Top officials in disarray as questions raised over Parker's quallies

States communications director Stephen Hardwick's struggle to decide whether Charlie Parker was or wasn't granted quallies by the previous government continues.

Following the allegations by the local rag on Friday that SOJ Chief Executive Charlie Parker was granted "entitled" (full) housing status by the previous Gorst administration, and handling the scandal with all the tact of your average Great Plains buffalo, Hardwick immediately denied that the paper had any case to answer. According to him, no States employee had been granted quallies, full stop. Today, wheeling round on his previous argument, Hardwick said he had "made a mistake". The rag then asked him why, if he did actually know about this decision, why news of the decision was kept on the downlow until local hacks took to expose it. Hardwick's response? He didn't give one. Forgive me, Stevie, but maybe your "30 years’ experience in corporates, government, politics and consultancy" and "strong values to do the right thing well" don't actually count for diddly squat if you can't get the housing status of your own boss correct, when your whole job is streamlining communications between the States and the public.

Meanwhile, our esteemed elected (well, some of them anyway) representatives in the Assembly haven't proved much help either. While Chief Minister John le Fondré is, er, on holiday, his assistant, Chris Taylor, has admitted that he doesn't actually have any idea whether Parker was offered or demanded his quallies as a condition of employment - despite that, er, literally being his job. Saying that, the Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel have at least stepped in to condemn the blatant corrupt nature of the deal the Gorst regime made with Charlie Parker - in their statement, they "recommend that tougher rules are put in place so that decisions of this nature are not made again", commenting that "while we appreciate the importance of this particular role, five years’ “satisfactory service” is a vague term that could ensure even the most mediocre performance gains a retirement with considerable tax advantages". Chaired as it is by senior backbencher and recently positioned critic of the new government, Senator Kristina Moore, it probably wouldn't be overly cynical to say that she's using this recent scandal as an opportunity to go into attack mode, but the fact that the scrutiny panel is even willing to condemn this in the terms they have is something to celebrate.

Perhaps the best attempt at deflection so far came from an unidentified spokesperson for the States who spoke to the rag - as he told it, "the decision was published on the government website, as are all ministerial decisions, and was therefore available for Islanders, States Members and others to view". Oh, so that's alright then! See, I don't know about you, but I have better things to do with my life than meticulously combing gov.je every day on the lookout for dodgy ministerial decisions - the fact that it was published on the infamously difficult to navigate, chaotically organised and stuffed full of legalese government website is no excuse whatsoever. The reason we're paying £100K annual salaries to overpriced English consultants like Stephen Hardwick is supposedly because they're going to revolutionise communication between the public and the government - hiding dirty backroom deals behind flimsy deflections asking you to sift through the gov.je crapfest doesn't exactly sound like a good start.

Eine insel, eine reigierung, eine zukunft!

Charlie gets his quallies?

The SOJ gravy train continues, full steam ahead.

According to a report in today's rag (July 27th), our old friend, SOJ Chief Executive Charlie "my way or the highway" Parker, was given full "entitled" residential status by the previous government as a condition of his contract before he took up residence in Jersey. Because apparently, a £250,000 yearly salary and practically dictatorial control over government departments wasn't enough!

"How did this happen?" you ask. "I thought you had to live in the island for ten years to get your quallies!". Ordinarily, that's the way things work - if you've only lived in Jersey for seven months, like Parker, you'd only qualify for "registered" status, the lowest status. Since Parker is a senior civil servant, ordinarily he would be given "licensed" status - better than "registered", but still with a whole host of restrictions. Crucially, "licensed" status goes hand in hand with remaining an "essential employee" - if you get sacked or leave your job, you're back to square one. However - and I didn't know this until today - a sub-clause in the law that established these categories allows the government to grant quallies to individuals in "exceptional circumstances". What "exceptional circumstances" were used to justify treating someone who at the end of the day is just another civil servant to a status everyone else has to either be born into or earn - and then keeping this whole thing on the down-low until local hacks exposed it? According to former senator and ex-Assistant Chief Minister Paul Routier's report on the case, it was the "quality of Mr Parker as a candidate" and the "consistency of his track record in delivering change" that convinced the previous government to bend to Parker's demand for quallies - apparently, the massive insult that would send to the thousands of hardworking islanders without quallies, or the fact that Parker was already set to be paid hundreds of thousands every year, or just the oversized ego that demanding something as coveted as quallies, the moment he stepped off the boat, shows, weren't considered.

Who on earth does he think he is?

Ignoring the fact that Parker has so far been a decidedly low-quality, ineffective Chief Executive, failing repeatedly in his attempts to face down public sector unions, the fact that Parker made those sorts of demands - and the fact that the government bent to them - is frankly outrageous and insulting. Whatever yarn Parker's spokesmen spin about Parker "being here for the long term" and his "commitment" to disempowering our elected representatives and trashing the civil service "delivering a modern, one-government public service", any idiot can see Parker's real motivations for demanding quallies. As we all know, Jersey is a tax haven. Residency here comes with a much lower tax rate than in the UK, so if you're able to move your pension to the Channel Islands, you get to keep a lot more of the cash - at the expense of the UK taxpayer, obviously. Armed with his quallies, not only can Parker buy, sell and lease any property, but will also have full residency here in Jersey forever, tax benefits and all. Parker is 57, and given the sort of salaries he's been living on, both in his previous jobs and in this one, we can assume he's a very rich man - retirement is only a decade away. Once Parker has finished his crusade against the last vestiges of democracy Jersey has left "silo mentality" and "disjointed government", he'll be able to quietly retire here, and the UK taxman can kiss goodbye to ever getting anything back from him. Even better, the details of this cosy little deal were never actually revealed to the public, which is why we're finding out via the front page of the JEP, several months after the deal was closed. Trebles all round! Transparency in government? My arse.

I've commented before on how repulsive I find the gravy train that the States' top managers have all jumped on. It's not just Parker - his four pet sycophants (Stephen "oh yeah!" Hardwick, Jacquie McGeachie, Camilla Black and Anna Daroy) have been treated perhaps even more outrageously well than Parker. While Black and Daroy remain in consultancy positions earning £1300+ a day, Hardwick and McGeachie are in official positions earning significantly upwards of £100K/year (their salaries haven't yet been publicly revealed, but since they're set to appear in the SOJ 2018 accounts published next year, we know they're on upwards of £100K). Are this lot really worth it? Was no-one local good enough? Why on earth do we need to pay anyone such a ridiculous sum?

It's sickening, and this current story makes it all the more. Whatever inflated view of himself he has, Parker is supposed to be a public servant, not a robber baron. The gravy train shows no signs of slowing, and none of us know where it ends.

Is this really the kind of civil service we want?

Whistleblower alleges massive Children's Services coverup

Some things never change.

In an anonymous letter sent to the JEP, an unnamed social worker has alleged not only a myriad of failings in Jersey's Children's Services, but that an institutional culture of fear has prevented the true level of failure being exposed. Calling Children's Services "a scam, a cover-up and wickedness", the letter alleges that "evil is happening to the social services" and that "people are only thinking of themselves. There is no comradeship and no one is looking after your back. The staff have signed the official secret act and they would be dismissed if they blew the trumpet". 

The points the letter makes should come as no surprise at all to anyone who has ever worked in Jersey's social services. It identifies three main big issues - major staff shortages, the abundance of temporary workers, and useless managers more concerned with covering their own backs than looking out for vulnerable kids. This first problem is well-known - the States have acknowledged in the past that we've got serious shortages of trained social workers, but insisted there's no quick fix. Instead, they've tried to apply a sticking plaster in the form of temporary workers, AKA "temps", paid as much as £1.5K a week to come and plug gaps in Health and Social Services (HSS). These temporary workers aren't stupid - obviously, when they're on a grand and a half a week, they've got no reason to apply for a permanent job in a health and social care system where even the highest-paid workers are making far less. This means that while the taxpayer is basically left out to dry, these temps take a nice cushy job in HSS over the winter, then scurry back to merry old England once the sun comes out. Since they've usually got no meaningful link to the island, they're also quite happy to up sticks and go home should there be any risk of them being held accountable for anything - or, in the whistleblower's words, "when the shit hits the fan they will be on the next flight home with no responsibility or repercussions blamed on them". Managers are another thing altogether - the whistleblower alleges that managers, caught up with internal feuding and jostling for power, have an attitude that boils down to "we must not rock the boat, just keep lying" (in the letter's words). Most concerning of all is the letter's allegation that "the powers that be have such a grip on Children's Services" - is this 2018, post-Independent Care Inquiry, or the bad old days of the 1980s? Or did anything ever actually change?

Frankly, it's amazing that this comes as a shock to anyone. As the Independent Care Inquiry (ICI) found, Children's Services in Jersey have been a disaster zone run by a mixture of incompetent fools and malicious perverts for decades. Reports since then have hardly been more charitable - a review conducted early this year by the Children's Commissioner Deborah McMillan and (cue vomit) SOJ Chief Executive Charlie Parker found that, unsurprisingly, change was proceeding at a snail's pace, temporary workers were causing confusion and despair in vulnerable children (some kids were changing between five or six different social workers in the space of 12 months), and not enough permanent social workers were being attracted to live in the island. A preliminary Ofsted report published a few weeks back found, er, the exact same problems. Everything we've seen since the ICI was published seems to make the same conclusion - there hasn't been a serious change, vulnerable kids are still being failed, and our children's services are still a trainwreck. The States' response to the allegations was the same spiel we always get - "we recognise there are serious failings and that we need to make swift improvements".

The deep state in Jersey has been resisting serious reform of Children's Services for years, and it's time the States stopped beating around the bush. The pace of change has been cripplingly slow, the department's staff are still sworn to an oath of omertà and vulnerable kids are still being seriously failed, and will continue to be until HSS and the States as a whole get their act together.

"The powers that be have such a grip on Children's Services".

Chilling.

Veteran socialist Nick le Cornu acquitted of perverting the course of justice

Nick le Cornu, the veteran comrade accused along with his wife of perverting the course of justice, has had all the charges against him dropped in the Magistrate's Court.

le Cornu, a former St. Helier deputy, lawyer on the Jersey Employment and Discrimination Tribunal and veteran voice on Jersey's left, had been charged with perverting the course of justice, with his wife accused of three alleged breaches of the Data Protection Law relating to dealings she had with a trust company (as the JEP reported as front-page news in December and several times since). Today, the 19th of July, the prosecution announced that in fact that they didn't have any evidence, and they were dropping charges. le Cornu, who has been on bail since he was charged last year, is now a free man.

However, that's not what makes the case so interesting - I wouldn't be writing about it in detail if this was a cut-and-dry case of an innocent man walking free. In his statement, the prosecuting counsel, Sam Brown, decided - despite literally admitting in the same statement that he lacked any solid evidence - made some pretty ridiculous comments saying that Nick was somehow still guilty, that he was a criminal, he had brought the prosecution on himself and should bear a larger-than-normal percentage of the legal costs of the case. This was so extraordinary, coming not from an aggrieved member of the public or a political opponent but from a trained lawyer like Mr Brown, that Assistant Magistrate Peter Harris commented on it in his summing up, as well as striking down any demand from the prosecution for le Cornu to pay any more legal costs than any other defendant would pay in any other case. 

The timing of this case, politically speaking, is interesting to say the least. It's currently July, and the election - in which Mr le Cornu stood, in St. Helier No.1 - was in May. If the prosecution lacked evidence, there are two major questions that need to be answered. 1: Why did the prosecution, who by their own admission couldn't back a word they said, waste vast amounts of public money on a case that has managed to drag on for over six months, yet gone nowhere and proved nothing. 2. Why weren't the charges dropped earlier, before the election? Would it be terribly cynical of me to suggest that this was in fact a political trial, and the prosecution were less interested in Nick's alleged crimes and more in sabotaging his election bid? Why were the charges not dropped in April? Or even before that? The public needs to know what's gone on here - it seems to me that there's a serious possibility here that prosecution lawyers have pursued a political agenda, wasted valuable court time, and attempted to damage the political goals of a candidate in an election, all at the taxpayers' expense. We all know that Jersey's law enforcement and legal apparatus is heavily politicised (to the point where the head judge is the speaker of the States Assembly), that the police have never investigated real crime and that the courts are routinely used as a political weapon designed to drag individuals who challenge the status quo through the mud (just look at how Geoff Southern and Shona Pitman were treated in 2009), but the idea that this sort of underhanded shadow play could've influenced an election at the cost of Joe Taxpayer is still pretty shocking. 

Independent journalist Mike Dun's interview with Deputy Monty Tadier about the case can be found below.

PPC pushing for democratic reform

I don't agree with Russell Labey on much, but if there's one area the man's on point with, it's States reform.

Labey, the chairman of the Privileges and Procedures Committee (PPC) has said that proposals to completely overhaul the makeup of the States should be lodged within the next 12 months, with a Royal Commission potentially needed to give the States a kick up the arse if they continue to resist change. Labey described the current discussions around States reform as "getting ridiculous", saying that "we can't carry on with the status quo".

Hear hear, Deputy! As the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association found not two weeks ago, our political system remains broken to the core. With three different types of members, a confusing voting system and unelected members galore, the system remains completely out of line with international standards, yet the turkeys in the States will never vote for Christmas. The current discussion around States reform is essentially based off pure self-interest - members are afraid that they'll be the ones who cop it if the system is made fairer, and that's why Labey wants to bring in a Royal Commission - a big fat inquiry authorised by Brenda herself, and, more importantly, managed by outsiders not beholden to Jersey's culture of coverup and circlejerk who won't be afraid to ask tough questions that make the gangsters that make up our ruling class uncomfortable. The fact is, no-one wants to bring in the big guns from the UK, but if the States continues to fight any kind of democratic reform, there won't be any other option. If we want to keep calling ourselves a democracy (as opposed to the oligarchy we so transparently are), there are certain standards we have to meet. If the local ruling class refuses to grant us even that, then clearly outside intervention is needed.

No-one wants it, but we might just need it.

Let's hope not.

Ultra-right-wing group demands the States flog off the family silver

Our old friends at the Jersey Taxpayers' Alliance have poked up their heads again - this time, they're looking for the States to hold a fire sale of anything not turning a profit.

Roger Bale, the former shipping exec who passed down the chairman's seat at Huelin-Renouf to his son Jonathan a few years back and the founder of the JPA, has called for the States to perform a complete audit of their property portfolio and sell anything not generating more than a 4% return to fund public works projects. His comments come after it was revealed that a States-owned property and historic building that the States voted to keep in public ownership in 2014, Piquet House in the Royal Square, will remain empty until at least 2020 due to funding not being available for refurbishment.

Here's the thing. Bale is a businessman, and so he's used to operating with one aim in mind - making a fat profit for his shareholders (not to mention himself - evidently he did pretty well if he was able to invest £50K into setting up the JPA). Government doesn't work like that. The objective of government isn't and shouldn't be to make a profit - it's there to serve the people. This is particularly prominent with things like historic buildings - the fact that Piquet House has been neglected isn't an argument for it to be flogged off to the highest bidder, it's an argument for further state investment in the maintenance of historic buildings. Of course, that's not actually what this is about, because the JPA is an ideological project - it's a voice for comfortable rich people like Bale who wouldn't know poverty if it slapped them in the face, in an attempt to implement their anti-tax, anti-spending agenda. Here are some facts about the JPA's national equivalent, the group the JPA follows and takes guidance from:

- 60% of its donations come from individuals or groups giving more than £5K
- Their proposals include scrapping the building of new secondary schools, abolishing child benefit and binning the Sure Start centers for young children
- Their director, Alexander Heath, lives in a farmhouse in Loire in France and hasn't paid British tax for years
- Labour MP Jon Cruddas has accused the group of being a 'front' for the Conservative party

Do we really want these insidious types gaining a foothold on Jersey's political scene? Do we really want gobby rich people pumping tens of thousands into promoting an anti-tax political agenda?

No, thanks.

Our democratic deficit - yet another critical report

Uncomfortable times for Jersey's anti-democratic political establishment.

To the surprise of absolutely no-one, a report by international observers have found Jersey and our dodgy electoral system to be in breach of international democratic standards. In 18 pages of some of the frankest international criticism of the system yet, the report finds its' main issue in of our clapped-out, anti-democratic electoral system . Let's dig in!

 The report states that "The EOM finds that the method for seat distribution in the States Assembly is not consistent with the principle of the equality of the vote due to significant differences in vote weight from one parish to another for the election of Connétables". Gosh, you say, didn't the Clothier report make the exact same conclusion nearly two decades ago? Indeed it did! 18 years after the original report was written, its recommendations have been left summarily ignored. The Senators and Connétables remain in the States, the electoral system as a whole remains unreformed and undemocratic. The report doesn't hold back on this issue, at all - it accuses the continued presence of Connétables in the States of "challenging fundamental principles for democratic participation in a modern society, exacerbated by the fact that they frequently stand unopposed". Bang on. Look, I get why people are opposed to the Connétables leaving the States - it's seen as an erosion of the parish system, et cetera. Democracy is simply more important. I'm a localist - I love my parish and I'm proud to be St. Ouennais. Strengthening parish identity is crucial to building the libertarian socialism that I believe in, but that isn't done by packing our elected "Father of the Parish" off to St. Helier to play-act as a politician for three days a week. Connétables need to be brought out of the States to focus on doing their best for their own parishes, and leave the shenanigans of politics to the Deputies.

It's simply irrefutable at this point that Jersey can't continue to pretend to be a democracy while the Connétables remain States members. Most stand unopposed, facing no election whatsoever, representing populations ranging from a few thousand to forty thousand. The system is broken and reform would be so simple, if only the Assembly would get on with it.

So let's do that.

Let's get on with it.

The full report can be found here.