Collective denial, misplaced loyalty and closing of ranks

Because, as it stands, those members of staff who felt so aggrieved that they spoke out to Her Majesty’s inspectorate will be watching the fall-out and shaking their heads.

If, despite the evidence about the lack of strategic direction and the impact that has had, as well as about political interference in operational matters, the response is simply to wait it out and carry on as usual while giving platitudes towards change, the impact will be felt throughout the public sector.

The message will be that it simply doesn’t matter that there are failings, or that these have been verified and exposed by independent experts, if the political board cries loud enough and long enough that it simply isn’t true, then nothing will be done.

Another week has passed and still we are no closer to finding out what specifically has prompted Law Enforcement staff to believe they are being told to take enforcement action by politicians.

Home Affairs is now positioning itself to say that the inspectorate was wrong on some points.

Remember, the board and others involved would have reviewed a draft of the report and it would have been reworked for factual errors – if there were still factual errors, why did the committee publish it? Its initial media release never said the inspectors were wrong, but did say the committee was 100% committed to delivering on the recommendations. Quite a change of heart.

In her response to Deputy Peter Roffey’s series of questions last week, Deputy Mary Lowe says the committee categorically denies crossing the line into operational law enforcement areas.

‘Where there seems to be a difference of view is where the committee has been approached to deal with issues to do with general standards of service,’ she said.

‘Thus where significant or sensitive complaints about the overall quality of service have come to the committee’s attention it has, on a limited number of occasions, sought to clarify and challenge where appropriate, the approach being adopted by BLE [Bailiwick Law Enforcement]. This is not interference in operational matters but rather properly holding the service to account.’

It is a response that is interesting for what it does not say.

What does the committee mean by quality of service, and why does it therefore have a different view to what are operational matters to that of senior officers and staff?

Why do we still not know what the specific instances are so the public can judge whether there has been any attempt to unjustifiably politically direct enforcement or not?

The only way to expose this is through the evidence presented to the inspectorate – and it looks like the only way that will happen is if Scrutiny ask the right questions of the right people so we can hear both Law Enforcement and the board’s views and weigh up the balance of them.

We saw contradictions last week in the board members’ accounts of the complainant being ‘invited to the committee meeting to confront the head of Law Enforcement despite existing formal compliant handling procedures being in place’.

Deputy Victoria Oliver said this was not what happened, that a member of the public was brought to the committee meeting to discuss a ‘Customs matter’ and the fact Patrick Rice was present was ‘a coincidence’.

Deputy Marc Leadbeater says Mr Rice was invited to speak to someone who had approached the board.

Unsurprisingly, he declined.

The nature of that ‘invite’ needs explaining, what prior interaction the board and Mr Rice had over the case and the advice given to how it should be handled and indeed how it was being handled.

What was this ‘Customs matter’?

Flesh out all those details and you can judge whether it was a hostile action or one looking to improve services, to challenge where appropriate.

It is important to remember that Law Enforcement is not alone in believing the board is holding back progress – another service chief told the inspectors that there was not a joined-up approach across the services the board is responsible for.

Those views of the other services are important to the overall picture. Home Affairs should be willing to invite the inspectors back in to explore fire or the prison, for example.

This column has been indirectly criticised by some members of the board for its approach, for ignoring the positives in the review and over-blowing the governance issues.

But there needs to be an acceptance that there is a lack of strategic direction that is holding back the opportunities within Law Enforcement; and an acceptance that a law needs to be put in place to prevent political interference and create a clear-cut boundary between the political and operational; and an acceptance that the board, or at least some of its members, have behaved inappropriately at times.

What we have now is collective denial, an understandable but misplaced loyalty and closing of ranks.

The governance issue overrides everything, until it is fixed not only will money be wasted, not only will ICT and the poor and at times dangerous condition of the estate continue to hamper the day-to-day work, but also the public can have little confidence in what is happening behind closed doors.

If Law Enforcement has evidence for what its staff told the inspectors, that needs to be made public.

If Home Affairs has evidence that the staff are wrong, that needs to be made public.

If there is strategic direction, it needs to be set out.

Simply saying the inspectors and the staff are wrong, or the interpretations of what they said is wrong, does not make it so, no matter how many times you repeat it.