Chief Minister to investigate "pressure" on Innovation Fund Board

Wednesday 24 May 2017

The Chief Minister has confirmed he is investigating whether political pressure was put on members of the Innovation Fund Board to agree loans to certain companies.

Allegations of inapropriate pressure were first made last week by the former Chairman of the Fund’s advisory Board, Tim Herbert, during a Public Accounts Committee hearing.

It emerged in a damning report earlier this year that £1.4million of taxpayers' money was outstanding in unpaid loan repayments at the end of 2016.

Mr Herbert explained that the Board, which was set up to review all fund applications, had been criticised for a "too thorough and too cumbersome" process. He also admitted that members had received "inappropriate pressure" by political forces and some outside of government to agree to certain loans, but refused to give details. Aaron Chatterley, another member of the Board who was present at the hearing, also refused to comment.

Deputy Geoff Southern brought the subject up during the States Assembly yesterday, saying “…that there should have been measures put in place in setting up the scheme that no political pressure could have been brought by any political members surrounding the scheme on the Board members themselves.”

Pictured: Chief Minister Senator Ian Gorst has pledged to "consider and investigate" the alleged pressure to agree loans from the ill-fated fund.

The Chief Minister Senator Ian Gorst said he had been “surprised” to hear of such pressures upon reading the transcript of the PAC. He then added that he was going to “consider and investigate” the matter as there, “...shouldn’t be in regard to individual decisions like that a political pressure. The whole point of having the expert, innovative Board was that they would get independent advice and then they would make the recommendations. That should have been the point of the ministerial involvement, not the other way around.”

"I am not sure whether I will be able to conclude, bearing in mind that the former Chairman when asked at the Public Accounts Committee said he was not prepared to issue further comment."