What's the true cost of 'delays and incompetence' at Jescc?

Those who have contacted me have raised their concerns in their respective services, but been ignored or fobbed off, and in some cases told that there is nothing that can be done as the chiefs of the three services are powerless to do anything. There is a genuine concern among the seven currently operational men and women who have contacted me that not only have lives been put at risk, but that at an operational level, the service received by operational crews and officers does not compare to the speed of response, depth of knowledge and service to the public given by the three separate control centres prior to Jescc. They are all supportive of the staff who work within Jescc, although some said the management was out of its depth and unable to make the changes needed.

Amongst the concerns and comments made were some recurring comments, starting with surprise at the figures quoted by Home that the overspend was only £179,000 for the last year. It's apparently common knowledge that some staff have regularly been paid between £5,000 and £10,000 per annum in overtime since Jescc started. What I didn't realise were the number of external consultants, trainers and others who have been paid from the very beginning of this project and still are when there were people from within the three services who previously trained new staff and didn't simply try to replicate a UK control room.

Is Chris Green and his Scrutiny Committee going to be able to get to the bottom of how much has been paid out to produce this world-class control centre that Mark Lempriere and his four backers keep telling us is so good? What's been the true cost of the thousands of hours, delays and incompetence before and since the staff moved into Jescc?

Part of Mark Lempriere's carefully scripted media briefing mentioned that there was nowhere else in the world running a centre like Jescc. Has he conveniently forgotten the Isle of Man and the centre there that Jescc was going to be modelled on? Did the Isle of Man staff not tell him and his chief officers when they visited that their coastguard had withdrawn from their control centre due to exactly the same concerns that have been aired repeatedly both publicly and privately by the local boating community since Jescc had Coastguard forced upon it by Sarah McGreevy (where is she now?) and our harbour master? So now, Guernsey Harbours has saved money under the FTP programme by outsourcing the Guernsey Coastguard service to Jescc. Jescc staff are cheaper than experienced mariners (and anyone who has listened to Ch16 when there has been a call for assistance will clearly understand why). If our harbour master was still steering a vessel instead of being tied to a desk, he would probably understand this, instead of attempting to gloss over and justify one of the poorest decisions ever made in maritime safety.

Will Chris Green see all the figures, or will the internal review with bits made public simply cover up the unpalatable truths of this whole sorry saga?

The Guernsey taxpayer is now paying more money for a single control centre than the three separate control rooms, which were, according to everyone I've spoken to, previously operating very well. Mark Lempriere makes comments about joint working and better cross-service control, but was this really the problem that he makes it out to be? The firemen, ambulance and policemen and women who I've spoken to don't think so. They all tell me that response times are slower, that the instructions given to them are often confused and inaccurate and that any criticism of Jescc is met with a shrug of the shoulders from their senior officers. Why is Paul Whitfield not in front of the cameras explaining how his former Home Department, led by him, and the Jescc project initiated by him failing and costing Guernsey so much? Why has the way 999 calls are despatched been changed to massage the response times? My three personal experiences of Jessc were highly unsatisfactory and as someone who has manned the switchboard at the police station when I was in the special constabulary, I found it frankly a joke compared to my dealings with the police control room pre-Jescc.

Where has all the money come from to do this when the States are so short of money? £179,000 in overtime alone for the past year is astronomical, does this include the overtime being paid out to police officers who were going to be there for six months, but now two years later cannot leave due to staff shortages? What are the other contract and attached staff costs in this ego-building empire? Were the management of Jescc unable to budget and work out how much this was going to cost? If they did, how have they got it so badly wrong? I presume that Chris Green will be demanding to see the project risk register to help him understand this and the plans made to mitigate the risks. Mark Lempriere appeared to be blaming the staff that had left for the financial hole that keeps growing in the floor of Jescc. Why are there no leaving interviews conducted, or is it a case that they just know Jescc is a very expensive civil service ego trip and white elephant?

One police officer I have spoken to summed this up, and simply said that he wasn't in the least surprised that so many of the experienced and knowledgeable staff members had left, as they simply weren't listened to and were ashamed of the service that Jescc was now giving to crews and officers. Interesting that this officer also mentioned how many times he'd walked into Jescc to find staff sleeping at their desks because they were now forced to work 12-hour shifts and in some cases doing 10 days of 12-hour shifts without a day off. How can anyone be alert under these circumstances? Will Chris Green be asking what the reasons are for such a monumental failure of Jescc to retain the experience from the three former control rooms and how the risk of these staff leaving was either ignored or not understood?

The most worrying part of the overspend media brief was the acceptance that the overspend would be the same this year. If we get to this time next year and the overspending continues (or do the States simply throw money at it until the books balance), when will Mary Lowe and her committee be held to account for authorising this waste of taxpayers' money that neither her committee, her chief officer, the manager of Jescc or anyone else appears to have the ability to bring under control?

Good luck to Chris Green in getting to the bottom line and hopefully publishing the whole truth – and nothing but the truth.

TREVOR HOCKEY,

Trev's Motorcycles.

Editor's footnote: Mark Lempriere, chief secretary to the Committee for Home Affairs, responds: As per our recent announcement, the Joint Emergency Services Control Centre overspent its budget by £159,000 last year and is expected to record a similar financial performance in 2017. The reasons for this, as stated and subsequently highlighted by your correspondent, are primarily due to higher than budgeted staff costs as a result of an increased need for staff to work overtime.

One of the difficulties we faced when developing and implementing Jescc was that there was no tried-and-tested model on which to base its operations – in terms of staffing establishment, shift patterns and other terms and conditions. As such, and as we have acknowledged on multiple occasions over the last two years, difficulties and learning points were anticipated. It was always going to take some time to establish whether the original model was suitable or needed amending. However, this process has been further hampered by a lack of staff stability – we have had very few periods of staffing stability during the first two years of operation – and difficulty recruiting, which in addition to causing financial pressures also made it difficult to identify the changes needed. The job of a Jescc operator is challenging and requires significant training, as such when staff leave, the remaining operators have to cover while new recruits are trained – the difficulties in recruiting that I referenced above compounded the issues.

Going forward, an improvement plan has now been put in place which seeks to not only stabilise costs but also readdress the work/life balance for staff by providing a more robust operating model for the centre.

In consultation with staff, we have amended their terms and conditions. These changes have resulted in the basic wage being increased to what we consider to be a more appropriate level for the responsibility, combined with a 42-hour working week rather than the previous 37.5 hours. This will reduce the amount of overtime needing to be worked. It has also helped with recruitment – we currently have only one vacancy.

The 2016 budget for Jescc was £951,000, with actual spend coming in at £1.10m. That includes the budget and cost of the police constables seconded to Jescc. In terms of costs, significant annual savings were made as a result of 999 call handling being run through Jescc rather than a telecoms company, as it was under the former model. Additionally, had the former model remained, substantial investment would have been needed in the control centre operated by the St John Emergency Ambulance Service, in order to address the recommendations of the Lightfoot Review. We do not have an estimate for the latter, as there was never a need for it to be progressed given the Jescc project. Once these elements are considered we are confident that the current cost of Jescc is unlikely to be more than the combined cost of the four separate controls room had we remained with that model.

Having said all that, I think it's important to re-emphasise something made clear when Jescc was announced; saving money was never the driver in the development of Jescc, it was about developing a resilient model that helped the emergency services work closer together. While not without significant challenges that we are seeking to address, the benefits of Jescc are recognised by the heads of the emergency services.

The Committee for Home Affairs has asked the States of Guernsey's Internal Audit department to review the improvement plan and also examine the original business case and what has been delivered. States of Guernsey Internal Audits are not published, and it is not within our gift to publish it, however the Committee for Home Affairs is committed to transparency and has stipulated that it will provide information to the public once the review has been completed. We will also provide a full copy of the report to the Scrutiny Management Committee.

Harbour master Captain Chad Murray responds: In response to your correspondent's comments relating to the Guernsey Coastguard, I would like to clarify three points:

1. The Coastguard service has not been outsourced, we have outsourced the coast radio function. The Coastguard service remains firmly at the harbour.

2. The previous arrangement did not always employ 'experienced mariners' and the current training regime for new entrants is far more detailed and superior to any training previously provided to harbour staff.

3. There is no evidence or events to indicate this is one of the poorest decisions ever made in maritime safety.