Deputy Rob Curgenven said he had stepped in after a constituent raised freedom of information questions about the prison in mid-March which had garnered no response or any updates explaining the delay.
He said that at the time he posed the questions, the originals had been with Home Affairs for 76 days and the only acknowledgement the questioner had received was when they pushed for an update.
Freedom of information requests have a response target of 20 days but that period might be extended for some questions.
He has repeated the questions formally to Home Affairs, which is now required to respond to him within 15 days.
The questions include complaints made about prison officers, both from inmates and others; whether any officers have been suspended as a result; numbers of complaints made against prison governor John de Carteret, who stepped aside from his duties at the beginning of April after investigations were made into allegations about his conduct; and how many staff have quit.
The questions also directly address complaints made against probation staff and the outcome of those complaints.
Deputy Curgenven has also asked for details of the committee’s average response time in respect of freedom of information requests for the past five years.
The States said that Mr De Carteret was still staying away from work as the investigations continued.
Criticism of prison management has also been fierce, and exacerbated by the deaths of two prisoners this year, one of which took place at the prison. Both incidents have been formally referred to the Prison and Probation Ombudsman for independent investigation, and a States spokesman confirmed that they too were ongoing.
Home Affairs has responded recently to questions raised about audit logs within prisoner record systems at Les Nicolles.
It clarified that Health & Social Care looks after medical records of prisoners, and that access to prisoner records was controlled through individual user logins and database permissions restricting access.
‘There are no officers across the prison who have fully unrestricted access to all records, regardless of their seniority,’ it added.
There are no regular audits made on access to prisoner records but the prison is considering getting a new database with enhanced audit capabilities.
It said that any suspected or reported breaches or misuse of the personal data of prisoners were recorded appropriately and managed.