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Staffing issues blamed for delays in publishing declarations of interests

Internal staffing issues have been blamed for delays in publishing declarations of interests for several States members on the new dedicated States website.

Deputy Marc Leadbeater.
Deputy Marc Leadbeater. / Guernsey Press

Eight deputies and the two Alderney representatives do not have their declarations published at parliament.gg, including three members of the Policy & Resources Committee, Steve Falla, Charles Parkinson and Jonathan Le Tocq.

Others missing a declaration are Neil Inder, John Gollop, Marc Leadbeater and Aidan Matthews.

Deputy Liam McKenna has colleague Munazza Malik’s declaration posted on his personal page.

Most of the missing members told the Guernsey Press that they had submitted the forms, and the Greffe accepted that when contacted.

States Greffier Simon Ross said that all the deputies affected had done so, with the exception of Deputy Leadbeater. But not all had been published due to staff shortages over the summer recess.

Deputy Leadbeater said he was ‘fairly sure’ he had submitted one to Greffe officers, joking that one of them had remarked on his bad handwriting.

‘I have nothing to hide,’ he added.

Under the States’ Rules of Procedure, all newly-elected or re-elected deputies must make and lodge a declaration of interest with the Greffe within seven days of being elected.

They must then resubmit one every July.

With this year’s election results being declared on 19 June, current deputies needed to submit their declarations no later than 26 June.

Of the 31 deputies with a declaration available to view on their parliament.gg profile, 21 signed their declaration before this date.

Mr Ross said no sanctions existed for those who missed the deadline.

Of the seven with no declaration currently on their online profile, Deputy Inder said he and Deputy Gollop had submitted theirs at the same time, which Deputy Gollop said was in June.

Deputy McKenna said he had no interests to declare, which had been the case for the last five years.

Deputy Matthews said he had lodged his late due to an administrative error on his part, adding his new declaration was identical to his latest one from the previous political term.

Neither Alderney Representative has a declaration available on their profile at the moment, however Mr Ross said Alex Snowdon and Edward Hill’s circumstances were different as they had not just been newly-elected.

He added their updated declarations would be added to their profiles in due course.

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