Scrutiny President urges follow up inspection

Tuesday 11 December 2018

Home Affairs are being urged to consider asking for a second, follow up, inspection of their committee and the island's Law Enforcement, to ensure they have effectively gone about implementing a number of key recommendations.

Deputy Chris Green, the President of the Scrutiny Management Committee, has released his thoughts following a snap hearing last week, which aimed to look into some serious failings the original inspection identified.

He said the Committee deserved credit for voluntarily agreeing for Her Majesty's Inspectorate for Constabularies to come to the island, but that he now had concerns some of the political members did not fully understand why they were falling short.

"I would urge the Committee to implement all of the recommendations of the HMIC Report as soon as practicable; or, at the least, set out a clear timetable for the implementation programme sooner rather than later," Deputy Green said.

"I would also urge the Committee to consider the advantages of a follow up inspection by HMIC to check up on implementation and progress by July 2019."

Pictured: One of the eight concluding points Deputy Green released. 

During the scrutiny hearing itself Home was asked about the potential of a follow up inspection, and they initially supported the idea, with the caveat that it would have to be discussed in an official meeting before anything was agreed. Matthew Parr, the inspector himself, said it was not uncommon for a constabulary to ask for a second visit - it allowed them to assess whether the recommendations (of which there were eight offered in this report) had been implemented, and how effective those implementations were. 

Pictured: Home Affairs in front of the Scrutiny Panel. 

But further to just one more visit from HMIC, Deputy Green also raised the question of whether it might be worth Home introducing a statutory requirement for these inspections to take place on a regular basis. This visit in 2018 was the first time in 10 years Home Affairs and Guernsey Police have been under the microscope from an external party, and in some areas, that time was evident.

ICT, for example, is one area Guernsey's Law Enforcement was sorely lacking, with Mr Parr describing it as one of the "worst systems" he had seen. Deputy Green said it was "astonishing that the position could be allowed to get so dire before any effective action has been taken", but did take some comfort in the assurance recovery action was already being taken. 

"The lack of decisive action that resulted from the receipt of the draft report by the Committee for Home Affairs in May 2018 until the present time is also a matter of concern," Deputy Green added.

"It seems obvious that action could have been initiated on the issues and recommendations raised in the Report at the earlier draft stage rather than wait until its final publication some 6 months later."

The Scrutiny Panel finally acknowledged that there were "serious weaknesses" identified in Bailiwick Law Enforcement. Since its release, there has been some discussion over how critical the report truly is. Inspector Mr Parr said for him the real headline was that the island has a Law Enforcement system to be proud of.

Pictured: The Scrutiny hearing last week.