Guernsey Press

Induction of deputies to be ramped up

DETAILS of the induction process given to deputies are going to be made public to encourage better diversity among election candidates.

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States’ Assembly and Constitution members Deputy Simon Fairclough,left, and Deputy Lester Queripel. (Picture by Cassidy Jones, 30024219)

The move is being made by the States’ Assembly and Constitution Committee in response to widely-accepted research that women generally only apply for jobs if they feel they meet all of the qualifications, whereas men will apply when they meet most of the qualifications.

At last year’s general election there were 28 women candidates and 91 men.

The induction process given to successful candidates is extensive and months long, but is not widely known about.

It includes legislative training, how to ask questions in the States, corporate parenting, how to handle the media, and personal safety training with the police.

The report will be released to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the election next month.

Groups like Women in Public Life have called for the help offered to new deputies to be better publicised.

The meeting of Sacc agreed that next time the induction process should be scheduled differently to avoid clashes with committee obligations.

It was suggested that a better format would be to block off Friday afternoons so that the training could be better attended.

A slowly declining trend of attendance was highlighted in the report.

Deputy Lester Queripel thought it was crucial that candidates should ‘know what they are letting themselves in for’ and he mused on whether the training should be made compulsory.

Deputy Simon Fairclough said a lot of the sessions had been really useful, but there had been some disappointing levels of attendance, although he also acknowledged that people were very busy.