UK and then it gets allocated by the Overseas Commission to the UK Oxfam and UK Christian Aid. Do you not think there would be far more benefit if you were collecting money if you say Jersey had some input into where the money was going?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

That it was doubled or some way that it was --

The Connétable of Trinity :

Even just saying that you had projects yourself for raising the money.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

Yes. When I talk to Christian Aid about this they say that: "If we raise money and it is for such-and- such" then they do do it. If you push hard enough you get various organisations in various towns where the money is going for one particular pot but they are very wary of pre-allocating because it suggests that we somehow own that project and it is not, it is owned by the partner. Christian Aid has no projects. Partners do projects. Christian Aid provides a bit of money and logistic support and thinking support because obviously they have seen other projects; the field staff have seen other projects. There are no projects and when I read in some of the submissions you have had about people going out and building schools that do not work because they are in the wrong place, it is just nonsense because partners do not ask for things that they do not need. Also, they are vetted anyway so the whole process is pretty robust and it is driven by the people themselves.

The Connétable of St. Martin :

Can I ask you to define this partner?  Who are these partners?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

There are approximately 500 partners throughout the world in 50 countries which, again, is interesting for the JOAC (Jersey Overseas Aid Commission). It is a limited number of countries; 50 countries for an organisation the size of Christian Aid is quite limited and that is deliberate.

The Connétable of St. Martin :

So the partner is the NGO in the country?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

The partner is the NGO in the country. The document I have here about Sierra Leone, that is APEM (which is a French acronym) and they run the project and Christian Aid will support that.

The Connétable of St. Martin :

As a leading light of the Jersey Christian Aid I could comment that we had a representative of Oxfam this morning who said they would like to have a cause for celebration sometimes; they would like to get feedback. For their group, who raise a lot of money in Jersey, they would like something to show that: "We have achieved something this year."

Mr. D. Wimberley:

Yes, I think there must mileage in looking at ways of getting more bangs for the buck in terms of people's awareness of what is going on, why there is a need for an aid budget and how people can mesh into that.  There must be ways of getting more involved.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

Whose responsibility is that do you think?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

I would suggest there has to be an intermediate state. I do not think you, with respect, are going to find the way. I think that you probably need a group to be set up.

Senator J.L. Perchard: Not the commission?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

No, I do not think so because I do not think the development skills are in there and Jean[4], I think, will have mentioned that to you, that they have not chosen to have development skills on that Commission.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

I will stop you there. The Commission is not the body, even if it was restructured, to have the necessary skills, is that what you are saying, or the commission is the body if it was restructured?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

If it was restructured to have the necessary skills or it could co-opt for that particular task of looking at how to reach the target and how to spend the increased money and how to involve the citizens better. Durrell is a case in point. Durrell is a worldwide institution. It is based here. My wife works there so I know the ins and outs of Durrell. They do fantastic work. Overseas Aid have supported them this last year or possibly 2, I am not sure, for the first time. I think it is the first time. That is a wonderful synergy and if you could build on that because I know the quality of what they do in Madagascar and you could extend that maybe to other areas, a deeper relationship. I know Ed may have talked to you about this, having a relationship with a limited number of countries where we can really get to know what is happening. We can feed them expertise, they can come to us and there can be a give and take, an exchange, whereas the present approach is very much --

Senator J.L. Perchard:

So do you try and stamp the Jersey brand out there?  Would you take the Jersey brand?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

Well, that is the danger. "Jersey built this" whereas, in fact, the local people should have built it and you really have to be careful with how you do aid. Aid is the people's; they are doing it. They are providing the energy, the water and effort; we are providing the top slice, the extra capital they just do not have.

The Connétable of Grouville :

I did ask that question this morning, and I know it is only 3 per cent of the overseas aid budget, about the fact that they are sending teams out rather than sending expertise out where, let us say, a school has to be built and we could send out a surveyor and a master carpenter or something to instruct the local people on how to build it. Are we getting value for money by sending 20 people out who could do the labouring as well? I do not understand that.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

The main value of that is the effect on people's lives when they come back but you are right, the business of sending people out to do those jobs puzzles me, it really does. If you think of the Mourant Group. You are sending out people with IT skills, legal skills and tax skills to Swaziland to do building work. It is very good for them; it is a team-building exercise and, of course, they meet Swazis which is fantastic, but I just wonder if those skills went out as the skills that they had, what might come out of that.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

I am aware of the time. Can I bring you back to the second part of our terms of reference? We are trying to clarify, albeit that we have spoken around it, and review the commission's policies and procedures for the distribution of its grant aid budget. You have said that you are not sure if the commission is currently properly constituted to do it.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

When I have been thinking about this it has always been in terms of, I suppose, the Isle of Man model, you see. Tynwald decided to set the target by 2013 and to set up a group that would look at how to get there and how to use the money. So I thought that was a good model and they have not suggested that their overseas aid organisation does that. I think it is a special group set up to do that but whether in Jersey the JOAC could do it, they would have to have additional skills somehow.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

Tynwald set up a group to look at how they could get to 0.7 per cent, not how they would distribute.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

I do not know the details.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

We are looking at the commission's policies and mechanisms that they have in place, the transparency, the opportunities that their policies provide across the board to big agencies like yourselves and smaller ones who have been quite critical of the commission. Are the JOAC policies clear to you? Do you understand the criteria or boxes you need to tick?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

I have not looked at them in detail personally because I sent it off to headquarters because they are the people who meet them in London and they sent back the reply which you have.

Senator J.L. Perchard: No real comment.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

My personal comments are limited on this, yes.  I have ideas.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

What about the methods of the JOAC involved for checking the effectiveness of the grant aid and emergency aid that they have given? Are you aware of what mechanisms they have in place and are you satisfied that they are robust?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

Reporting at the end of the financial year. I would just say that I think there are certain limitations on project length and I think that is shooting yourself in the foot really. I do not say no Christian Aid projects, but I am sure Christian Aid projects have a longer time in general. The Sierra Leone project is year-on-year as it rolls. Obviously you seek self-sufficiency. That is built into some projects. One of the people who have written to you has mentioned you should measure in terms of outputs and not in terms of activities. I think that is the Durrell one again. Not busyness but what happens or what the outputs are. Yes, I think these are fairly obvious points but certainly Christian Aid nationally did not find any fault with the reporting requirements. Whether they could be improved, I think you would get that if you had a more focused, narrower band of countries and built relationships with countries that have natural relationships with Jersey anyway. Rwanda has a relationship; Kenya, because the people are here; Madagascar because of Durrell; Zambia because lots of people have been to Zambia and so on. There are countries where we are specialised already and I think one could build on that in terms of relationships, in terms of help in kind, as opposed to capital.

Senator J.L. Perchard: Should or could?

Mr. D. Wimberley: Should.

The Connétable of St. Martin :

Staying on that subject, the methods for measuring the utilisation of the JOAC aid budget. The word that jumps out at me is measurement. It is a bit difficult to measure results. But you did paint a graphic picture of pipes coming down bringing green and joy and happiness.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

Yes, and not only that but better food means better health which means more energy which means more gets done tomorrow.

The Connétable of St. Martin : That is what I am going to come to.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

It is explosive.  The rate of change is explosive whenever you put in capital.

The Connétable of St. Martin : Measurement might be by accurate statistics.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

Health status, IMR (infant mortality rates), yes, you could do.

The Connétable of St. Martin :

If you have mortality rates and health and that could be fed back to your UK Christian Aid and so on. I would think that sort of measurement could be fairly easily achieved and fairly accurate, viable and trustworthy.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

You have to be clever with measuring. You have to measure things that are cheap to measure and that are robust. If you measured the wrong thing or something that is easy to get wrong then your measurements are not valid. You just have to be a bit clever because you can soak up resources in measuring things. I am a classic case of measuring; I love measuring things. In my business I am always measuring things and then you think at the end of the year: "Have I used this information?" I accept the point and I am sure the agencies do send in reports and if you said: "Has the IMR gone down in these villagers?" they could say: "Give us £1,000 and we will go and find out."

The Connétable of St. Martin :

I would have thought that whoever is on the ground in your particular areas could. This is what it says: "To review the methods for measuring the effectiveness of the organisation."

Mr. D. Wimberley:

I think it is important to do that. I think it is easier in a developed country like Jersey to get out the measuring stick and measure police detection rates than it is in Sierra Leone and that brings me back to the depth rather than the scatter gun. If we were dealing with 6 to 7 countries in depth then it would be far easier to measure the results. It would be far easier because you would know the people who are doing the measuring. You would know and trust them.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

Would you say currently the success or otherwise of any contribution made from the Jersey Overseas Aid Commission to Christian Aid is measured by Christian Aid and reported back to the commission and the commission will then regurgitate that information?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

Sorry, what was the very first bit of the question?

Senator J.L. Perchard:

That any success or otherwise of the grants made to Christian Aid UK would be reported back to the commission who would then simply regurgitate that. I am asking you, do the commission have any mechanisms that you are aware of, of checking that the information back from Christian Aid is indeed accurate?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

I would doubt so. With their much vaunted, less than one per cent administration costs there is no way they can check anything. I used to know Anne Bailhache a little bit and she used to do administration on her kitchen table at 6.00 a.m. That is one way of running an overseas aid programme but we have moved on. I think it is more businesslike than that. No, you cannot check in the present set-up and so you are relying on the validity of the NGOs you deal with. I know Christian Aid is pukka; but it is not 100 per cent. You will always waste some money and the area representative said to me, very potently: "There is no such thing as a mistake free organisation and if anybody tells you there is ..."

Senator J.L. Perchard:

You have opened up a line here that I was hoping to get to. You are relying on the credibility of the organisations, the recipients.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

Credibility sounds a little bit like spin but the validity.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

Does that then restrict the Overseas Aid Commission in who it gives money to, given those parameters?

Mr. D. Wimberley: Yes, I think it does.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

Is that a bad thing or is it okay?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

If we come back to involving Jersey citizens more in this whole area - and you are looking at 30 or 40 because our list is more extensive than the list you sent out - there are about 40 organisations in Jersey that are tiny, one or 2-man bands. Is there not a way of increasing the way that they work with JOAC? If there was there would have to be more in the way of training and guidance of NGOs who have very little experience so you would need to run workshops where they share best practice and experience. It would not cost a lot but what you would get in return is the feeling that Jersey was backing its own and I think that is a good thing to do with some of the extra money.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

Some of the extra money. What percentage of the total votes would you say that Jersey could go down this area of backing its own initiatives, our Save an African Schoolchild and so on?

Mr. D. Wimberley: There are so many things.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

Could you put a percentage on that?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

If you move to 0.7 per cent then you could go for 10 or 15 per cent of the budget, backing Jersey people to do most things.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

10 or 15 per cent of any number?

Mr. D. Wimberley: Of any number.

Senator J.L. Perchard: Yes, okay.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

I think you are going to get buy-in then. I think you are going to get more involvement, more media, more understanding and the quid pro quo as with education is if you put money into private schools you inspect them. The same is with NGOs. If they want more money and more co-operation with JOAC then the quid pro quo is a certain amount of supervision and auditing and above all a deeper awareness of what aid is about.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

Are the commission, as they are constituted, able to deal with this type of scenario?

Mr. D. Wimberley: No.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

So they need a restructure, revamp?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

There needs to be a rethinking which is probably why I am suggesting that there be a separate group and

then it is kind of revamped. I think to revamp yourself might be possible but there are obviously issues about how you go about revamping yourself. No doubt you will know of examples between you of organisations that needed change and how that was best effected. I think the airport had a change manager put in. I do not know how that change management works, whether you change things from the inside or whether you change things by having a review process.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

Nothing that is successful stays still. I found that out in life. If you are going to anything you cannot stay still. You have to move.

Mr. D. Wimberley: You cannot, no.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

That is very interesting. We have heard quite well. I do not know if there are there any other issues, Daniel, that you think are relevant that we have not touched on. I have enjoyed this and I think it has been quite useful.

The Connétable of Trinity :

Over the years Christian Aid always put envelopes through people's doors. How much has the level of giving been? Has it increased or decreased every year?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

It is steady, really. Because we put more envelopes out we get more money and gradually the coverage is increasing. I think it is hard to say there is more money there. Is that more per envelope? We do not measure to find out how much there is per envelope. We probably could if we put a few man hours in.

The Connétable of Trinity :

In the old days you used to put an envelope through the door and you went back the following week, knocked on the door and asked for the envelope back whereas now it comes back voluntarily.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

Only in St. Helier and Trinity because Trinity has not got an organiser. It does depend on different parishes. Most parishes are still hit and return or stand and knock which are the 2 ways of doing it. So I think the giving is pretty steady.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

I just wanted to ask you, given the possible option that the commission may consider in time, allocating

a percentage of its budget - and you said perhaps 10 or 15 per cent of its budget - to ongoing Jersey projects which we have just discussed a moment ago, what percentage of any allocation do you think it would be acceptable to use in order to ensure compliance, effectiveness and administration costs? What is an acceptable level?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

It would not be a percentage because if you were to double the contributions to WASOT and Bukit Lawang and so on you would require a certain amount of workshop training for the organisations involved so that they were following best practice. If you were to triple the amount that went to Bukit Lawang it would still be the same workshop so the percentage would not be as great; it is not a percentage, it is a fixed amount. There is a book by the director of World Vision on aid and the thinking behind aid and how you avoid various syndromes and building things that are not needed and the fact that the recipients have to control the process and how you develop that and so on, which is absolutely brilliant. I would recommend it but I have forgotten the title. That is the sort of person you would have over to run that sort of workshop because he is as clear as a bell on how you do it.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

Do you honestly believe the States of Jersey's subsidiary, the Overseas Aid Commission, should be getting involved in the mechanics of how to donate aid and scrutinise or should that be divorced?

Mr. D. Wimberley:

There are some other points I would like to make in case they do not come up and one is the One World Centre which is about to start or start later on this year. There is a home that is an NGO and things like getting more value out of the Madagascar connection, for instance, by helping local people to know about it and publicise it and say: "This is fantastic and are there other ways that we could help Madagascar?" That could be devolved to a body that is devoted to education. It is a development education centre; that is its job, to educate people about development. So maybe that role could be sliced sideways without any impact on the JOAC budget. There is a possible way of doing that sideways, if you like, because it is a role that I think needs doing. I think the JOAC could do so much more in informing us. Like Oxfam say they do not hear about Oxfam projects and Christian Aid does not hear about how that is given out. There are ways of bringing local people in more and it might not be the role of the JOAC. It might be the role of the JOWC (Jersey One World Centre).

The Connétable of Grouville :

We were working on the basis that there should be more control exercised from the Jersey end of organisations and businesses like yours or Oxfam, or people like that, where the input - and we go on to the Jersey brand situation again - where our Ministers who we interviewed this morning were very keen on the Jersey brand being stuck on everything. I can understand that and I sympathise with them and it is probably a very good thing from Jersey's point of view. At the same time there seems to be, in most organisations that we have spoken to, a lack of control locally or lack of input locally into what happens to the money when it goes.

Mr. D. Wimberley: Oh, I see, yes.

The Connétable of Grouville :

It is not worrying us at all because we are dealing with very reputable organisations.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

Exactly, reputable. I would not use the word "control" but I would use the word "involvement". I do not think Jersey has the right to control Oxfam or Christian Aid. They are following really good development practice. They are constantly thinking about it. Like you say, it does not stand still. When I think of my 600 volunteers and I think they do not know where the money went, they have no involvement in how it is spent and surely there is a way of involving those people somehow. That would raise their status in what they are doing and it would raise awareness of what development is about. It would be very exciting. On the brand issue, my eyes go really anxious about that. If development is to be run by the people whom it is benefiting, which it has to be and it has to be owned by the people on the ground, they will tell you if they want to stick Jersey on the front of the building or not. If they do that is fine. I have seen a slide saying Le Quesne something centre; they wanted to call it that. Fine, that is okay but it is not okay if we start putting the Jersey logo around the place. It is just not on. The credit will come indirectly when people ask in meetings of the British Irish Council and you reply. That is where the credit comes.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

Anything else you would like to add, gentlemen?  Thank you very much, Daniel.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

I was going to appeal to your better natures in a flourish but it does not need to be done.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

I do not think you need to. We are very open minded about this and very positive about our review. We will make available a transcript of this meeting to you before it is published for you to read over and make sure you are happy that it is accurate. If we need clarification we will be in touch; otherwise I thank you very much for your submission and your attendance and all the good work you do locally. I declare our little session closed.

Mr. D. Wimberley:

Thank you, and the army of helpers.

Senator J.L. Perchard: Yes, and the army of helpers.

1. Indicates picture of grand-daughter.
2. Indicates poster with smiling African boy.
3. Indicates photo of grand-daughter.
4. Le Maistre