In a debate driven by Deputy Rob Curgenven, Employment & Social Security president Tina Bury took on board some of the points raised and also offered director Ian Gavet as someone keen to engage with deputies about the service’s activities.
The service, arms length, impartial and independent of the States, beyond its funding, supports employers, employees and trade unions to understand local employment and discrimination legislation, will help to settle employment disputes and give professional advice on good employment practice and relations, and provide answers to discrimination issues. It also provides access to the island’s employment and discrimination tribunal.
Deputy Curgenven said he was more concerned with what the report did not say than what it did.
‘The purpose of an annual report is not simply to describe activity. It is to enable members and members of the public to scrutinise performance, assess effectiveness, understand trends, and evaluate whether public resources are being used efficiently,’ he said.
Information he had expected to find in the report had been produced by Deputy Bury in her opening speech, he said.
And there was no opportunity to understand workload, throughput and any backlogs in cases, he said, nor to be able to assess value for money, and he wanted to see future report include clearer, standardised performance tables in a consistent format.
‘Good annual reports do not merely tell readers that the service is succeeding – they provide the information necessary for readers to reach that conclusion for themselves.’
Deputy Haley Camp said that the report was light on outcomes, with little information about what activity had actually achieved. She said she wanted to know whether workplace practices were improving and disputes becoming less frequent.
‘In short, are we reducing conflict or simply managing it? Without understanding outcomes, we can’t properly judge whether EEOS is delivering on its wider purpose, improving fairness and strengthening employment relationships across our island.
‘As the service matures, so too must our scrutiny of it. We must move beyond measuring activity and towards measuring impact, so not just ask how many cases were handled, but what changed as a result?’
Deputy Sasha Kazantseva-Miller said she was concerned about the costs of the service and tribunal service but Deputy Bury said that she was using the wrong figures for comparison and said that the costs were much less than that agreed by the States in 2020, though she could not quote the actual figures.
The report was noted unanimously by deputies.
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