States instructed to stop hiring 'behind closed doors'

Tuesday 27 March 2018

A body tasked with reviewing how the States appoints people to its highest paid roles has expressed concerns that the Chief Minister’s Department ignored their calls to openly recruit for a senior IT role.

Writing in their annual report for 2017, the Jersey Appointments Commission outlined their disappointment that the department twice requested to be able to recruit a Head of Information Services Procurement in a closed and non-competitive way, despite being told that it “would not be acceptable.”

“The conversion of a contractor or someone recruited through procurement, however successful in their current role, is not open competition. Nor is the conversion of someone holding an acting position into a substantive appointment,” JAC Chair Dame Janet Paraskeva DBE noted in the report. 

“A second request for an exception to open recruitment in the States of Jersey’s Information Services Department was worrying. I had already given advice about the procedure to be followed, only to receive an identical request 10 months later,” she added. 

They added that there were worries that some employees – like the Law Draftsman, for example – had held ‘acting’ positions for up to 18 months, despite these initially being deemed “interim” appointments. 

Pictured: The JAC reviewed 39 appointment processes last year, expressing concerns that several weren't done in an 'open' way.

Senior staff being involved in the appointment of their successor, as well as CEOs having a formal role in selecting the chair to whom they’ll become accountable was also identified as a “continuing concern.”

The JAC equally identified the States’ confused and inconsistent approach to which posts should require licenses and be recruited from beyond the island as an “issue.” 

'Arm’s length' organisations Andium Homes and Jersey Post also came under fire. 

The latter was reported to the States Employment Board after it emerged that they hired a Chief Executive from within their group of non-executive directors in a way that was “not consistent with the principles of openness and transparency” back in 2014. The issue only came to the commission’s attention last year.

The social housing provider was criticised for only notifying the commission after they had recruited a Board Chair instead of advertising the role for others to apply. That individual was former Chief Minister Frank Walker, who was already a non-executive director, and who also chairs Digital Jersey.

Pictured: Frank Walker, Board Chair of Andium Homes.

“A concern was raised to the JAC about the number of board appointments that a single individual holds at one time with particular concern expressed about the number of Board Chair roles. This matter has been raised with the Shareholder Executive who is drafting guidance on parameters for the wholly-owned bodies as conflict of interest, both actual and perceived, is of concern in a small Island community,” Dame Paraskeva added.

While the report largely focused on areas of recruitment improvement within the States and States-linked entities, it also praised areas of good practice – one of which was the Police, who apparently demonstrated “good succession planning” with a “detailed succession plan mapping out routes into key senior roles within a 5 – 10 year time horizon.”