Financial Management of Operation Rectangle - Mr G Power (2) - transcript - 28 October 2011

STATES OF JERSEY

Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel Review of Issues Surrounding the Review of the Financial Management of Operation Rectangle

FRIDAY, 28th OCTOBER 2011

Panel:

Deputy T.M. Pitman of St. Helier (Chairman) Deputy D.J.A. Wimberley of St. Mary

Witness:

Mr. G. Power (via conference call)

Also Present:

Mr. M. Haden (Scrutiny Officer)

[11:01]

Deputy T.M. Pitman of St. Helier (Chairman): Hello, Mr. Power.

Mr. G. Power:

Yes, good morning, Deputy .

Deputy T.M. Pitman: You can hear us okay?

Mr. G. Power:

Yes, I can hear you okay, yes, sure.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

Good, I think we can all hear you okay. I will just point out before we start that our panel is somewhat reduced as Deputy Le Hérissier, our colleague, is not in the Island, so it will be myself and Deputy Wimberley of St. Mary .

Deputy D.J.A. Wimberley of St. Mary : Good morning.

Mr. G. Power: Morning, Deputy .

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

It will probably make things slightly more difficult but if we keep cutting into each other with questions I hope you will bear with us.

Mr. G. Power: That is fine.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

For the record, because you are here in spirit and not in person I will just read through the oath, if that is okay with you so it is on the record.

Mr. G. Power: Yes, okay.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

Okay, so: "The proceedings of the panel are covered by parliamentary privilege through Article 34 of the States of Jersey Law 2005 and the States of Jersey (Powers, Privileges and Immunities) (Scrutiny Panels,  P.A.C.  (Public  Accounts  Committee)  and  P.P.C.  (Privileges  and  Procedures  Committee) (Jersey) Regulations 2006 and witnesses are protected from being sued or prosecuted for anything said during the hearing unless they say something which they know to be untrue. This protection is given to witnesses to ensure that they can speak freely and openly to the panel when giving evidence without fear of legal  action although the immunity should obviously  not be abused by making unsubstantiated statements about third parties who have no right of reply. The panel would like you to bear this in mind when answering questions." I am sure you are quite okay with that?

Mr. G. Power:

Yes, that is fine, thank you.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

Okay, I will introduce myself for the record, it is Deputy Trevor Pitman, I am the Chairman of this Sub-Panel. This is a Sub-Panel obviously of Education and Home Affairs. With me is ...

The Deputy of St. Mary : Deputy Wimberley, St. Mary .

Mr. M. Haden (Scrutiny Officer): Mike Haden, Scrutiny Officer.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

Could I just ask you to introduce yourself, Mr. Power, for the record?

Mr. G. Power:

Yes, Graham Power, I am retired as Chief Officer for the States of Jersey Police.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

You are aware of the areas that we are going to look today. So nothing should come as a surprise to you. We would like to start off talking about the establishment of the gold group. The Chief Officer Home Affairs told us in his evidence that the establishment of a gold group by D.C.O. ( Deputy Chief Officer) Warcup, which first met on 1st September 2008, made an immediate difference to the way the inquiry was handled. In particular, from his point of view, the financing and resourcing. This would have been in accordance with standard police procedures for major crime incidents. BDO Alto also draw attention to this on page 16 of their report in their principal conclusions of chapter 3, Finance Governance Controller based on a requirement for formalisation of procedures in respect of the management of costs, which they say did not happen. In your statement, paragraph 139, you say gold groups were not the norm in a small force. You also state in paragraph 248 that Mr. Harper had his own reasons for not establishing a gold group in December 2007. Could you tell us, why did you believe that the gold group model was not appropriate in the early stages of the inquiry?

Mr. G. Power:

Yes, I think I can help with that. Firstly, I do not think I accept that it is standard practice. In more than 30 years of policing prior to coming to Jersey I have never worked in a police force that had ever had a gold group in relation to a major crime inquiry, nor had there ever been a gold group in relation to any crime inquiry in Jersey, although I was aware that in some places it was considered typical practice. I did say that early on I began to think that what we needed or were going to need was some more bureaucracy, if you like, around the enquiry because of the size and the complexity and that something like a gold group would be a feature of that. I began discussing that in February 2008 when I first met David Warcup who then was candidate for the job as Deputy Chief Officer and was looking like a strong candidate, and he was in the Island at the time of the first find at Haut de la Garenne and we had some discussions then and continued to have discussions about how he could bring his model, the way he was accustomed to do things, which was in the traditional English bureaucratic style of gold group and all the appendages that went with that. It was the only way he knew and so if he got the job that was going to be the way that he would do it. I had hoped that we could have that by the spring or summer of 2008. I said he could do that because we were hoping to make the appointment then. In fact, as often happens, there were delays in the appointment process because of the housing consent, because of the need to give notice to his previous force, and he could not get to take over his position, I do not think, until July or thereabouts. But one of his first tasks was to establish a gold group. So essentially by February 2008 I was thinking that something along the lines of the gold group ... and I was talking still with the advisers remember that were sent from the U.K. (United Kingdom) to advise about it. It was something along the lines that the gold group would be appropriate down the line and that David Warcup, because he has skills in that area, ought to take a lead on that and he ought to do it as soon as he took up his position. It was not introduced in the early part of the inquiry and that probably was because I do not think Lenny Harper or I had the experience or skills necessarily but that was not the best reason. We could have had a go at doing it if it was appropriate, but when we discussed it the reason it was felt not to be appropriate was because if you followed the tested well-run model you would be sitting around the table and bringing into the management of the inquiry people who were, at that time, potentially suspects or the associates of suspects, or were suspected of covering up abuse. This was in the early stages of the inquiry where we facing a cascade of allegations. People were working overtime answering the telephone, dealing with calls not just from Jersey but from around the world saying: "I have heard about this inquiry and I want to talk about abuse in an establishment in Jersey." There were names of people of who were alleged to be involved in the abuse or covered it up. And it was very clear that ... I tried to describe in my statement, the circle of people that we felt we could trust and confide in seemed to be getting smaller and smaller. So you could not realistically ... it would have undermined the creditability I think of the investigation in the eyes of witnesses if you had been bringing around the table the various representatives of various Jersey public service departments, particularly Health and Education, Social Services and so on, who people were saying were compromised in some way by the allegations they were making. I think as soon the fog had cleared, and we began to get a clearer picture, it became more realistic to talk about establishing a gold group. The gold group was established in 2008 and I am pleased ... it came at the right time, and it came at the right time when it was ... we had gathered all the information we were going to get, you knew who was a suspect and who was not, and you could then calmly and methodically work your way through a more conventional process. So that is my account of it but I do freely agree if David Warcup had been in place at the beginning of 2008 I would probably have pushed for a gold group then.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Yes, that is very interesting what you say about the naming and the circle of people who were absolutely cleared of suspicion was quite small at the beginning and then, of course, it became clearer. Could you clarify that for us as well in respect of the police itself because you mention that in your statement and I think that is quite a pointer to the problems you faced?

Mr. G. Power:

I am sorry, did you say the police itself?

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Within the police itself you had problems with gold group and with the operations team.

Mr. G. Power:

Yes, again people were saying: "I was abused and I reported it to this or that senior police officer who covered it up, and he covered it up because one of the abusers was a friend of his" and there were mentions of various clubs and institutions in the Island where it was alleged that common membership had led to a suppression of the reports by either police officers who were, I would say, corrupt or through political influence. It is hard now that we have got a clearer picture of the whole thing to really convey the impression that we had then but I think at one point I might have said to Lenny Harper : "I trust you and you trust me, now let us try and draw up a list of who else we can trust in this organisation" because it is clear that there are certain people who you normally bring in, some of the senior management team, who had some questions to answer. Now, as it is has turned out some of those questions have been answered and been answered in a satisfactory way but you did not know that then. It was not just a question of management process; it was also how you would deal with this in a court hearing down the line. You know, how you could credibly stand up in a prosecution case against somebody who you freely involved in the management of the investigation. It was a very, very difficult situation in a small force, a small community where everybody knows everybody, where nothing ever seems to stay a secret for 5 minutes, just to try and deal then ... very early in the discussion stage was the idea that we should hold some ... we should create some sort of board of directors and sit around the table people who you were sure were quite in clear but it was something, I think, that could not be done in the early stage. But I am fairly sure it could be done further down the line.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

Deputy Pitman again, is it fair to say, Mr. Power, that in hindsight you look back and you feel you had no other option but than to follow the approach you did given those concerns about who might be under suspicion, as it were?

Mr. G. Power:

Yes, I think I can defend not having a gold group on a number of grounds. There were no guidelines anywhere in the police service that say you have got to have one in those circumstances. It says that gold groups should be considered according to local circumstances or local tradition or whatever. But I think I can defend that. I do say that I wish that I could have got David Warcup in place 2 or 3 months earlier than I did and I would have started a gold group then. Because of the delays of his appointment I had to decide did I want to start it with only Lenny Harper or myself who did not have the training and the background or did I want to wait the extra few weeks and ask David to do it, and I took the latter decision. You know, I thought going over the same ground again and I would do the same again, but that is what it is. You know, even if it was not the best decision it was a decision that had a logic attached to it, it was not something I pulled out of the air.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

You also talk a lot in your statement, as we now have it, about your concerns, about how you wanted the transition to move smoothly so you perhaps did not want to interfere in what Mr. Warcup was doing. How much did that impact on the approach you took, that concern that you wanted a smooth transition?

Mr. G. Power:

I was hoping ... I thought the way to handle the whole thing, and I still do, would be a seamless transition from one regime to another and I was rather hoping that people would not spend too much time shouting about: "Well, if I had been here 3 months ago I would not have done it this way." I would be inclined to respond to that by saying that if you had been here 3 months ago when the thing had taken off you would probably be sick with stress by now. But I was hoping for a clear transition. I was aware that Mr. Warcup and later Mr. Gradwell, when we appointed them, had been brought up entirely in the English tradition of the English police manual way of doing things and they had to be given a free hand to do that. Of course I had not and Lenny Harper had not been brought up in the particular modern discipline of the way that things are done in England. So I was hoping that it was smooth transition, seamlessly move forward that you would get a transition from Lenny's way of doing things to the way that we were trying to establish with the cases that were going to court and there really would be no need for any undue attention to be drawn to the fact that a significant change of style was developing during 2008.

[11:15]

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

How much do you feel, on reflection, that perhaps that stepping back for the best of reasons actually weakened the way the investigations were carried out, or perhaps you do not think that at all?

Mr. G. Power:

I wish that I had more expertise to bring to bear, the fact is I had absolutely no training or qualifications whatsoever in the management of a major crime inquiry. You have to remember I was already past my retirement date, I was working past retirement for one purpose only, which was to manage the transition, because it was not felt appropriate that John Pearson, Lenny Harper and myself all retired within a few months of each other which was what was due to happen. So I was the one who volunteered, or some people might say drew the short straw, to be the one who stayed on and managed the transition. I was really, by 2008, minded to say: "Look, I think early 2009 I will be stepping out of it." I tried to deal with the management of the enquiry in the meantime by contacting the relevant UK policing authorities and asking them to nominate and send me experts who would sit at my shoulder and say: "Okay, Chief, here is a list of 10 things that you ought to do over the next 2 weeks, and here is how we think you ought to do this. If you can deliver these things we will come back in 2 weeks' time and give you more advice" and so on. I think there is a fairly pure audit trail that the original advice I got was followed. Now, I know people since have come along and said: "We do not think the advice you got was the best advice. You should have done something differently, should not have taken the advice and if we had given you advice we would have given you different advice." Well, hindsight is a wonderful thing. I think the record shows that the experts from the U.K. gave me advice and I took their advice. Where did my problems with this start? The problems might have started about 2 years previously when I said: "Well, I should be retired now but I am going to stay on and help manage the transition" even though all of my qualifications to do with my post were out of date. I did not think we were going to get hit with the biggest crime inquiry in the force's history when I was trying to manage the transition so that I could retire. I did not think that was going to happen.

Deputy T.M. Pitman: Okay, thank you.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Okay, so moving on. It is Deputy Wimberley, moving on the Financial Oversight Board. In your statement, paragraph 275, you describe how you responded to a request from the Chief Officer for Home Affairs at the end of May 2008 for assurances regarding financial management. You said that you saw this as "an opportunity to bring to bring your own style of working to bear on the financial oversight Operation Rectangle as opposed to what I saw as the less structured approach Home Affairs had been taking." As a result you proposed the formation of the F.O.B. (Financial Oversight Board). A great deal of reliance seemed to be placed on this as it enabled the Chief Officer to give the Treasurer an assurance that adequate controls were in place. Do you think the F.O.B. worked?

Mr. G. Power:

I think it was better than what the proposal was that the Chief Officer of Home Affairs and I write each other letters saying that everything is fine. I do not think that was the best idea. I think the best idea with hindsight would have been a more robust role by the financial staff, the Treasury staff who worked at Home Affairs. By the time we had a gold group ... I realised that by the time we had a gold group it would not be the spring of 2008, it was not going to happen, we needed ... there were some concerns about whether there was a proper grip on the financial management. I did not see writing a letter was the way to deal with that. I said you have got to form a management board, the accounting officer, the person who is responsible in law, has to convene and chair a proper meeting that holds people to account. I have to sit there and be held to account and I will make sure that Lenny Harper comes and he is held account if you bring your accountant with you and we will have a proper meeting with proper minutes, we will have appendices with numbers in them and if there is any concern let us get it written down and let us get a grip on this. We have to stop being so ... we need more bureaucracy, we have to stop being informal about this because I can see that challenges are going to come when people are going to look back and say: "Well, what did you decide and who authorised this and who authorised that?" I was very clear that there needed to be some audit of what we were doing. So I urged that solution because as far as I was concerned I was the person who was attending a group convened and chaired by somebody else.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

That is interesting you dropped in this new information, to me anyway, that the group was chaired by Home Affairs, is that correct? Was it in fact chaired by Home Affairs?

Mr. G. Power:

Yes, it was chaired by the accounting officer, I am fairly sure about that. Who else is there who could hold people to account, just the accounting officer, I would have thought. It could not be the other way around, I could not hold him to account for financial management. You have to observe ... well, I took the view that you have to observe the letter of the law as to where responsibilities lay, whether I should have been more vocal and order people out of the way and said: "Look I do not care what the law says, I am going to get a grip of this my way." I felt the way was to strongly encourage the accounting officer to form a proper corporate body that held to account the key players for the financial management of the inquiry. There is no argument about that because you can see there is, in this particular case, audit trail of these exchanges.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Okay, so that is the genesis described of how it became to be set up and who chose it and so on, but did you feel that it was an improvement on what had been there before? We will come to what had been there before in a minute.

Mr. G. Power:

It sent a message right the way down the line that there now is a corporate group that is scrutinising best value arrangements within this inquiry and this is an arrangement that is going to be ratcheted up, we are going to have a gold group, we are going to integrate the Financial Oversight Board into the gold group and there it is going to be more real than perhaps it might have been. I am not suggesting that people have been wilfully lax but in the rush of events people were rushing about and doing things first and worrying about the cost second. I think you needed to get a little bit more cost consideration up front. I do not deny any of that. As I have stated previously the complete deluge of reports and incidences, the amount of information that fell upon us in the early days and how it had overwhelmed any structure we had in place. I have no difficulty with stating that. But also what I have tried to describe is the measures that were taken in order to impose a proper corporate governance structure upon it.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

When you say "sent a message" in what sense? Do you mean that it would then go through the executive group and it would go through the force management board and so on?

Mr. G. Power:

Yes, it would cascade down the line into the inquiry that all of a sudden there was a corporate board which was putting a more formal structure around spending decisions and the questions we have got here and it would intervening ... I introduced the concept of critical challenge because it was going about asking hard questions. We invited somebody in to audit what we were doing and making sure that we were following the correct procedures and being robust in seeking out best value. This was in May 2008. That process which I started then took off and acquired a more robust form as the year went on and the gold group was established.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Yes, okay. Going back then to your statement, paragraph 270, the paragraph where you say that you asked the Chief Officer at Home Affairs what arrangements he wanted in respect of financial management and he said that he would appoint a senior finance officer. I am really interested ... because this is like the beginning of the process of looking at the financial arrangements. Can you put a date on that or a time, I know it is some time ago?

Mr. G. Power:

I throughout this had the difficulty of course that since November 2008 I do not have access to the files or the records that would enable me to answer some of these questions very thoroughly. But I do say, and I am very confident, 2007 the name Rectangle was attached to this inquiry and I say in my statement you do that because you needed a dedicated budget and that was standard procedure. Whenever there is something ... say, you had a Royal visit, you would give it a name, somebody in the finance section of Home Affairs would open a budget for it, costs would be put into that budget and it would be ... so that the costs could be seen and monitored separate from the overall running costs of the force. So sometime in 2007 it was given the name Rectangle and the budget was created by one of the finance staff. A lot of focus is on Haut de la Garenne but that was preceded by the inquiry going public in the latter part of 2007. In the latter part of 2007 we then put out a public appeal saying that we have this inquiry, we have a number of allegations of abuse, this is your chance

to come forward and various things were done. There was a lot of publicity, and certainly by November/December 2007 it was widely known and I think it would have been at that stage when we started to put together a team and set up a major inquiry but I first had a conversation about the need to have a dedicated single point of contact from Home Affairs and I was given a name and you have the name of the person. That is the person who took on that responsibility.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Right, and then how did that ... I think we have been here before but just to recap, how did that work in practice and why did you need to go to the F.O.B.? What was the arrangement? How did it work, because BDO say: "There should have been somebody embedded in the inquiry with hindsight."

Mr. G. Power:

Yes, yes. In the circumstances I can see their point of view but I ... every police force that you will find and certainly every one that I have worked in has a senior accountant as part of the senior management team of the police force. They would sit in the board room at the right hand of the Chief Constable. I did not have that person. A few years previously I had such a person and I would have deployed them as I saw fit because they were my member of staff. So I had to go to someone else and say: "Look, I think you need to deploy somebody on this inquiry and, you know, I think it becomes a fine point whether somebody in Home Affairs is dedicated to looking after the financial management of the inquiry is the same or different to somebody who has been seconded to the inquiry. I think that ... you see, I do not know how many hours a day a week the person concerned spent within the inquiry, all I know is that I was constantly assured that the arrangement was working fine. I do not know any instructions that the accounting officer gave to that person in terms of what their mandate was within the inquiry.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

Just to enlarge on that point, Mr. Power, the BDO report states that a dedicated finance manager should have been appointed following the discovery of JAR/06. How do you respond to that with the benefit of hindsight?

Mr. G. Power:

I think the observation has some merit but I cannot remember whether ... I do not think the discovery of that item in itself ... that is with hindsight that we now know that discovery of that item created the further cascade of publicity, reports and allegations. I do not think we knew that on the day was found. I just do not know, my recollection is that the Finance Department of Home Affairs, the accounting officer and his staff, had a freehand to go wherever they wish and do whatever they wanted in respect of the financial management of the inquiry. I do not know what that meant that they were doing in specific terms, I did not ask what work they had done before they came to the table and talked about the state of the budget, I just know that the answers that they gave me: "Are you getting the access you want?" "Yes." "Have you any concerns about the  financial management?" "No." "Is there anything you want brought to our attention?" "No." "Is there anything else I can do for you?" "No." I did not ask the question: "Would you like to tell me how many hours you dedicated to it last week and where you went and what you did?" I did not ask that question. It is not necessarily an executive question. The style that operated was that you do not come to the table at an executive meeting and put questions of detail, you just give the meeting one sheet of paper saying: "Look, I have looked into this, here are my conclusions and these are my recommendations."

[11:30]

The Deputy of St. Mary :

You trust people to do the job. Could I ask you, though, just to jump in there? When you are saying you asked these questions and you got the answer basically, it is fine, it is okay, we have got the access there are no problems, are you talking ... which meetings are you talking about, are you talking about the Executive Strategy Group?

Mr. G. Power:

Yes, the Executive Strategy Group or the Corporate Management Board.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

That is where you are checking?

Mr. G. Power:

You should have access to the minutes of both of those meetings, but there is always a financial report as a standing item, and it is always the case that if any concern is raised a member of the management team is allocated to work with the finance person to solve that problem and report the solution to the next meeting. The financial management was very robust and, of course, ran within the Home Affairs Department but ran very clearly within budget for a lot of years.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Can we ask who that representative from Home Affairs was and were they always there for you to ask these questions?

Mr. G. Power:

Yes, there would always be a representative from Home Affairs, sometimes the  financial representative would change. It would be the most senior person, or a less senior person, depending on availability. But there was always ... you know, the corporate governance of the force always included in its formal meetings a member of the finance team from Home Affairs.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

But it was not seen as an option on their part whether or not someone was there?

Mr. G. Power:

Oh no, it was a standing item, you just had to have a finance report. You cannot have a meeting that discusses future operations, for example, unless you have got a finance report that tells you whether you can afford it or not.

The Deputy of St. Mary : Yes, okay.

Mr. G. Power:

It just had to happen.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

Can we move on to the financial oversight by the senior management in the States, Mr. Power? In your statement, paragraph 142, and I am sure you have it in front of you, you describe how you believe that the Jersey Government was unprepared for the inevitable public and media interest which would occur when the inquiry became more widely known. You state that you saw no significant evidence that the Chief Executive had a plan or even that he had given significant thought to how a more public phase of the inquiry would be managed. You also appeared to indicate in paragraph 273 that other Chief Officers did not appreciate initially the implications of the scale of expenditure of Operation Rectangle for their own departments. Could you tell us what discussions were held at the level of Corporate Management Board to consider the overall financial implications for the States?

Mr. G. Power:

Can you just give me the number of the second ... I am okay with 142.

Deputy T.M. Pitman: 273.

Mr. G. Power:

Let me see. Sorry, could you say it again?

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

273. 273.

Mr. G. Power:

Yes, right. I think the 273 might have been misread and I will mention that but I will deal with 142 first. In 2007 the inquiry was building up and it was not possible to talk to the wider Corporate Management Board because of issues I had raised earlier that there was some suspicion that at the very least some people on the board had covered up allegations and had protected people involved in abuse, it was thought that was not possible to brief the whole board. But I did speak on a face to face basis when I could with the Chief Executive and the then Chief Minister, along the lines of: "Look, this is going to take off before the end of the year, I just do not know where it is going but you must understand that there will be significant media interest. There will be significant cost implications. You need to get your head around this and think about how you are going to handle it, and how you are going to work with this, if you are going to work with it." I do describe in my statement how I became very frustrated at the lack of engagement in this process and what I then took to doing was writing out formal, if you like, statements which I would then read out to the Chief Executive or the Chief Minister and then follow it up with a briefing, I have submitted a reference number for some of this which is 07/358, ... I do describe in that how, one, I got to the point that on 15th November, with some effort through the respective offices, I arranged a formal meeting with the Chief Minister and the Chief Executive to bring them up to date and alert them to the issue of imminence of this development. I do recall that the Chief Minister did not attend that meeting; I was told he was having a lunch engagement in an adjacent room and did not want to come and be briefed. So I found that very frustrating. I did, however, brief the Chief Executive. How much of this sort of urgency he was able to convey to the Chief Minister, I do not know. I just record that because of what it was really. If I can go to the other paragraph ...

Deputy T.M. Pitman: 273.

Mr. G. Power:

273, right okay. The point that I am trying to make there, I think, is not that I thought that the Chief Officers in the various departments were not up to the task of assessing the costs but if it has been read like that, that is not the intention I intended to convey. What I am trying to convey is that the difficulty with this unscripted announcement by the Chief Minister at the time caused when he said quite publicly that money would be no object and people could effectively spend whatever they had to spend. One of the problems in that is that the Chief Officers had not by that

time completed the task of scoping what it might involve for them. I think that, for reasons I described earlier, they came on to the case rather late and they were unprepared to give a number. They could not say: "Well, for Social Services or for Health or for Education the cost implications are X." The point I am making now is that that particular announcement was made before anybody really understood what the cost implications would be. It had other effects, and I have described those as undermining the work that people have tried to do to control costs and there is some email evidence of at least one exchange I was involved in where I am saying to people: "Look, I do not care what the Chief Minister said, you cannot spend money ...just because the Chief Minister said it, it might have been OK 10 years ago but now under the finance law it is ultra vires, until it is approved by the States.  So that was part of the difficulty around that. I do not think the Chief Officers really were tardy in putting numbers up for what the implication would be, it was just it all came to them rather suddenly.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Can I just ask about, I suppose it is the issue of risk and preparedness on this whole issue and you have said you were trying to brief, in particular, the Chief Minister and the Chief Executive about this? I noticed it when I was reading your statement to Wiltshire about ... there is a slight conflict, is there not? You have got to keep the inquiry under wraps really for as long as possible but on the other hand you have to tip people off, this thing coming over the horizon might be very big and you might have to take extraordinary measures and so on. How did you manage that in terms of tipping people off about something that you cannot tell them about?

Mr. G. Power:

Well, you have got to decide who it is you think you can trust. My justification for speaking about confidential issues to the Chief Executive and to the Chief Minister was that they had voluntarily submitted themselves to a vetting process conducted by one of the security agencies in the U.K. and they had been cleared to be briefed in relation to classified material up to a particular level. So although it did not strictly speaking apply to confidential information about the Abuse inquiry, it distinguished them, these 2 people, from individuals who had not been through that vetting process. Likewise the Minister for Home Affairs had also voluntarily been through the vetting process, as had the Deputy Minister. I think there were 4 politicians in the Island who had been cleared by the U.K. authorities to be told issues which might be otherwise be classified and confidential. So that was ... I used that as a basis for who it was proper to speak to and who it was not. I also made it clear that we had a careful record of what we told them, we might make a written record of what we told them so that the record could be produced at any future hearing, et cetera. So that is how I decided who I felt could be told and who could not at that time.

The Deputy of St. Mary : Okay, thank you.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

Can I just come in there, Mr. Power, because it feeds nicely into the next line of questioning? This unpreparedness that you talk about with other Chief Officers, we often this figures of £7.5 million bandied about as if it was all down to yourself and Mr. Harper. Clearly the reality of that is there is a lot of this figure spread out with other departments. How do you, again with the benefit of hindsight, see that this has come to be all sort of laid at your door? Is this a symptom of that lack of preparation generally with the senior management?

Mr. G. Power:

Yes, yes, well that is a very big question. I do not think it shows lack of preparation. I think it is who  is  in  and  who  is out  quite  obviously  and  also  I  think  it  is  about  the  need  to  provide justification for my suspension and the public criticism of myself and Lenny Harper which meant that the critical comment had to be focused on the 2 of us, and also the critical comment could not be focused on some other people, particularly ones that they might be relying on as witnesses, I guess, if it came to it. If there was a failure here, people have said that it was not handled well and that there was a failure in management. Jersey failed to manage it well. It is just simply not credible to say that the police did not manage it well but everybody else did. Jersey failed to manage it well. Jersey's Government failed to manage it well. The Law Officers, as I think they have admitted, did not handle it well and you could certainly look back on the police operation and say there are things that we might have done differently. As previously mentioned about it, if the abuse inquiry was a police investigation carried out under my command which was absolutely perfect then it is the first one ever because that does not happen. You spend minutes, sometimes seconds, taking decisions that people are going to pick over for years afterwards and it is always possible to look back and say: "Well, you could have done it better." So, no, there is no claim on my part that the police operation was a perfect one. The failure to manage effectively was right across the spectre of Government and also the failure to come from ... the bigger question is: "Excuse me, but what is it about Jersey and the way it is run that has allowed all this abuse to go on for all these years and somehow it never got dealt with. It was not confronted, it was not addressed, it was quietly swept under the carpet" and I think that they are focusing on the narrow issue of whether the police followed procedures set out in the manual designed for English forces and this has really taken over from some rather bigger and slightly more awkward questions.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

I have got to be careful here because, as you will appreciate, this is not the reason to be of the inquiry, but it may well feed into recommendations for what should come after this. Do you feel ... because you seem to clearly suggest that this was a deliberate move on certain parts to focus on not things that are not important but focus on the specific area, this one area, and detract from the much deeper underlying problems? You clearly feel that that is a ...

Mr. G. Power:

Yes, I clearly do. I mean, it is easy to try and trash 2 people who are not there to defend themselves any more but also through my suspension. The senior politicians responsible have got themselves into a difficult position because they might not have anticipated that I might have stood my ground and said: "Well, if you think I have done something wrong, you get on and prove it then." To still be in that situation 2 years later, I do not think they thought that was going to happen. So every opportunity to point the blame and to throw a bit of mud was taken. That is how I see it. Now, you might say: "You would see it like that, would you not?" having been on the receiving end of this claim for the period of time that I have, but nevertheless that is how I feel. I think if any rational person was to take a look at the whole issue, and I am sure there are historians that will take over this, they will say: "Well, 2 people have to spend years answering some rather hard questions; I cannot see the same hard questions being put to other key players in this story."

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

Which, in fairness, you would expect, would you not?

Mr. G. Power:

Yes, in fairness you would, yes. I mean, our actions have been intensely scrutinised by a number of independent  police organisations. I do not know who has  independently scrutinised  the performance or expenditure, for example, of the Law Officers Department in all of this. I do not know who has scrutinised the performance of the people responsible for child welfare.

[11:45]

So why is it that all of these stories and all these reports have been ricocheting around the Island for decades and somehow they did not hear or deal with any of them? They could be asked some damn good questions. They might have a damn good answer but the questions that I am describing in relation to expenditure, the problem of the relationship between policing and politics, and the conduct of the institutions responsible for child welfare are damn sight better questions that about who paid for a meal in a restaurant on a visit to London? You know, how did this get trivialised to that level? I can only think that it is some sort of ... this is a diversion tactic.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

Well, with that I will pass on to Deputy Wimberley.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Yes, the Corporate Management Board, did they discuss the financial oversight? It is a matter of record the letter from the Treasurer to yourself and the response that you would set up an F.O.B. and eventually that happened and so on and then the reply that: "Yes, now I can put my hand on my heart and say: Things are under control'" if you like. But within the Corporate Management Board what sort of discussions were there around Rectangle?

Mr. G. Power:

I do not remember. Well, I do not remember it being discussed a great deal because I was not really dealing a great deal with the Corporate Management Board, but it is also true, that I think ... I do not know whether the record shows this accurately but I left meetings of the Corporate Management Board or chose not to attend when Rectangle was being discussed because you have this difficulty where the Corporate Management Board wanted to discuss how they were going to respond as a government and as departments to the issues arising from the police inquiry and I just thought I was conflicted in that. Should I really be taking part in a meeting which talks about how you defend yourselves against the inquiry which is being conducted into my leadership effectively? I never always comfortable sitting at the Corporate Management Board anyway because it seemed to create too much closeness between police and government and I had a long discussion about whether it was proper for me to be there. I said: "Look, if you start discussing matter with regards to policing, I do not want to be present... If you are going to start discussing difficult issues on how you might have broken the law in this or that area, then I do not want to be sitting listening to you do it. I am sitting down and I will be taking notes, and that is the fact of it."  So I absented myself from a lot of these Corporate Management Board discussions that took place during the Rectangle inquiry.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Yes, okay, I can sort of understand your motives for doing that, but the question was about whether C.M.B. (Corporate Management Board) discussed the financial aspects and whether ...

Mr. G. Power:

Yes, I do not recall any significant discussion at Corporate Management Board about that. I think there might have been a discussion about who was putting in bids and how they were going to be accommodated within the procedure. I was at a discussion at Corporate Management Board which followed the Chief Minister's announcement that money was no object and I remember we were all being tightly reined in by the Treasury and the treasurer saying: "Never mind what the Chief Minister has said, he has spoken ultra vires, you cannot lawfully commit expenditure on the basis of a statement that he has made. I am telling you all now that until it is approval by the States you cannot spend tuppence on the basis of what the Chief Minister has just said." I remember that discussion because that sent me scurrying back to the office to put a stop on all sorts of things and we were talking about that. So I remember that discussion. I do not remember, with any clarity, any other discussions.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Right, and allocating the £7.5 million or the budget or whatever between different departments?

Mr. G. Power:

I do not remember that. It might have took place but I may not have been there.

The Deputy of St. Mary : No, okay.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

I want to take you back, if I may, Mr. Power to the tensions between the police force and the political leadership of the Island. Now I know you appreciate that the interest of the panel is obviously focused on the financial management rather than media management, however in your statements you do refer to a threat of suspension made by the then Chief Minister against both yourself and Mr. Harper as early as 23rd May 2008, I believe, directly connected with this ongoing media interest in the Island. It is also clear that other figures, other Ministers and other Members, were beginning to raise concerns at the time about aspects of police spending on Operation Rectangle. So, can I ask you, were you conscious during this period the issues of financial management were an area where the leadership of the States of Jersey Police, yourself and Mr. Harper specifically might be vulnerable to the heavy public criticism that obviously did occur eventually? Were you aware?

Mr. G. Power:

Well, there was the distinct impression of knives being sharpened. Really the situation was totally unmanageable in the sense that I was accountable in law to one person and one person only, and that was the Minister for Home Affairs. Whatever the views of the Chief Minister or anybody else was unless their views were transmitted to me and supported by the Minister for Home Affairs then I should not have regard to them. But the meeting that you have described was particularly awkward because the purported purpose was for the Minister for Home Affairs to relinquish her responsibility for the inquiry to another person because she felt that she was conflicted. There is a record, and I give the file reference for it, to a conversation I had with, I believe, it would be in December, some months previously, in December 2007 when I expressed a view to her that she was conflicted and she should consider handing over responsibility but that did not move forward until that particular meeting. The outcome of that meeting, there was widespread discussion as to who should take the responsibility on and the Minister for Treasury and Resources was one we all agreed upon as a person who was to take on responsibility for the oversight of the inquiry. I felt it was sort of almost kill 2 birds with one stone because it deals with the conflict issue and it then would provide us with a direct line to the Treasurer and to get a more direct line of communication. I was quite surprised when it was announced a day or 2 later that it was not going to be the Minister for Treasury and Resources at all but it was going to be the Deputy Minister for Home Affairs. So, yes, I was ... that was the beginning and I did not create a record of what was said at that meeting just thinking: "Well, you are not going to be on everybody's Christmas Card list next year, that is for sure." There was clearly a tension between the lady who was Minister for Home Affairs at the time and the Chief Minister. They were not getting on with each other and he was very assertive in the way he spoke to her and spoke to me.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

I think you describe - and I have not got the reference in front of me - it as almost a bullying?

Mr. G. Power:

Yes. I mean, it was very close to it and I have got to say I was very assertive in her defence. If that exchange had happened in the workplace I am sure that the recipient would have had a claim for harassment and discrimination, and a whole lot of things because the tone was pretty awful. I was unaccustomed to how Members of the Council of Ministers spoke to each other but it was quite ... I was quite shocked at how it came across and said: "Leave the Minister alone, you are bullying her. She is in no state to be bullied, you should not put her in that position." She was getting into a bit of a state. The threat of suspension was made in the sort of way ... the Chief Minister said: "Well, there are lots of people trying to persuade me to suspend the Chief and the Deputy Chief but I am holding the line" or whatever it is. I got the impression that he was not at all unsympathetic to what was allegedly being said. I think the Napier inquiry seems to show that it was following that meeting that the secret work began to research what the suspension possibilities were. So, yes, it was difficult. It was clear that we were just ... arrangements for political accountability which were never satisfactory in the previous couple of years to the inquiry was starting to fail under pressure. The answers would be to form an independent police authority, a proper definition of relationship between policing and politics, just sort of to protect the police service from political interference but at the same time make sure it is accountable and efficient and so on. I mean, I did not like the arrangement which applied then but it really was breaking down under the pressure at that time.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

Obviously your document is a very long one, but for the record how did that impression that how much money is being spent, the media inters, how much did that begin to impinge on how you and your team approached the investigation and spending. Was it almost ... did it almost sort of give the impression: "Well, actually perhaps we better not do this because perhaps the media is more important than the facts" which must be a terrible thing for a police officer?

Mr. G. Power:

No, I do not think it did because whatever was being said we were pursuing lines of inquiry we wanted to pursue.

Deputy T.M. Pitman: That is good to hear.

Mr. G. Power:

If we had been unable to pursue a line of inquiry because financing was being withheld then I would have recorded that information and that would have eventually fed into whatever inquiry came out of that. It was very difficult. I tried not to get into what people would call a siege mentality but it was hard to avoid the impression that we were under siege a little bit. It was becoming very, very tense and very, very difficult and I was concluding very clearly, in my own mind I was thinking: "Well, this is over for you now." But once you have handed over to this new management team in place it is probably going to be time to slip away and let somebody else take all this flak. As we know, I did not have a chance to have that conversation because I was ambushed with a suspension, which had the effect of keeping me on the payroll for nearly 2 years longer than I needed to be. But that is history.

I had little doubt towards the end of 2008 that there was a change of political regime, new people were arriving to manage the police service and it would be an opportunity to retire. Had it happened they could have a smooth transition, it just did not happen that way.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Okay, transition. I want to take you to the transition. You describe how you effectively inducted David Warcup in the ways of Jersey policing and the difficulties and all the rest of it, and also Mick Gradwell. Now, he was appointed in September, I think, took up his post in September, the very beginning of September?

Mr. G. Power:

Yes, again I would have hoped to get him sooner but we agreed that David Warcup would sit on the panel to appoint him so we could not do that until David was employed. So when he was employed we then conducted the interviews as quickly as we could and we got Gradwell in place as quickly as we could.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Okay, so Gradwell took up his post in September, and then there was this sea change in tone around the inquiry as a result of the famous press conference on 12th November. Now, did Mr. Gradwell make you aware of his criticisms of the inquiry which he later called an expensive mess or poorly managed mess? Did he make you aware of that in the 2 months before ... in the run up to the press conference?

Mr. G. Power:

I would say, no, but I did not have a lot of contact with him. He did make one or 2 critical comments on the side but my response to those were: "You are a professional police officer, put it right. Stop talking about it; just put it right, will you? Do it quietly, discreetly and let us get on with the job. All the press, all the media, they have all gone away, we are not in the newspapers any more, can we just quietly get this show on the rails, on the road, to move towards the prosecution stage with as little publicity as possible." That was my constant message. His regular meetings were with David Warcup and there was a reason for that as well because I virtually said to David: "Look, this is all yours now. I will keep running the force while we get through the transition but the historic abuse inquiry, it is all yours. So you deal with Gradwell, you deal with all those things, just tell me from time to time so I am not taken by surprise, otherwise it is all yours." So the relationship was largely between Gradwell and Warcup, it was not a relationship with me.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Yes, and then of course between yourself and Warcup?

Mr. G. Power: Yes.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

The next question is do you agree with the criticism expressed by David Warcup that the BDO Alto report was too focused on Mr. Harper and lacked objectivity?

Mr. G. Power:

Well, yes, I do. I think he is right about that. I would also endorse it. It does seem it has been turned into yet another critique of the role of Lenny Harper and myself. It might even be that some of the criticism is fair, who knows, but again it is not balanced. I said earlier, I am accustomed to criticism in Jersey and elsewhere and I am used to it and deal with it but the balance of criticism is another thing and whether it has been evenly spread.

[12:00]

It does not appear [that anyone has] looked with a sufficiently critical eye at the role of the people who have legal responsibility of the finance and so on. I do support his view and I still do not know what this report was for because I know that the current Minister for Home Affairs told me that he commissioned the report at a meeting, I think, in early 2009, a report from a firm of accountants which he seemed to think was to support the disciplinary process. I think the whole thing is getting to be a bigger answer with Wiltshire and the BDO Alto report, but somehow it was never quite sorted out whether it was a review to give us lessons learned and to develop good practice recommendations for the future, or whether it was targeted on building a case against one individual, to be honest, and I think to the point of being ... that conflict is as evident in the BDO Alto report as it is, I think, in the Wiltshire report.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Yes, can I just put it to you then what Mr. Kellett says in his, I think, second submission in reply to, I think, David Warcup's submission, where near the end of that he says that the BDO report says: "That Lenny Harper and his staff displayed great dedication, did their utmost in the cause of justice and we pointed that out. We made 19 recommendations. His management of his sources formed the central part of our examination, but to the extent that any of those recommendations constitute criticism of his actions, no criticism of, let alone attack on, the existence of the investigation or the motivation for it is intended or implied." I am just sort of putting that to you and asking for a comment because that, in a sense, is the BDO ...

Mr. G. Power:

Again, I do not want to be too defensive about this but I think it is absolutely right to say that in terms of trying to get justice for people who were, in police speak, hard to reach and hard to hear, or in ordinary speak people who normally hate the police. To try and get justice for these people, that I have never seen a force do more dedicated and energetic and determined work than it was under Lenny Harper's leadership. It is also true that Lenny Harper was not the world's greatest bureaucrat and at a time when more bureaucracy was needed we needed to make a shift. That is in a few words how I see the history of that process. But it is certainly right, and I think it is right and should be placed on record that whatever criticisms might be made about the bureaucracy or financial management nobody has ever dug deeper or tried harder to get justice for people who felt that the likes of them had no chance for justice. I just think that is true.

The Deputy of St. Mary : Okay, thank you.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

A question I would like to ask, Mr. Power, and I am mindful of the time, about the relationship with Mr. Warcup and Mr. Kellett. Unknown to Mr. Warcup, of course, we heard previously that Mr. Kellett was given the separate instructions by Mr. Gradwell as a result of which his work became very focused alone on working with BDO Alto on their review of financial management, because after some months when he saw those first sections of Mr. Kellett's work Mr. Warcup commented that the review, as Deputy Wimberley said, had become overly focused on Mr. Harper, it lacked objectivity and had the potential to be unfair to yourself and could have seriously undermined the investigation. Again with the value of hindsight, you support those criticisms I take it so how do you believe that an objective review could have been carried out to a much higher standard, perhaps, or to a much more pleasing holistic outcome as it were?

Mr. G. Power:

I think it is one of the dangers when you have got people who are self-employed consultants on a job because their natural loyalty is to the people who are paying them sometimes and I would have thought 2 things. I mean, it is a complex question and I just want to do justice in my reply, so there are 2 things ... the first thing is you need to be absolutely clear what it is you are trying to do and I touched on this earlier. Are you trying to have the sort of process that I offered repeatedly  to participate in during the early part of my suspension, that is to say let us have an honest, frank, confessional review of this inquiry in order that we can pass on the lessons learned of best practice for posterity. Let us concentrate on learning from what has happened and improving performance in the future. Or are we focusing on providing evidence against one individual? Because it was very clear that the first thought of this review by the accountancy firm was communicated to me by the Minister for Home Affairs, at a disciplinary meeting in a disciplinary context, so I would have wanted more clarity about what it was and I would not want to have it done by anybody who could have been accused of being conflicted, who had a working relationship or a previous working relationship with one of the key players. That is just 2 things and I think this review breached both of those general principles that I have tried to articulate in the time available.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

There is a question I want to ask and it probably seems slightly removed from what we have been talking about, but I think it is relevant with regard to the tensions that you have talked about in your statement with the politicians, et cetera, this mention in your report of an investigation from the South Yorkshire police. What happened to that? Did it just grind to a halt because I have not been able to find much out about that? What happened with that? Is that ...

Mr. G. Power:

Well, my recollection is that somebody was given advice and reminded of their responsibilities, that is how it was dealt with. It was dealt with within a disciplinary framework but not as a hearing, it was warning advice, or something of that nature. But I think David Warcup dealt with that. But I know of what you are talking about and that was one of the difficulties in the background all the time. It was alleged that one of the senior players in the force, one of the senior people, had received a report of abuse, several reports of abuse at Haut de la Garenne and had covered up those allegations for a period of a year and I think the investigation focused on whether this was a deliberate cover-up or whether this was an oversight due to high workload and somehow the report got lost on a desk, I am perhaps being over-simplistic about that but I think that is how it broke down. Lenny Harper commissioned an inquiry, but clearly while that inquiry was running it was very, very hard to include particular key players in the management of the Abuse inquiry. It was another problem we could have done without.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

Yes, and just so that I get it clear in my head, you say David Warcup dealt with that, so is that report somewhere? Should it be available?

Mr. G. Power:

Yes, well it exists, that is for sure. There will be a substantial report with appendices that explores those allegations and comes to some conclusion and makes some recommendations, yes.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

As I say we are only interested because that feeds into this sort of culture, this tension between the police and the politicians. That is the only reason I ask. I think we have covered everything that we can. Is there anything that you would like to add, Mr. Power?

Mr. G. Power:

I cannot think off the top of my head that there is. I might think of something tomorrow but I cannot think of anything now. I think this has been very thorough and I have got to say quite fair questioning. Difficult questions but quite fair.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

I would ask you one final question then, as you may be aware we have got former Senator Syvret and we are going to speak to him after a short break. Something I picked up on in your statement, you described the feelings of I think the term you used is a Pincer movement to bring about no confidence in the then Minister.

Mr. G. Power: That is right.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

For the record can you just explain that a bit?

Mr. G. Power:

Yes, I have sworn an affidavit which is a separate document which I think is now in the public domain which describes that. One of the cases which began the controversy was the abuse of a young boy by some men. There was a review of that case and Stuart Syvret, who was then Minister for Health and Social Services, said that there were some hard questions to be asked about the police and other States departments about the handling of the case and why the abuse had not been addressed earlier and in his style he circulated an email with some allegations  about the role of States Departments and it was not diplomatic in its tone. That said I engaged with him by answering his criticisms and telling him how he could go about having the police role examined independently if that is what he waned to do because I was not offended by the strong tone of the email, I have been spoken to worse than that. I thought that was it until I turned up at a meeting with the Corporate Management Board where a handful of us were asked to stay behind and it became clear what we were being asked to do was on the basis that I think the excuse that: "This email was so upsetting to our staff that we could not possibly not do something about it." We were expected to support some motions, some vote of no confidence of Stuart Syvret and communicate that to the Council of Ministers. I fell out with the Chief Executive over that immediately. I said: "Look, the way to deal with criticism no matter how strongly expressed from States Members is just to answer it and if you cannot answer it and ... you know, we are all well paid, I am not going to run out of the door in tears just because somebody says that I have been incompetent or have not done my job properly. I will answer the criticism and have answered it and I have sent a reply." But that was not a view that went down well with the others and I was asked to leave the meeting. I was so concerned about that that I went back and I made a detailed note of what happened at the meeting and I had it computer-stamped so that it was verified. I also made a phone call to colleagues and said: "I understand there is another meeting taking place of the childrens panel or child protection panel or whatever it was called then, although that meeting is in another building and that you might be getting drawn into this agenda at another meeting" and true enough. I was able to speak to a senior officer who had been at that meeting who said that when they had gone into the meeting they had been confronted with a ready- prepared motion of no confidence prepared by civil servants on Stuart Syvret, the Minister for Health and Social Services and they were asked to vote on it and the senior officer rightly said: "I am sorry, I

am a police officer, I am having nothing to do with it, it is politics" and came out and so we both recorded that. But that again was I think a reflection that the relationship between ourselves and the Chief Executive and some of the key players was starting to go downhill because it was clear to me that the Chief Minister at the time had wanted these 2 bodies to meet and to communicate a lack of confidence in the Minister for Health and Social Services which would have given him more ammunition to take the matter forward to the Council of Ministers and to the States and there is quite a bit of documented history on that from my perspective because I wanted to make notes and I wrote everything down. When other people get asked for their notes they do not seem to have any, but that is the history of that and I think that whatever, I have no opinions whatsoever on Stuart Syvret's value as a Minister for Health and Social Services and whether or not he deserved to be dismissed, I am completely neutral on the subject. What I am absolutely sure of is that nobody was going to drag me as Chief of Police into that process and by refusing to participate in that process I caused a good deal of tension between myself, the Chief Executive and some senior politicians.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

Okay, well thanks for clarifying that. I will have to leave it there, Mr. Power, as we have run out of time. Can I thank you again for speaking to us. It has been helpful. We are on a tight schedule now to get the report finished but it has been very useful, so on behalf of the panel, thank you.

Mr. G. Power:

Thank you again. Thank you.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

If it is okay we are going to have a quick 5 or 10 minute break and then we shall reconvene.

[12:14]