Nearly a decade after backing plans for an independent government complaints watchdog, politicians still cannot say what it would cost taxpayers, the leader of the current grievance body has said.
Hitting out in the States Complaints Panel’s latest annual report, chair Geoffrey Crill said that progress in creating a new way of handling complaints against the government and taxpayer-funded bodies has been “simply poor” and said it had left his panel working in an “extremely difficult environment”, while “expecting its imminent demise”.
Made up of volunteers, the States Complaints Panel can hear complaints against ministers and departments and make recommendations for resolution but has limited powers, and concerns have been raised over the years about whether its findings are always taken seriously by senior officials.
Eight years ago, an in-principle decision to create a ‘Jersey Public Services Ombudsperson’ was passed by the States Assembly in March 2018.
Earlier this month, then-Assistant Minister Deputy Moz Scott – who has since resigned – presented a report arguing that it was time to move away from the ‘hearing-style’ structure of the SCP and instead formally establish a ‘Jersey Public Services Ombudsperson’.
Discussion ‘has not moved on’
However, Mr Crill said that the publication of Deputy Scott’s report “some eight or nine months after it was expected [had] done nothing to move the discussion on from where it was eight years ago”.
“Neither the current Assembly nor the new Assembly post-election can have any picture of what an ombudsman service would look like, what its remit would be, what its powers would be, to whom it would be accountable and, perhaps most importantly, what it would cost the taxpayer.
“To be in the same position eight years on from when the States first passed its resolution is simply poor.”
Mr Crill said that he maintained that it is a matter for the States Assembly as to whether or not it wants an ombudsman, a complaints panel, or some other form of non-judicial oversight of government administration.
“The panel would simply expect that the States Assembly will need to be convinced that whatever is proposed is an improvement on the present service,” he said.
“To date, the panel has seen no evidence as to how an ombudsman service would provide a better service than the complaints panel can provide.”
Panel to make own suggestions
Jersey’s current complaints-handling mechanism was established under a law passed in 1982.
Mr Crill noted that there is “no doubt” that this law “can be and should be improved”.
“The panel is likewise certain that its service and procedures under a reformed law can also be improved,” he added.
“The panel has at no time in the last eight years been invited by government to suggest how the law and its own processes could be improved, presumably because its replacement by an ombudsman was and remains a foregone conclusion.”
However, Mr Crill said the panel is preparing a submission setting out its proposals for the amendment of the 1982 law and a detailed description of its processes for the future.
“The States will then at least have some clear proposals on which it can make a rather more informed decision and provide the Jersey public with a public service complaints system in which it can have continued confidence,” he added.
Minister’s comments to media “disappointing”
Elsewhere in the annual report, Mr Crill appeared to hit out at Environment Minister Steve Luce and his Chief Officer Andy Scate.
Both declined to attend a hearing in July last year in which a town resident who attributed her terminal illness to the stress and “intolerable suffering” caused by two electricity sub-stations close to her homely presented her concerns about the government’s handling of her case, with the minister claiming he would not “put my officers in a position where they could be subject to personal attack”.
Writing in the report, Mr Crill said it was “very disappointing” that the panel had been criticised in the media by a minister and a chief officer, adding that the subsequent lack of ministerial representation at a hearing “further undermined the work of the panel”.