The agency hit national news headlines over the weekend as the fallout continued after footage of a video meeting was inadvertently shared, which has led to the departure of two senior staff.
Until earlier this year, the agency had two political representatives on its board and Deputy Lyndon Trott as its chairman.
However in recent months the board had slimmed down to just five people, with three industry representatives, including chairman Paul Sykes, and two members of staff.
Economic Development Committee president Sasha Kazantseva-Miller confirmed that members of her committee had met Mr Sykes last weekend as the news broke of inappropriate behaviour which has led to an independent investigation, still ongoing, and had daily contact since.
Guernsey Finance receives £2.5m. a year in taxpayer funding and the rest of its funding comes from a levy on headcount employed by regulated firms in the industry.
But it publishes no annual report or accounts, just, it is understood, an in-house report and audited accounts for Economic Development, which provides its public funding. One of the issues which has emerged from the past week in the States is the need for enhanced scrutiny, both from the committee and potentially more widely.
Deputy Kazantseva-Miller confirmed that there is a ‘continuing schedule of engagement’ with the agency’s board.
‘The update to the governance framework for Guernsey Finance is ongoing and a priority for the committee, however we have taken the decision to reinstate a member on to its board,' she said.
‘The committee will continue meeting with Guernsey Finance to both receive updates and reassurance about its important work, and to discuss any wider matters as needed.'
Guernsey Finance said it would be be appointing two more non-executive directors after a recruitment exercise which began in September. It also said that Economic Development had not nominated a political board member since this summer's election, though committee representatives had been invited to board meetings.
Guernsey Finance does host an annual Industry Update event every January which is intended to inform industry and politicians of its activities in the year just gone and the year ahead. It tends to be focused on off-island promotional activities. Next year’s is scheduled for 21 January.
Following the departure of chief executive Rupert Pleasant last week, it emerged over the weekend that communications director Rosie Allsopp had also left the agency.
Acting chief executive Barnaby Molloy issued a statement to national media where he said ‘the alleged behaviour of the two individuals concerned falls significantly short of the standards we expect’.
‘Any conversations and actions were clearly intended to be private – the behaviour and opinions expressed do not reflect those of our organisation.
‘We take reports relating to workplace conduct seriously. After the matter was brought to our attention, we acted quickly with good governance and in line with our legal obligations and HR policies, and the individuals are no longer employed by Guernsey Finance.’
The Office of the Data Protection Authority said last week that it had been notified of a personal data breach by Guernsey Finance. It would not comment further.
Guernsey Finance is running an industry delegation to The CityUK national conference in Leeds this week, its final engagement of the year.
You need to be logged in to comment. If you had an account on our previous site, you can migrate your old account and comment profile to this site by visiting this page and entering the email address for your old account. We'll then send you an email with a link to follow to complete the process.