Unplugged: Telling it like it is

Tuesday 27 November 2018

A top States watchdog, known for publishing damning reports scrutinising the inner workings of Jersey’s government, is not one for pulling punches.

The Comptroller & Auditor General (C&AG) Karen McConnell’s reviews of States departments express strongly worded concerns about inefficiency everywhere from Jersey Property Holdings to the island’s healthcare system.

In a rare public interview, the C&AG spoke to Express about the impact her reports have on the way the States function…

“Picture the scene. You are a senior civil servant, and your area of responsibility has just been audited by Jersey’s Comptroller and Auditor General; yes, the lady who has published a series of deeply critical reports on a range of subjects from the ill-fated Innovation Fund, to the way the States spend taxpayers’ money, manage public properties and run our health service. 

Her draft report is now sitting in your e-mail inbox… until you tentatively click on it, and then duck down behind a wall of excuses, as she – constructively, perhaps - calls it as she finds it. 

Pictured: Comptroller & Auditor General Karen McConnell who is well-known for her thorough and damning reports on Jersey governance (Gary Grimshaw).

Karen McConnell’s reports rarely make comfortable reading for those in public office, and in the case of the Innovation Fund, her words led to very senior political resignations (sorry, “stepping asides.”)

But, she argues that the process is actually cathartic, and results in meaningful improvements. Moreover, she detects a “step-change” in the way in which her audits are being received.

Karen McConnell: I think there are a lot of positives. If I go back to when I first arrived, the first piece of work that I did was the public audit in Jersey, and that piece of work, I think, reflects two things. There was, first of all, a decision that Jersey wanted to have a Comptroller and Auditor General. That in itself - you are the only Crown Dependency to actually have a Comptroller and Auditor-General - shows an openness.

It may be something that people are perhaps a little surprised to hear, but it really does show an openness and a wanting to have reports, and wanting somebody to come in from the outside and actually comment on what they are doing. So, I think in terms of positives, I produced that report and every single recommendation in that report has actually been implemented - so if we are going to talk about some positives then I think there are two there.

I think the other thing I would say is that all time I have been here, there has been very active engagement, in terms of the officers, and in terms of the elected members; and one of the things I have always been impressed by is the fact that people really mean well, they really do want to improve things, so there is an awful lot of things that you can draw upon.

The reports, by their nature, are critical, and when I undertake pieces of work, what I am looking around for is best practice; and when I talk about best practice I don’t just mean let’s have a look at what they do in the UK, I tend to go to a number of places.

But then the thing you have to do, and it is the thing that makes the work really interesting and challenging, is you’ve got to put it in the context of Jersey, because I totally respect the unique environment of Jersey.

But when you make recommendations, they may be critical, but I have to make sure that what I am recommending will actually work here, and that is one of the things that is really important.

So, in one of the recent reports that I produced, which was on health governance, one of the things that I did draw out was my concern that I thought elements of the way healthcare operated in the UK, which is incredibly complex, and even in the UK perhaps unnecessarily so, but aspects of those structures have been imported into Jersey, and in an island you’ve got a real opportunity to be able to do things so much better.

I think trying to pick up those sorts of things are just so important. 

Pictured: Ms McConnell says that it's "really important" that her recommendations will function in "the unique environment of Jersey" (Gary Grimshaw).

Express: What sort of reaction do you get from those involved, when they hear you are going to be reporting on their work?

KM: The vast majority of the time people are actually really open. Yes, of course people can be a little uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable being audited, and I recognise that, but what we do do, is when we are going through the work, we do talk to people throughout, and right at the end of the process, when we have the framework of a draft report, we go in and talk that through; and I think, as things have begun to change within the States, I am noticing a change in the response.

So, again, if we go back to my latest report, I would say there has been a step-change in the way that people have responded to the report. I can give you a couple of examples.

The first one was when I produced a copy of the draft report and I sent that one in for people to comment on, I was met with a lot of openness and interest, and a very positive reaction to what people were trying to do in response to it.

I went to discuss the actions which are being planned on the back of the report and it is a step-change. It is a response that is very considered and is really taking into account, in full, the content of the report. 

Express: Can you give examples of what’s concerned you most about what you’ve seen, and what’s pleased you most?

KM: That’s an interesting one. In terms of what’s concerned me most, I think if you’ve got an organisation that’s going to change, the most important thing is to have a culture which is open, transparent, that’s listening.  

There has been a lot written about silos, that’s featured a lot in my report and it’s because, ultimately, if you’re spending taxpayers’ money well, in order to have good quality services you really have got to be listening and you really need to be able to hear what is happening.

The problem is, when you are dealing with people, people aren’t in boxes and they’re not in silos, they have issues that you need to respond to and that really requires the whole of government to be joined up.

In Jersey, with the government that you’ve got, you have got a really unique opportunity, I think, to effectively join things together.

I write reports that are critical but, you know, I’ve never had any what I would call undue pressure placed upon me. I write challenging reports and people are rightly challenging back, and actually I feel more comfortable when people challenge a little bit more, because that means they are really trying to absorb what you are saying.

The people I have met really want to do well for Jersey, people are passionate about the island. They are passionate about wanting good services, about wanting money spent well. You’ve got some really good people with some really good ideas and that is such a positive. 

Express: Do you ever try and sweeten the pill?

KM: Well, the work is undertaken by a team, it’s not just me.

So, we do a lot of the research and we come up with all of the evidence, and then what I do is look at the evidence in the context of the issue that I’ve got, and under the Code of Practice, what I say I’m going to do is report what I find “without fear or favour” and that indeed is what I do.

Pictured: The C&AG says that all of her reports are compiled "without fear or favour" (Gary Grimshaw).          

But I also have a responsibility to be constructive in what I report, so what I’m trying to look for is areas where I think you can build; so the idea is to be as constructive as I can about the type and the nature of the change that can be made and that is really what I am trying to drive for.

Express: Is there ever pressure put on you from either side of the political spectrum?

KM: Absolutely not. So, what happens is the final report is entirely mine. I take ownership of the report in its entirety. Of course, people talk to you and they can be very passionate about the thoughts and ideas that they have, and I entirely respect that; but I have never at any stage had what I would call undue pressure put upon me.

I have had people questioning, I have had people challenging, but one of the things that has never happened on island is I have never been pressurised into not reporting, and I think you can see that from the reports. They absolutely report what I find. 

Express: What would you say is generally the root of the problems that you encounter?

KM: If we, for example, talk about the report I wrote on financial management some time ago – one of the issues in that, is that the type of finance system that you’ve got is really strongly out of date; and it was brought in at a time, again, when the government was highly siloed and the way the finance system operates echoes that as well.  

Also, it doesn’t link the really important things. You don’t just spend money for the sake of spending money, and being able to see how much you’ve spent.        

It’s really important that you can match what you are spending to outcome, so that you can see if you make a decision to invest more in something, that you can actually measure the outcomes from that increased investment.  

And those outcomes should be really hard-edged about the type of services that people are actually receiving. That’s the type of thing I’m talking about.  

But the systems that you’ve got at the moment, you can’t measure outcomes in that way actually, to enable you to do so. 

But good governance isn’t about having a long list of things that you have to do and putting a tick against them, it’s about culture, it’s about behaviour, it’s about transparency and if you get good governance right it helps you make decisions, because you understand the risks, you understand the processes, but you also understand the process you have to go through.

Express: Does Jersey have a problem with good governance?

KM: I think if you go through the history of the reports you can see I have highlighted a number of areas where there are issues with governance. I think just by working your way through the reports you can actually pick those out. But also, what I’ve seen over the time I’ve been here, I’ve seen change and I’ve seen improvement and I also know that people want to change and it is happening, it is happening.

Express: How do you select the next topic?

KM: I have a process whereby I have a look at what I think all the risks are, that are there at the moment. I have conversations with the Public Accounts Committee. I take into account information that I get from members of the public. I also have, I suppose, the feedback from the work that I undertake, and what I do is I come up with a list of areas which I think would be important to review; and then we have a team meeting as well, so the affiliates and everyone else in the team, comes in and we debate it.  

We talk about where we think we ought to focus and, particularly, we tend to try and look back at what’s happened and what hasn’t happened and where we think a report could actually help.      

The team that we have got is actually a virtual team really, what we actually have is a group of people who live in all sorts of different places and all of our records are kept in the Cloud, we don’t have papers, so it is actually quite a modern way of working. We encourage home working, we do a lot on video conferences. I think it’s very efficient. If you have a look at the annual report, you will be able to see that the amount of spend on the office is actually really low.

Express: Are you ever surprised by what you find?

KM: No, not really.

Express: It’s usually what you were expecting?

KM: I’ve been an auditor for a long, long time and I don’t think I’ve ever been totally surprised by what I’ve found.

This interview first appeared in Connect magazine, which you can read online here.