Deputies reject Scrutiny’s proposal for tribunal into Education recruitment
THE Scrutiny Management Committee is not going to proceed with its review of Education’s recruitment procedures after the States yesterday failed to support its proposal for a tribunal of inquiry.
It had sought up to £150,000 for this, which it said was necessary to overcome issues of data protection which would prevent it publishing an unredacted report, had it continued with the process itself.
But before the vote, SMC president Chris Green said that if it was unsuccessful, the committee would not proceed.
‘If this does not get through we are not going to re-commence an independent review on a non-statutory basis because there’s no point,’ he said.
‘We’ve spent six months doing that already and it’s got us absolutely nowhere.’
An amendment from Policy & Resources was placed by vice-president Lyndon Trott, who said that in May a new law was set to be enacted that would give the SMC the necessary powers to obtain documents and compel witnesses to appear through an application to the Royal Court.
He later wondered how, in the current circumstances, a statutory tribunal would even get to the island.
‘What we must do is vote for the things that really really matter and right now this doesn’t.’
Deputy Green said the new law did not address the issues that the SMC had already experienced regarding how data protection affected the publication of reports.
The amendment was lost by 22 votes to 11 with six abstentions.
‘Nobody more than Education throughout this whole episode has wanted a light shone on it,’ said ESC member Deputy Peter Roffey during general debate on the SMC proposal.
Deputy Neil Inder said that in light of the circumstances surrounding the coronavirus crisis he would not be supporting any proposition that looked like a waste of money and, regrettably for SMC, he believed this to be one such case.
‘Whether Education covered itself in glory or not I don’t really care now,’ said Deputy Peter Ferbrache, echoing Deputy Inder’s comment that there were more important things to do.
Deputy Rob Prow said that the Assembly had voted very competent deputies on to the SMC. The committee said it needed a tribunal to do their job and he supported it.
It was not for the Assembly to pass judgement, said Deputy Mary Lowe, and the decision needed to be left up to the courts.
If the proposition from SMC was supported, it would allow the staff involved to state whether they felt justice had been done.
ESC president Deputy Matt Fallaize said that he was not sure that a tribunal would enable all the documents to be published unredacted.
‘It seems to me that the whole thing hinges on whether every single document needs to be published,’ he said.
Deputy Jonathan Le Tocq was not satisfied the proposal would achieve the transparency claimed by the committee and he would not support it.
P&R president Deputy Gavin St Pier said that, in his view, the policy letter should have been withdrawn since it was not a priority at the moment.
Voting on the proposition was 17 in favour and 17 against with five abstentions so, under the rules, it failed.
