Home Affairs DOES have vision

Saturday 03 November 2018

Guernsey's Home Affairs' President has refuted the suggestion that her committee does not "have vision", following the release of a report which recommended it review its role in managing law enforcement across the Bailiwick.

Deputy Mary Lowe said she dismissed that idea, and that although she was always happy to take criticism, she felt that it was factually inaccurate.

"It is disappointing really, I am not sure where that notion came from because it is not factual," she said.

"There is a lot of work going on, and we have business meetings quarterly and every six months to ensure we are up to date."

Pictured: Some of eight recommendations made by the report focus on the way the political committee of Home Affairs and Bailiwick Law Enforcement interact. 

Deputy Lowe argued Home Affairs had been taking strides forward, with the introduction of its medium and long term plans, which were added to the overall Policy & Resources plan.

Their four areas of focus in those plans, she said, were a review of the justice system, cyber security, GDPR - which it has implemented - and population management. 

The report conducted by Her Majesty's Inspectorate for Constabularies was released yesterday, and concluded that although Bailiwick Law Enforcement had a lot to be proud of, and served Guernsey well, there was room for improvement. 

As an overall product, Deputy Lowe said she was very happy with the final report they had received. 

"Obviously the committee decided it wanted to have the report done, it has been 10 years since the last once so we felt it was an appropriate time," she said.

"We don't agree with every single thing in it, but we didn't expect to. The only surprise for us was the point of having all of their recommendations implemented by the end of January, which is totally unachievable. They didn't actually talk to us about that, and if they had, we could have explained why we can't do it.

"It is too early yet to say when we will start fully implementing the ideas, because we need to sit down as a committee and discuss it, but we will certainly be working on it."

Pictured top: Deputy Mary Lowe and Patrick Rice, Head of Bailiwick Law Enforcement.