A budding bond between Home and P&R?

Tuesday 25 February 2020

An oversight group set up to allow Home Affairs to work closely with Policy & Resources has been "a good place to vent", according to the former's President.

Deputy Mary Lowe was speaking at the recent Scrutiny Hearing looking into her Committee's progress since two damning reports were released, offering a series of recommendations.

She said the oversight group - which had also been set up following those reports, with the aim of hitting the recommendations and savings targets - had helped them build a better relationship with P&R, but said there was more to be done on differentiating the "lip service" from the action.

"There are still frustrations over money," Deputy Lowe said, "I don't like the lip service that can arise over it, where we get told 'we will support you on this' but then the money isn't made available to us to take action.

"They have got to ensure there is consistency in their approach to that." 

Pictured: The former Committee for Home Affairs. The oversight group was a consequence of a report by Catherine Staite, who was employed by P&R to look into governance of the Committee. Two of the deputies pictured, Rob Prow and Richard Graham, resigned following the report because they felt they could not challenge the report's conclusions from inside the Committee. 

And while Deputy Lowe also said she "hadn't seen as much action as she had hoped", the group had allowed her and the rest of Home Affairs to have a place to vent to the senior Committee. For example, Deputy Lowe had been able to explain the property problems they were having to P&R when they were trying to move one of their teams into empty space at the Fire Station.

President of P&R Deputy Gavin St Pier agreed that the group had "developed into a useful forum".

"The oversight group was originally instigated to jointly oversee the delivery of the Committee for Home Affairs’ savings targets," he said.

"Over time it has developed to become a useful forum to ensure regular communication between our two Committees. Meetings are constructive with discussions that are open. It is natural that there will be differences of opinion but this process provides an important opportunity to engage and make sure there are no surprises while both Committees focus on delivering their mandates."

Pictured top: Deputy Mary Lowe and Deputy Gavin St Pier.