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Public Accounts Committee Performance Management Follow-Up Review Witness: Chief Officer, External Relations
Tuesday, 27th June 2023
Panel:
Deputy L.V. Feltham of St. Helier Central (Chair) Deputy M.B. Andrews of St. Helier North (Vice-Chair) Deputy T.A. Coles of St. Helier South
Mr. P. Taylor
Mr. G. Phipps
Ms. L. Pamment, Comptroller and Auditor General
Witnesses:
Ms. K. Nutt, Chief Officer, External Relations Mr. T. Le Feuvre, Director, External Relations
[11:57]
Deputy L.V. Feltham of St. Helier Central (Chair):
Welcome to this public hearing of the Public Accounts Committee. Today is Tuesday, 27th June, and we are holding a public hearing with the Chief Officer for the External Relations Department as part of our review into performance management and the governance of health and social care. Of course, not health and social care when it comes to you.
Chief Officer, External Relations: I hope not. [Laughter]
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
I would like to draw everyone's attention to the following. This hearing will be filmed and streamed live. The recording and transcript will be published afterwards on the States Assembly website. All electronic devices, including mobile phones, should be switched to silent. I would ask for any members of the public who have joined us in the room today to not interfere in the proceedings and as soon as the hearing is closed please leave quietly. For the purpose of the recording and the transcript, I would be grateful if everyone who speaks could ensure that you state your name and role. We will begin with introductions. I will start with the committee members first, followed by the Chief Executive. I am Deputy Lyndsay Feltham and I am Chair of the Public Accounts Committee.
Deputy M.B. Andrews of St. Helier North :
I am Deputy Max Andrews . I am Vice-Chair of the Public Accounts Committee.
Deputy T.A. Coles of St. Helier South : Deputy Tom Coles .
Mr. P. Taylor :
Philip Taylor , lay member.
Mr. G. Phipps :
Graeme Phipps , lay member.
Comptroller and Auditor General:
I am Lynn Pamment, the Comptroller and Auditor General.
Chief Officer, External Relations:
I am Kate Nutt. I am the Chief Officer of External Relations.
Director, External Relations:
I am Tom Le Feuvre. I am the Director of External Relations.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Thank you. We have quite a few questions for you today. We only have an hour so we would appreciate shortish but full answers to the questions. I am going to hand over to Deputy Andrews who will begin.
Deputy M.B. Andrews :
Kate, in terms of your personal objectives, what is the process in terms of how are your personal objectives set and how are they appraised throughout the year as well?
[12:00]
Chief Officer, External Relations:
Okay. So I think it is really important when talking about External Relations objectives, both my objectives, Tom as my director, but also throughout the whole department, to use as a starting point the common policy on External Relations. So that was a policy that was debated by the States Assembly in September last year and was agreed by the Council of Ministers and published in November. That is a framework, essentially, that sets the direction of travel for External Relations activity over the course of this Administration. So my objectives are directly linked into that common policy. It is also important to say in terms of that thread that beneath the common policy we obviously also have our ministerial plan and then our 2023 delivery plan as well. So there is, as I said, a very straight thread from the top, from quite high-level strategy through to a more granular delivery plan. My objectives in some respects are a direct lift from bits of the delivery plan. So there will be things in that delivery plan that I am on the hook to deliver, as indeed is Tom. There will be other bits, there will be other aspects of my objectives that are about broader support to delivering those ambitions, but they then filter down below me, of course, into the heads of service across department and into the overseas offices as well. In respect of the process for setting the objectives, I have had a number of discussions with the C.E.O. (Chief Executive Officer). So I have monthly meetings with the C.E.O. where we talk about delivery against the common policy, delivery against the ministerial plan and delivery plan. We talk about challenges and risks, and all of those things go into shaping what I have to deliver during the year as well. I also have ministerial meetings as well, so twice a week I meet the Minister for External Relations. We have an up to 2-hour session on Monday and Friday as well, and that is another opportunity to shape and to test my delivery. I think the final thing I would say, noting the point on being succinct, is that External Relations' activity is not set in stone. A lot of the time what we are doing can be a bit reactive to what is going on in the world, so our objectives have to be ... they kind of evolve as well throughout the year. So it is very important that we have that 360 feedback process to inform the setting and delivery.
Deputy M.B. Andrews :
Of course, being a Chief Officer, how do you ensure that everybody is tasked within the department to carry out the common policy and to ensure that everything is done in the correct way as well?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
Of course. So we have quite a robust structure underneath the common policy. I have mentioned the 2 high-level plans, but underneath those plans we have the business plans of the overseas offices. I am responsible for platforms in London, Brussels and France. They have annual business plans that are set and they very closely mirror the commitments that are in the central plans themselves. There are also a number of strategies. So, for example, if you look at the common policy, one of the key critical deliverables for us is making sure that we have a positive relationship with the U.K. (United Kingdom). It is important on so many fronts. One of the key ways in which we do that is to deliver through ministerial engagement, through engagement with parliamentarians in the U.K., with Whitehall contacts. So how do I make sure that my London team is doing that? Well, they have a U.K. affairs strategy which outlines who the contacts are that we need to be talking to, why do we need to contact, why do we need to speak to them, how we are going to do it. That is what they are held to account against and that is replicated across the whole department.
Deputy M.B. Andrews :
So if I was to ask you what are your individual personal objectives that are set out, say, for the next 12 months?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
Yes, of course. So I have objectives around the relationship with the U.K., the relationship with France, broader European engagement. So we have priority countries. Either they are very important because of their standing in Europe, because we have important communities on the Island that we need to engage with, or they may be important for other policy reasons. So, European engagement, absolutely. Effective implementation of the sanctions regime is so important and has risen in importance over the last couple of years. Objectives around effective international engagement, around our profile and our reputation, so what are we doing outside the U.K. and the E.U. (European Union) to work with and grow our relationships with target markets? I do have some personal objectives there as well around my own personal growth.
Mr. P. Taylor :
So can you give me an example of ... you said you have objectives regarding the relationship and activity in France. Can you give a bit more colour to that?
Chief Officer, External Relations: Yes, of course.
Mr. P. Taylor :
What does that actually mean? What does the objective look like?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
What does that mean in practice? So the objective with France ... I mean, it is quite high level but it does go into some more granular metrics. So the headliner is making sure that we have a much improved relationship regionally with France, with Normandy and Brittany, because there was
damage caused by Brexit, which played out unfortunately in the public domain, but also strong links into and docking points into Paris. What does that mean in practice? It means that we need to have renewed and refreshed partnership agreements with Brittany and Normandy. We have just signed a new agreement with Brittany over the last few weeks and then we have renewed the one with Ille- et-Vilaine. We have a Normandy summit in September so that will be making sure that we sign that partnership agreement, which commits both sides to a wide range of co-operation activities. Another outcome from my objective is around our profile within France, so an actual directed marketing strategy which targets particular stakeholders and particular media outlets as well. Another objective is around co-ordinating what Government as a whole is doing in France, because there is a huge amount of work going on. It is not just External Relations. We have conversations, as you know, that are happening with the policy team on renewable energy. We have had conversations with Home Affairs and the U.K. Home Office on free movement of people, French travellers coming over. The economy team is really active locally. There is lots going on in culture, arts and heritage as well, a huge amount. One of my objectives is to make sure that the External Relations Department manages that and co-ordinates it in an effective way. We have a cross-government France working group that pulls all of these stakeholders together and makes sure that we can do that.
Director, External Relations:
I think there is another example where you can see the direct role of External Relations. So External Relations has negotiated with the Foreign Office the ability to make use by our officials of the British Embassy platform in Paris. We recognise that although we have deep and historic ties with the 2 regions in France that are closest to us, of course, we need to build our ties with Paris as well. So there is a new agreement which came into force just within the last 12 months. What it means is that Jersey officials for up to 5 days every month can work in the British Embassy platform in Paris. That has symbolic value but, of course, it has real practical value by tying our teams into broader U.K. diplomatic effort at the centre of decision-making in France. That would not have happened if we had not negotiated the agreement.
Mr. P. Taylor :
In setting the objective, so smart, measurable, achievable and timely, the old smart stuff, is it by the end of next year you will have put in place a new agreement with France?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
Yes. It absolutely is. Partnership agreements are renewed annually, all new agreements that have been placed ...
Mr. P. Taylor :
The relationship with France will be improved?
Chief Officer, External Relations: Yes.
Mr. P. Taylor :
Measured by what? I am just trying to get a feel for it.
Chief Officer, External Relations: Yes, absolutely.
Mr. P. Taylor :
How will anybody know?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
That is a really, really good question and that is a challenge that we have across foreign affairs activity. It is very difficult to measure influence and positive engagement. So the types of things that we would look at would be the level of access that we get. So when things were going wrong with Brexit, it was very difficult to get ministerial engagement, political engagement, good quality meetings. You would get perhaps a level of negative media that would be running about Jersey. It would be those sorts of issues, so how do we measure that we have made a difference? That access has improved. We have politicians that want to meet with us, that want to co-operate across a range of areas. You have a change in the mood, a change in the messaging about Jersey and what we are about.
Director, External Relations:
They cluster into visibility, access and connectivity. So visibility we tend to measure through local media coverage as well as international media coverage and social media. You can see whether it is, broadly speaking, positive or negative. Connectivity we measure in terms of international treaties primarily. That is the most tangible one. So have we succeeded in negotiating a set number of international agreements with a partner in any given year? Then on access, as Kate says, it is about what is the quality, the seniority, the frequency with which decision-makers in another country will sit down with our decision-makers. We do that through regular engagement but also high-impact inward and outward visits. Those visits, of course, also contribute to visibility so there is an interconnection between those.
Mr. P. Taylor :
Sorry, Chair, I have taken up your time. [Laughter]
Mr. G. Phipps :
One last quick follow-up on that: do you actually then go to your customer, in effect, or your target, do you actually go to them and ask for specific feedback on how well you are doing and get feedback from the people you are trying to interact with in some formalised way that you can document relative performance year over year?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
I think there is definitely something around ... so what do I say in terms of feedback? I can give an example in terms of Brussels and the European Commission. There was a particular policy area that we were really struggling on and the relationship we had with the commissioner with responsibility was ... there was some tension there. It was a bit difficult. So how do I measure that we have made a difference over a period of time? Yes, we get better access to him now. The meetings are more positive. They are more cordial. He is proactive in engaging with us and has actually sent us 2 pieces of correspondence over the last year that has said: "Thank you for all of your engagement. Thank you for working to find solutions. I think we are in a much better place." So it is not ...
Mr. G. Phipps :
You do not have a proactive, you know, where you specifically ask for that, but you do respond when you get feedback? Is that where you are at right now?
Chief Officer, External Relations: Yes.
Director, External Relations:
I think you also see that in terms of inward and outward visits, for example, particularly inward visits. Ambassadors who are accredited in London have very busy jobs there. They are not required to come to Jersey, although they have a technical responsibility for it. I think our success has been in attracting some of those very senior diplomats to come and spend time and visit these Islands. They would not do that if they did not want to. Ultimately, we have limited pulling power and I think, generally speaking, we try and punch above our weight to secure that. The other areas where you get a very tangible one, one of my direct objectives is around working very closely with the team at Revenue Jersey around international tax policy. So there, for example, the European Union regularly assesses Jersey as to whether it views it as co-operative or non-co-operative according to a set of objective standards that it assesses. We have worked extremely hard indeed to ensure that our status has remained as white listed from the beginning of that list in 2017 until now. That is an ongoing process, they are constantly revising that standard, but if you are looking for a practical metric of how do they determine your status, that is not a bad one.
Deputy M.B. Andrews :
I just have one more question. In relation to the Minister for External Relations, what feedback have you received from him during this term of office so far?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
So my understanding is that the Chief Executive sought 360 feedback from the Minister and that was given. I think that was broadly positive. As I said previously, I engage with my Minister on a regular basis. It is pretty much daily. We have set meetings every week and that is an opportunity for him to have a candid discussion with me about what we are doing as a department and whether we are meeting his expectations and ambitions. I can assure you they are candid discussions.
Deputy M.B. Andrews : Oh, good. [Laughter]
Mr. P. Taylor :
There is a supplementary I would not be allowed to ask so I am not going to ask it. [Laughter]
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Okay. We might put that in writing then.
Chief Officer, External Relations: You can ask me afterwards.
Deputy L.V. Feltham : Carry on.
Mr. G. Phipps :
I will just switch a little bit, more focused on the appraisal process. Can you explain what support is available to you and to your senior officers with regard to setting objectives, undertaking appraisals, seeking feedback, those kind of things?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
So in External Relations we always had objectives so I would not say that ... the interaction with My Conversation, My Goals and Connect People, Connect Performance, is a really positive thing for the organisation. My department has always had objectives and I have always had objectives, and we have always managed the process in a structured way with midyear reviews and end-of-year reviews and regular catch-ups between staff and line managers. We also, as I said at the beginning, have a fairly mature process for agreeing the objectives and the ambitions of the department for the term of an Administration and also each year. So in terms of the support that I think I need, it probably is relatively light touch. What I need is a chief executive, a boss, that I can have an open conversation with about the risks and the challenges that I am facing and how that is going to impact on my delivery. Those are the sorts of discussions and that is the sort of support that I have had with the current Chief Executive and it is an ongoing, regular level of support as well. It is not a docking in at the beginning of the year and then you are kind of left to your own devices. It needs to be a regular and ongoing set of discussions. So I think that has been important and that has been a level of support to me. I think having the systems that we have in place now as well, it is useful because it provides a way of formalising and standardising the objective setting across that chief officer group, which is really important.
[12:15]
Mr. G. Phipps :
So, apparently not, but if any of your senior officers were struggling in understanding this whole process, you feel there are resources you can go to and bring in to help these people with their capabilities with respect to objective setting, performance appraisals, all this sort of stuff?
Chief Officer, External Relations: Yes, I absolutely do.
Mr. G. Phipps :
You are comfortable with that?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
We have a business manager. So practically we have a business manager in External Relations and that person does provide on-the-ground support to staff if they are struggling with the systems. In terms of the actual objective setting as well, there are lots of touchpoints and docking-in points for my team to me and to Tom and to their line managers. So twice a month I have senior management sessions which involve the heads of unit as well as directors of the overseas offices. Once a month we have a whole department meeting. I know that my line managers are meeting regularly with their staff reports as well, so those conversations are rolling and ongoing. I think there is a lot of opportunity to raise issues and to get support within the department.
Mr. G. Phipps :
So regarding your quarterly performance appraisal review meeting, that is an example of specifically how you address performance and tied to objectives? You are comfortable with that process?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
Do you want to come in as a ... you know, answer for you. [Laughter]
Director, External Relations:
Perhaps to just give another ... no, not at all, I agree with everything you said, but to give perhaps some additional practical perspective, External Relations is a very small department. Our F.T.E. (full-time equivalent) headcount total is less than 30. So in an environment where you are less than 30 colleagues, despite the fact that you are split across different platforms, I think it just makes it practically easier to ensure that you have a personal relationship with every officer in the department but also I think a very good degree of oversight of their individual delivery and activities. I think that is not possible in the same way for much larger departments so I am not seeking to make comparisons, but I think it makes the task of holding individuals to account, providing them with the right resources, making sure that their needs are met, supporting them where they have particular pressure points, it is just easier when it is smaller. So I think that that is a bit of contextual information, I suppose, that makes the task easier. What I think that means in practice is that I would argue that we have an ongoing discussion with the team about the work that they are engaged in because it is small enough that when we have these regular departmental meetings there are opportunities for most individuals to update on what they are getting on with. So in addition to, if you like, the formal structures for performance review and appraisal, I think you have an ongoing dialogue under way. We have arranged the team in a way that there are these functional layers so you have these discrete teams so that that level of decision-making and accountability should translate both upwards as well as downwards.
Mr. G. Phipps :
That same relationship also applies to your relationship with the Chief Executive Officer and the kind of discussions you would have quarterly or whatever regarding performance objectives, tracking, that is ...?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
Yes, I think that is a fair reflection, yes, for me personally.
Mr. G. Phipps :
A fair assessment?
Chief Officer, External Relations: Yes, it is.
Mr. G. Phipps :
Okay. That is all I had.
Mr. P. Taylor :
I am trying to think of an example of the best way for me to pursue this question. I am number 29, a lowly official in the department, and one of the department's objectives, as you say, is to make sure that the whole of government is networked so as you know what the Economic Development Department is doing, you know what everybody else is doing. What would my objective look like in that regard as a lowly official and how would you monitor how I am doing it, how well I am doing it?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
So, as I said at the beginning, the objectives cascade down. A junior member of staff within a team will have a very ... their objectives will be very clearly set and defined in terms of delivery for their area of work. One of the objectives I would ... what I would expect to see reflected in those objectives would be the importance of engagement with, for example, other officers that are working in other departments and other areas in the same sorts of spaces as them. So you would be meeting with them regularly. You would be building relationships with those team members so you understand what your counterparts are also delivering. One of the things that we do have ...
Mr. P. Taylor :
You said you would expect the objective to be, so you do not know whether it is or it is not?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
I have not reviewed all 29 sets of objectives but I do have confidence that those objectives from me through Tom are cascaded down in a way that would reflect that sort of outcome.
Director, External Relations:
To give a different example, a practical example ...
Mr. P. Taylor :
I thought I did give a practical example but ...
Director, External Relations:
Well, no, an additional practical example. We have created something called the global co- ordination group, rather grand sounding. What it actually seeks to do is to bring together all the government departments who are engaged in some aspect of international activity, together with arm's length organisations of the Government of Jersey and then associated partners, so, for example, Jersey Overseas Aid, which obviously is separate to Government but clearly does a lot of
international work. That group meets quarterly and the idea is it should function as a clearing house. So it would say: "We have a particular initiative going on with Rwanda. Who else is interested in ...", whether it is education links, cultural diplomacy, climate change, the range of different issues that could be in play with Rwanda so that we pull all that together. One of the very junior members ... I would not call them lowly but I call them high-potential members ...
Mr. P. Taylor :
I was watching "Yes, Minister" you see.
Director, External Relations:
That person serves as the secretariat to that group, so it is absolutely their job to make sure that they co-ordinated with all the departments, got the inputs they request, organise the agenda, help put together the minutes and tasked up the actions. So in a practical way they are contributing to our ability to pull different stakeholders together in respect of a particular country.
Mr. P. Taylor :
That is the job as opposed to how well they are doing the job. Performance management is about how well they are doing it.
Director, External Relations:
The objectives that we look at would be: what is the attendance like at the global co-ordination group? How well are we doing at ensuring it is not just External Relations that is talking and others listening but that we are getting other stakeholders to present and share what they are doing with the audience? So that is looking really at the effectiveness of this group ...
Mr. P. Taylor :
But not of that individual?
Director, External Relations:
That individual's role is to then make sure the agenda is put together to deliver that effectiveness.
Chief Officer, External Relations:
What you would do as part of the performance process would be to seek feedback from outside of the department on their delivery of the secretariat function that Tom has described. So that would be a measure.
Director, External Relations:
We have changed the agenda to break it up and better reflect what the participants want from it so that not only is the group functioning administratively more effectively but the content of the discussions is better, too.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Just while we are on that point, you mentioned before Connect Performance and the implementation of that.
Chief Officer, External Relations: Yes.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Has it been implemented and fully embedded now within your department?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
Yes. I would not say ... yes, it has. I would not say it has not been without challenge, which you will have heard from other chief officers as well. So there have been some issues around reporting lines and connectivity between line managers and individual staff. I think there were teething problems that were clearly replicated across the organisation. They have been resolved now, so all members of staff within External Relations that are within scope of Connect now have their objectives set and their objectives have been cleared with their managers and they are now going through their midyear review process.
Deputy T.A. Coles :
How many of your 30 staff are within that scope?
Chief Officer, External Relations: Fourteen.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
So does that then help ... you mentioned earlier that you as Chief Officer have not previously had oversight of all your staff's objectives. How does Connect Performance help you as Chief Officer to understand the broader objectives of individuals in your department and their performance against those?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
I would say as it stands in terms of functionality Connect probably does not provide me with that assurance. What it does provide me with is oversight of where we are as a department in the cycle, in the annual cycle. Obviously, there is more functionality to come online and I think some of those things will come when that is available. But I think at the moment it is quite useful that I can see the stats around who submitted, what is with line managers, what has been signed off, who has done their midyear review, and I did not have that before at my fingertips. We did know it because I would go out manually. We are a small team and you go out manually and seek that information, but it is just easier now to have that data ready to go.
Mr. P. Taylor :
I do not think I am flogging a theme but I will just the same. If you have someone who is not your level, a bit lower, perhaps not performing as you would hope, have you got an example of that situation, without naming names or anything, about what you have done about it? Has there been an improvement or otherwise? It is about performance management you were talking about.
Chief Officer, External Relations:
It is performance management. So Tom alluded to it before. As a small team, if I can put it this way, there is not really anywhere to hide. Everybody knows what other people are supposed to be doing. If someone is not delivering, it will be felt by a wider group of people. I have to be honest and say we have not had performance management issues within my department within my tenure in this post. I do not know whether you want to comment any further on that.
Director, External Relations:
Well, I think that one of the ways of thinking about External Relations is that it is a policy-focused department and it is quite a specific sort of department. If you want to work in international relations, there are not very many other areas you go to. So if you happen to have developed an interest in that area, then I think External Relations is an attractive employer. I think that that gives us a great strength as a recruiter. We tend to be able to recruit very bright, highly motivated people. I think our challenge is around retaining them over the longer term. When you consider, in my view anyway, that diplomacy is a long-term sort of thing about building up relationships, cultivating strong connections over time, retention is important. At the same time, we are hugely fortunate in being able to get very bright people who want to come and work for us and then they go off and do other things and hopefully at some point they might come back. But that is our challenge rather than typically a performance management challenge.
Chief Officer, External Relations:
The nature of the team means that in a way you have a bigger pool in which you can recruit as well because you are recruiting through London office, you are recruiting in Brussels and France. I think that has an effect on levels of capability and commitment as well within the team.
Mr. P. Taylor :
Okay. Now, as you said, you have offices at an arm's length. Can you describe to me how you are monitoring the objectives for the people who are working in those offices and their performance and how you feed back to them?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
So I think the first thing to say about the overseas offices is they are an integral part of the department. They are set up as the London office a limited company, the other 2 are charitable foundations. They are set up that way because that is the way we have to employ people overseas, but they are an integral part of the department. There is, therefore, an expectation that they absolutely will deliver on the objectives that I have set centrally, we have set centrally, within the team here. So how do we do that? Well, we follow the normal process that you would do for an independent entity, a separate entity. We have a board. I give you again the London office as an example. On that board I am on the board. I have another member of the policy department not related to External Relations. I have a member of the commercial team on the board and I have an external person as well. We also have Treasury and finance colleagues sitting in, too. That office has a business plan. That is reviewed and refreshed and updated annually. At quarterly board meetings we run through the delivery against that business plan. They have to write an end-of-year report and review and that is a key facet for us. That is replicated with the other overseas offices as well. It is a little bit more complicated with France and Brussels because they are joint with Guernsey, so there needs to be a little bit more flexibility there but, broadly speaking, we follow the same process. In terms of individual objectives I do not have Connect functionality within those offices but, as I said at the beginning, we have always had an objective-setting process within External Relations. I make sure at the beginning of the year, for example, that the director of the London office has objectives in place, up to 6 delivery objectives and some personal development objectives as well. We meet regularly to discuss those. That gets replicated in Brussels and France and, as with the Jersey team, those objectives flow down to other members of staff.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Can I just ask a simple question? It might be a stupid question. Why do those staff in those offices not have access to the Connect system?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
The Belgium and French offices are on different networks and it would be a challenge, I think, because of the Guernsey component to say: "You have to follow Jersey H.R. (human resources) process and procedure." So I think that is just not a conversation that we would want to pursue. With the process that we have in place it might be a bit more manual but it works and it works for both Islands. For the London office I would like to pursue it. I would like them to have access to Connect in due course and better access to our networks as well.
Director, External Relations:
Yes, the practical difference being, as Kate said, for the France office and the Brussels office, those are joint resources with Guernsey so we could not ... I do not think we would want to insist that they subscribe to the Jersey model of performance framework in the same way that Guernsey would not do that in return. Clearly, with the U.K. office, if we could get beyond the technical challenge, then that is a wholly Jersey owned resource and there should not be any reason why they should not be able to be integrated over time.
[12:30]
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
So when it comes to performance objectives for those individuals, how are those performance objectives determined? Are they determined in conjunction with Guernsey?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
Yes. So, generally speaking, the chair of the board rotates between Jersey and Guernsey so that the current chair would have responsibility for management of performance for the year for that director. In respect of the London office, as I said before, that is a conversation that I have with the director and we set objectives and manage them.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
In that instance how do you ensure consistency with the ministerial objectives and the ministerial plan?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
What we find with Brussels and France ... so with London it is easier because it is just a Jersey office and by and large their objectives, as you would expect, are about a positive relationship with the U.K., great engagement, great access, visibility, all those sorts of things, supporting other Government of Jersey departments to deliver their objectives through U.K. interaction. What you find with Brussels and France, yes, it is a bit more challenging because you have the Guernsey angle, but by and large our objectives on that platform, on that stage, are the same. There is a lot of synergy between my ministerial plan and my delivery plan and what my counterpart in Guernsey has as his objective for his department. The sorts of things you see, to give an example, would be objectives around financial services, around tax, around data sharing, around engagement on big policy issues like climate change, et cetera. They are a commonality across those objectives for both Jersey and Guernsey, so it works.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Okay. I am going to hand over to Deputy Coles .
Deputy T.A. Coles :
Moving back towards the people within your department, the people doing the groundwork, it sounds like you are saying there is a fair turnover of staff?
Director, External Relations:
Well, I do not know if it is particularly significant relative to elsewhere. One thing that is certainly true is that we also recruit people, as we have said, in London, in Brussels, in France, and I think that those can be quite competitive markets. Certainly, speaking for the U.K., at the moment it is an extremely tight labour market and there is a reasonable amount of movement. But I think that it is really a mixed bag. If I think back, because we are a small department, on the individuals and what they have done, we have one former member of staff who is now working for a U.N. (United Nations) organisation. Another one has now gone to an E.U./U.K. think tank. A couple of them, who were a bit younger, have decided to go and travel and pursue their interests outside of Jersey, and in many ways I am quite jealous. The point is I do not think there has been anyone who has had an exit that is due to them not enjoying their work. The exits that we have seen recently have either been because of progression or personal interest or, in one case, because they determined they were not going to buy a house in Jersey, that was going to be difficult for them, and they moved back to the U.K. So the turnover is what it is, but I would say that the reason is not to do with their experience of working in the department, which is I guess the bit that we control. That is my view of it.
Chief Officer, External Relations: I think that is right.
Deputy T.A. Coles :
Do you have any way that you measure the satisfaction of your employees?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
Yes, we do. The department has taken part in the first ... or the last Be Heard survey before the current one, in 2021. That was an interesting way of measuring feedback from the team. There was a lot of good feedback from that survey around respect from the team, around satisfaction with work, the variety of work, around the flexibility of working in External Relations, good relationships with line managers. There were some focus points in there which do feed into your question around staff retention. One of the things we struggle with as a small team is career development and career progression because we do not have vacancies in lots of different areas. So there is a piece of work that we need to do and it is now under way looking at professional development for foreign affairs professionals in the Government of Jersey. How do we measure or how do we articulate the skills that are required at each level? How do we articulate the types of training that should be undertaken? How do we give people an opportunity to go out of the team and experience working in other teams in Jersey but also for other Governments as well to help them grow? How do I manage that while keeping my business working? So that was a theme that did come out of the 2021 survey and it is something that I know I need to do and we need to do more with. I did also conduct a Pulse survey earlier this year because I wanted to test the temperature of the team. Again, a lot of the same themes came out of that, and obviously we are taking part in the Be Heard survey now. So that has been a mechanism, I think, for seeking that feedback.
Deputy T.A. Coles :
Are you generally happy that the employee satisfaction and morale within your area is at a high level?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
I do not want to speak for team members so I can only speak in terms of my perception. Yes, I think so. Again, because it is a small team, everybody knows each other. You kind of know when things are not going well and when someone is not happy, and that means that you can step in to find out why and try and address it. So I think the morale generally is good and from my perspective I think it is a high-performing team. It is an engaged team, an energetic team, that covers a huge amount of ground and some really difficult areas as well. So I think the culture and morale is good.
Director, External Relations:
I think the level of commitment from the team is also very good. So one of the things that happens with External Relations is that you are influenced by outside events. It is just the nature of what we do. That means there are particular peaks and troughs in terms of work. So, to take 2 recent examples, we recently hosted the British-Irish Council. External Relations was primarily engaged in the hosting of that. That involved pretty much everyone across the department and was a huge effort. It involved weekend working and lots of extra things for people to do. People volunteered to be involved with that and to really contribute to the work of the department. I think that in itself says something about individuals' level of engagement, but it is also the case for us as the leadership that we then have to recognise that when you have had one of these spikes you need to make sure that you have a period when people can recover and get back to normal, recognising it will not be possible to be totally flat out all the time. All of the work around Brexit, for example, was another one. There was a huge number of those decisions. Those of you that were involved in the
parliamentary aspect will remember it was all around Christmas/New Year. It was very, very difficult. That was the timing of that negotiation. I think we are always in External Relations going to have to have a little bit of flexibility, but I think what is important for us as the managers, I suppose, is to recognise that and try and find ways to balance that out for people at the time.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Just before we move on to the next question, you mentioned in one of your previous answers that you had taken a decision to undertake a Pulse survey.
Chief Officer, External Relations: Yes.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
What was the reasoning behind taking that decision? What did you hope to get out of it, especially given that you knew the Be Heard survey was coming?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
Well, at that point I was not 100 per cent sure the Be Heard survey was going to happen at the point at which they were saying or we had been told it was going to happen. So I thought there might be some slippage, and looking at the timeframe and everything that has happened, we had the 2021 Be Heard. You still had the comments tail of COVID going on. For my team we have had some, as Tom mentioned, peaks and troughs. We have had Russia's invasion of Ukraine. We have again the comments tail of Brexit work. I wanted to see how my team were and how they were doing and the Pulse survey, looking at a smaller number of targeted questions, was a mechanism for me to do that. That was purely the thinking behind it. I think the Be Heard survey as well is not just about your department, it is about reflections on the organisation as a whole and I wanted something that was a bit more targeted as well for the team.
Director, External Relations:
Perhaps the other addition to that is the original Be Heard survey at that time did not include the overseas offices.
Chief Officer, External Relations: No, it did not, no.
Director, External Relations:
So we wanted to do our own one that expressly would include our overseas offices, recognising they are a significant part of our workforce, so it provided us with a holistic perspective, additional information. Just to add to that, I would say that we have secured the involvement of the overseas offices in the new Be Heard survey so that issue has been corrected to get this extra data.
Deputy T.A. Coles :
Did you get a good response to the Pulse survey?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
Yes, we did. I think it was 100 per cent or thereabouts, yes. So everybody took part and, as I said, similar sorts of themes coming out from Be Heard as well as similar sorts of issues around progression that I do need to tackle.
Mr. P. Taylor :
The Government-wide Pulse survey, how often is that carried out? Is it a regular quarterly thing or ...?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
I think it is twice ... it is every 2 years, I think, is the plan.
Deputy T.A. Coles :
So the Team Jersey programme on workplace that was following the 2018 One.Gov reforms, did that have any impact on your department and what can you tell us about it?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
I think it did have a positive impact. So what would I say about Team Jersey? Obviously, you had the inception of My Conversation, My Goals, and that was the start of quite a long journey that we are on. We are not quite there yet, but I think that was a positive thing, standardising objective setting, articulating the importance of performance management and the value that goes along with that to staff. So I think that was a really constructive thing coming out of Team Jersey. I think the development and the access of different streams of training was really important. We did not have anything like that before. Particularly for managers, the suite of courses that were available was something again that had not been given to staff on such a scale previously. So I think the training was really important. I think the embedding of the values across the organisation ... so a lot of the values that we have are things that came out in our ... reflected physically in our Be Heard survey. I think they really resonated with my team and having those articulated for the organisation as a whole and reiterated was really important as well. I think Be Heard was also the start of our journey on diversity, equity and inclusion. So we are at a point now I think we have 7 or 8 networks. I started the I Will network in 2019 and that was partially driven by some of the changes that Team Jersey was beginning to drive. We are in a much better place, a much more mature place in that area as well, and a lot of my team have been proactively involved in those networks. We are very active in the Team Jersey programme, too. So I think there has been a positive impact.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Talking about performance, the service performance measures, please can you explain how the service performance measures listed on the Jersey performance framework were determined as metrics to reflect the performance of the External Relations Department?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
So as we said before, I think it is always quite a challenge for us to set concrete metrics, things you can measure from your engagement. But what happened on the back of Brexit was that we had to have a rethink and a reconsideration of what the team looked like and the types of priorities that we had. One of the things that we did was establish the global relations team, which was about looking at Jersey's engagement outside the U.K. and E.U. It was a really important thing for us to be doing more of. We had to develop the narrative around it, the arguments for it, and part of the arguments around it had to involve metrics. So why are you doing this and how are we going to measure your performance were the types of things that were discussed and agreed in conjunction with the team. So it was not a decision that had been taken by Tom or I, it was very much an evolving discussion with the department: how do we do this? The types of things that came up were meaningful interaction with international stakeholders. That is about the types of things we were talking about earlier, access to foreign Ministers, the frequency that we get to see them, the types of things we were talking about, so meaningful interactions. Positive or neutral media coverage; that is about our reputation and our profile. That is one way in which we can measure those things. Another performance indicator we have, which is actually a concrete one, is around the number of international agreements that we manage to negotiate each year. In a post-Brexit world where Jersey is looking to do more itself on the international stage, negotiate agreements, double taxation agreements, bilateral investment treaties, a whole suite of agreements, measuring the number that we are doing every year is a sensible metric. So the indicators really of I think that shift and change in the department came out of a conversation with staff members. It was very much an inclusive process and they had been developed over the course of those 3 or 4 years, which is how we have come up with the actual quantum of the metric as well. They are relevant to the delivery of the whole department, not just the global relations strategy.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
How do you involve the Minister in the discussion around the development of metrics?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
I think that is an ongoing discussion with the Minister, given that we have regular engagement with him. We will talk about meaningful engagement; for example, you would look at what meetings have taken place, what meetings he has had, I have had, the rest of the department have had, the frequency of those, the level of access, and then you also look forward as well to what is coming up to make sure that we are in a position to be delivering on that indicator. If there are clearly areas that he thinks we are not measuring that we should be measuring, then that is also a discussion that we have had. But I think, broadly speaking, he is content and happy with where we are currently on this.
[12:45]
Director, External Relations:
You have your headline metrics, so the service and performance measures are the ones, the 4 that we have just listed. Underpinning that as a department we have a broader number of them that look at a bit more detail. So, for example, if we are talking about this question of access, clearly, to step back for a second, the logic behind it was to say access is important. In other words, do the other partners want to see us or not and how often and at what level of seniority? Visibility matters because when you are small do they know who you are, and when they talk about you do they do it in a positive or neutral way? Then what sort of relationship in formal legal terms do they want with you? So those are the things that we thought were a reasonable way to try and measure the effect of diplomacy, although in this case it is a difficult area. But within them, so if you take access, for example, we will have sub-indicators. It could be something as simple as: are we invited to the national day hosted by the embassy of that priority Government in London that year? That is something that gives you some indication on whether they like you or not or whether they see you as this ... you have a level of visibility with them. What is the level of exchange of correspondence? It is not just us writing to them, but do they respond and how do they respond to us and with what kind of frequency? So there are things that are too granular, if you like, for the service performance measures but they contribute to our assessment of whether it is working or not. Then, as Kate says, we have adjusted them over time. So to give 2 examples of that, in agreements one new area of activity post Brexit is participation in U.K. free trade agreements. So that is a new type of agreement that we can participate in now post Brexit that we could not before. So we have added that in. The other big area we have added is around international compliance and sanctions. Again, a much greater chunk of the department's resource is now invested in the work to particularly make sure that the Russia and Belorussia sanctions regimes are applied effectively in Jersey. Between March 2022 and now that team has more than doubled in size. I guess that is a good example of us trying to manage resources or adjust to a changing international landscape because that work has become massively more central to the overall functioning of the department.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Then when it comes to the metrics of things that you are measuring, what evidence or what work have you done to ensure that that is actually delivering on outcomes for the Island?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
Again, that is quite tricky for External Relations. You look at ... so a good one would be sanctions again, so what we need to have an effective sanctions regime. Because if we do not, that would massively affect our reputation. It would affect our profile. It would affect us economically as well. So making sure ... so one of the performance indicators is that we are publishing designations within I think it is 24 hours ... I cannot remember off the top of my head. You have them there. That performance metric directly has ... by meeting the 90 per cent or plus 90 per cent that directly has a positive outcome for the Island in terms of how we are perceived, the strength of our financial services regulation, our approach to A.M.L. (anti money laundering) and C.F.T. (countering the financing of terrorism). All of those things, which are really important for the strength of the financial services industry and the strength of our economy, are affected by a positive outcome on that particular metric.
Director, External Relations:
To give you 2 examples of the outcome, if you like, and to show how these things are interconnected as performance measures, if we take sanctions, obviously we do not go into the detail of Government correspondence between Jersey and elsewhere, but in correspondence from the U.K. they have clearly indicated they hugely value the work that Jersey has done to robustly implement the Russia/Belorussia sanctions regime. So that is evidence, if you like, that the work here is noticed over there and contributes to Jersey's positive impression on that policy area. To give another example, the joint statement that External Relations, financial services and the J.F.S.C. (Jersey Financial Services Commission) did around our changing risk appetite in relation to Russia/Belorussia business, that was recently picked up by a U.K. think tank, the Royal United Services Institute, R.U.S.I., which is quite well known. They cited that as an example of what they thought was good practice in that area. So you occasionally do get these external nuggets, if you like, or bits of information that we can cite as an example of not just something we control but, more to your point about the outcome, do other people out there see the difference. It is not always very easy to measure that in diplomacy so we have to try and find examples where we can. But I guess on your example with sanctions, that is a couple of recent ones.
Mr. G. Phipps :
Just to follow up a little bit on this, there is a danger of being activity driven with the number of discussions you have, the number of meetings you have ...
Director, External Relations: Yes, absolutely.
Mr. G. Phipps :
... versus the materiality, because it might be better to have one really good agreement versus 1,000 little ones.
Director, External Relations: Yes, I agree.
Mr. G. Phipps :
To what extent in your discussions and priorities do you look at the materiality of the tasks you have in front of you, which can have the biggest financial impact, or in the case the negative impact if you do not do it type of thing? To what extent does that come into your priority setting and your focus?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
I think that is central to our priority setting and focus. You are right, you do not want to be numbers driven for the sake of it, but there has to be a way of showing that we are delivering. There has to be a metric attached. I am trying to think of a good example.
Director, External Relations:
I can maybe give a couple. On sanctions, that is a legal requirement. I think the materiality of that is totally clear to all of us. We absolutely have to implement that sanctions regime in line with the law. When, for example, the workload hugely increased, we took measures very quickly to increase the size of that unit to try and deal with the new reality that we were working with. International agreements could be another area. So, for example, when we are thinking about which jurisdictions that we want to prioritise for negotiation, we go out and get input from Jersey Finance, the industry body, and we also go and talk to one of their working groups, which is the Fiscal Strategy Group, about which agreements we think are possible, get their feedback on all of the agreements and negotiation partners. The one thing I would say as a caveat to that is I would love to be in a situation where Jersey could negotiate an agreement with absolutely everywhere. That is not true. The reality is we have to work quite hard sometimes, particularly as a sub-sovereign jurisdiction, to really make the case for an international treaty with another partner. I suppose I would say this, but I think when we do succeed in getting a treaty that is a really quite good outcome. It is not like I can take the pick from absolutely everywhere. It is more these are the ones where we think it is a potential; which would you like us to try and prioritise? But we have to retain a degree of flexibility and to sometimes allocate resources where we think we can get something over the line.
Mr. G. Phipps :
I guess what I was looking at is having had that discussion, looking back and thinking this is the one that could have the biggest material impact to Jersey, not just do-ability, to what extent is that part of the discussion?
Director, External Relations:
We do that, for example, within free trade agreements. Because that is a new area, we have engaged an external consultancy to produce a report for us on what it believes to be the impact of Jersey's participation in these free trade agreements. So it is not just our analysis, it is an external agency that specialises in this. They were able to help say in relatively high-level terms that this one is worth more to you than this other one. So that is something that we try to do where we can.
Chief Officer, External Relations:
Another example would be in terms of just pure engagement. You could say it would be easier for us to just have conversations with, from a U.K. perspective, politicians that will speak to us. We could do that all day long and hit that metric and probably go over it, but that is not going to deliver what we need to deliver. What we need to be doing is engaging with some of the politicians that probably do not want to speak to us in difficult conversations, and you have to try and try and try to get those meetings in place and get access. That is time and that is resource that will affect the numbers, but it is really important that we do that and we do not just focus on, as you are saying, the easy things, the quick wins that do not have the positive outcomes that we do need as a jurisdiction.
Mr. G. Phipps :
Measuring the positive outcomes is a key one, is it not?
Chief Officer, External Relations: Yes.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
We have spoken about you addressing areas of challenge I think within your areas of responsibility, so I will not ask you that question again. I suppose as one of the chief executives as part of a broader Executive Leadership Team within the Government of Jersey, how does that work, addressing challenges when you are part of that broader leadership team across government?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
We have a forum for doing that, which I am sure others have spoken to you about. We have the E.L.T. (Executive Leadership Team) sessions which happen I think 3 times a month now. So that follows a set formulaic agenda in terms of some of the stuff that comes across our desks, but there is an opportunity in those sessions, in those formal sessions, to have a bit more of a kind of freehand discussion around the big issues that are facing us as chief officers, the challenges, the risks, the opportunities, and to test our responses and our thinking with colleagues and get that broader feedback. That for me is the main mechanism of doing that.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Okay. Then you mentioned as well other networking groups across government and your involvement with that?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
Yes, of course. Tom mentioned the Global Markets Co-ordination Group. We have the French working group, so that involves lots of other government departments, external bodies as well, A.L.O.s (arm's length organisations). We manage the secretariat for I.T.A.G, which is the International Trade and Advisory Group. The ministerial attendance on that is the Chief Minister, the Minister for Treasury and Resources, the Minister for External Relations and Financial Services, and the Minister for Economic Development as well. So we are very well plugged into other departments and bringing those departments into External Relations as well.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
How are those objectives for each of those specific groupings ... how are they come to and managed?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
They are different groupings with different objectives. If you look at the Global Markets Co-ordination Group, that is about discussing areas of priority for the jurisdiction and what we are doing collectively as a Government and with A.L.O.s in terms of delivering on those priorities. There may be a jurisdiction that is an economic target, for example, so we might have an objective to negotiate a new agreement with that jurisdiction. There may be other areas of activity that are going on, for example, in the economic team. There might be other conversations going on with different policy areas with that jurisdiction, which all together helps to build hopefully a positive, broad-ranging relationship. That Global Markets Co-ordination Group is about co-ordinating that and making sure that we are delivering collectively on those things. Something like the International Trade and Advisory Group is different because that is more of a clearing house, I guess I would say, for the activity that goes on in the international space across government because you have such a broad range of Ministers. So you might take, for example, free trade agreements, as Tom was talking about. You might talk to that group about the pros and cons of Jersey's participation in a particular free trade agreement. That will involve External Relations. That would involve economy, customs, possibly the environment team, a whole suite of officers. The objective of that group would be to make sure that Ministers are updated and they are happy with the direction of travel.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Okay, but you are happy that all of those groups that you are involved in have clear objectives and then the performance against those are being measured?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
They do. They all have terms of reference, yes. They all have terms of reference and they have set agendas and deliverables for each meeting. Yes, I am happy that there is clarity around focus and objectives for each of those and delivery against them.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Okay. Thank you. We are coming near to the end of the hearing and I can see that you have ...
Mr. P. Taylor :
I am pretty long in the tooth so I know that there are always areas where I know my business can always be more effective, however hard I work. Are there areas that you believe that your department can be more effective and what are you doing about it? It would be a bit uncomfortable giving an example, so just talk in the generalities.
Chief Officer, External Relations:
I think we are probably, given the direction of travel ... and I keep coming back to France but it is such a focus at the moment. I think we are probably a bit under-resourced on the French side. I have a French office with 2 members of staff and they also have to service Guernsey as well. Though as I said earlier our objectives tend to be the same, that is quite a small team to manage the breadth of engagement that we have ongoing at the moment.
Mr. P. Taylor :
What are you doing about it?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
I am doing several things or I have done several things. I established a European relations team which supports French engagement. It is wider than just French engagement but it does work to them. I am locating a member of staff, French-speaking member of staff, on-Island to help with some of the domestic organisation that that team has had to pick up. As Tom described earlier, we have established the Paris hot desk as well, which helps take some of the international engagement off their shoulders so they can focus on regional. I am also having conversations with my counterparts about the ask of the office to make sure that it is manageable. I do have a small growth bid in for that team, which is very, very small in the gamut of ...
Mr. P. Taylor :
We do not deal with that bit.
Chief Officer, External Relations:
No, we do not need to get into that now. [Laughter]
Mr. P. Taylor :
Thank you very much.
Mr. G. Phipps :
Just one last question from me. So if you are talking to the people of Jersey and other government departments, how would they know you have had a really outstanding year and how would they know you have had a poor year? How would you feel about ... you know?
[13:00]
Chief Officer, External Relations:
The formal process for reporting on delivery is through the annual report and accounts and the narrative that goes around that as well. We as a department are also committed by virtue of a previous scrutiny review to produce an end-of-year report which outlines what we have ...
Mr. G. Phipps :
But I do not think the people in Jersey will read these reports, so I am just wondering what is the thing that you would look back at and your team would look back and say: "We have had a really good year and here is an example of something that is really" ... you made a difference in or when would you know, boy, we have to pull up our socks?
Chief Officer, External Relations:
I think the things we have made a difference in are visible to the Jersey public. Look at where we have ended up with fisheries management. That, as I said before, played out horribly publicly and was difficult for a variety of reasons, and many of them were not in our control. But by constant engagement, by really effective cross-working as External Relations, the environment team, the Law Officers' Department, a whole range, working with external stakeholders as well, it is not a perfect outcome, not everybody is happy, but we have a solution now which, broadly speaking, we think French colleagues are okay with, we know Brussels is okay with, the U.K. is okay with, and we are in a much better place. We hosted the British-Irish Council 2 weeks ago. We had 100 delegates in Jersey. We had U.K. politicians, heads of the devolved Administrations. That again is a really big thing for us to have pulled off.
Director, External Relations:
I will give you 2 for my part, one of which I was involved in so there you go, it is very generous of me. Liberation Day this year we had the German ambassador come to the Island. There was a real poignancy and I think that was a very meaningful visit. It had to be handled very sensitively. There was a particular event in collaboration with Jersey Heritage that was all about memory, and we had a whole range of Islanders who have direct personal experience. We had mayors from Germany of the 2 towns where Jersey residents were sent during the Occupation. I think that was something that was unusual, special, thoughtful. It said something about our history but also our future of friendship with Germany. That for me is a success that touches on the community. Another example, a bit more crunchy maybe and concrete: when Jersey was able to sign the first bilateral investment treaty that we did with the U.A.E. (United Arab Emirates) ... a lot of people in this Island work in the finance industry. Jersey is the only overseas territory or Crown dependency that is able to sign that type of ... negotiate and sign that type of treaty. None of the others have been given permission by the U.K. to do so, so I think that is a good example of where we are doing something different and, I would hope, better.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Thank you. We are now out of time. Thank you both for attending the hearing and addressing the committee's questions and also thank you to the supporting officers from the States Greffe and the Comptroller and Auditor General for attending the hearing as well. I will now draw this hearing to a close.
[13:02]