"Busy schedules" blamed for lack of deputy training engagement

Wednesday 13 October 2021

In April this year, SACC circulated a survey to deputies in the hope of getting their feedback on ways to improve enagagement - however only three States members replied.

“[This] provided limited insight into the effectiveness of the training programme from Members’ perspective,” it was lamented in a recently published report by the States' Assembly & Constitution Committee.

Subsequently, a second survey was circulated in July and this time 50% of deputies responded. This gave the States Assembly & Constitution Committee enough data and insight to help it develop the training programme for deputies further.

However, SACC’s president hopes for more engagement in the future as he pushes for more developed training and induction for new and returning deputies.

“I would expect that next term we’ll have a higher participation in induction courses, and we’re likely to have a higher response to the surveys conducted, because it’ll become a fundamental part of what being a deputy is,” said Deputy Carl Meerveld.

The information gathered in these surveys will be used to mould the induction offering for people who may be unfamiliar with what is expected of them as a deputy.

Pictured: The IODP report has broken down the level of attendance throughout the last year.

Furthermore, the recent publication of a report indicated that "busy schedules" have led to poor engagement with the current training courses.

“One of the issues this term in implementing the IODP was that it wasn’t scheduled in advance of the election,” said Deputy Meerveld.

“What that has resulted in is difficulty in scheduling, so a lot of deputies had a lot of sessions they would have liked to attend but couldn’t because of other commitments on their committees,” he said.

He also argued that SACC saw a low level of survey respondents because of the importance of the issues deputies have been tackling this term.

“Unfortunately, our survey was coming as the States were dealing with some very major issues, you had the education debate ongoing, you had the tax review we’re currently in the middle of, so I wouldn’t read anything into the number of people who responded to the surveys,” he said.

“As it becomes more normalised and an expected standard support that deputies expect, we’ll expect these surveys to have greater participation going forward.”