Connaught care home charity fears its views will go unheard
OFFICIALS from Alderney’s Connaught Care Home charity fear their views are not going to be heard in a public inquiry into alleged mismanagement of the building's long overdue extension building work.
An inquiry was announced in March into how the cost of works approved by Alderney States in 2020 for an initial budget of £1.29m. had risen to nearly £2.3m.
The terms of reference for the inquiry were published earlier this week and the four officials from the charity board – Barbara Benfield, Liz Bowskill, James Dent and Jo Jordan – have written an open letter saying that they were disappointed to see no reference into an investigation of how the delays and lack of communication have impacted the finances and operation of the Connaught itself, nor of how any latent construction defects might impact future operations.
‘We are pleased that the States of Alderney have now made public the terms of reference for the public inquiry,’ they wrote.
‘We believe this was the right decision, for only if these documents are made public can the public have confidence in the outcome of the inquiry.
‘We never expected that the inquiry’s deliberation to be made public. We only wished that the terms of reference and the final report would be.’
Five of the six board members of the Connaught Care Home were removed or resigned at the end of January 2023, but as the States was unable to transfer the charitable status to a new board, the members remained as charity officials.
Three of those removed – Mr Dent, Nigel Roberts and Ms Jordan – along with fellow director Mrs Benfield, who resigned shortly afterwards, wrote open letters criticising the way the removals were handled by the States of Alderney.
In December’s States meeting Ian Carter, who was then chairman of Policy & Finance, implored States Members to provide ‘a public inquiry in full view of the public, so that they can see what was done, what happened when and the report is then in the public domain'.
The former board members said that they currently had additional concerns about the quality of the work being done at the extension and how this might impact the business and charity.
They added that in summer of 2023, they had warned in official board meetings that staff had been employed assuming the extension would be ready for occupancy on 1 July that year, and that a number of economies of scale had been envisaged from the extension that were are now in danger.
They went on to say that UK Cabinet Office guidance advises that prior to the finalisation of any terms, it was useful to include those involved in the events triggering the inquiry.
‘In this case, neither the Connaught board nor the charity were consulted,’ they wrote. UK cabinet advice additionally suggests that the terns should be published on an inquiry website.
‘While this latter element of the guidance now seems to be achieved, if the former had been observed, it might not have been necessary to write this article.’
