AN independent review of the first six months of Income Support will be undertaken early this year after the damning report by former St Helier welfare staff.

Senator Alan Breckon, pictured, chairman of the Health, Social Security and Housing Scrutiny panel, said that the leaked draft report raised serious questions about the well-being of Islanders on the new £64 million scheme introduced to replace parish welfare and a range of States benefits.

And Social Security Minister Ian Gorst has promised to sit down and discuss potential failures and make changes if they are needed. He said that he had not yet seen the report but was aware of concerns about the lack of community visits.

‘I don’t want to give the impression that I’m just going to back down,’ he said. ‘We should look at a whole gamut of cases and see if there is an obvious failing. If so, we need to change it. Having said that, the department is changing things when it becomes apparent that there are problems. But I am more than happy to sit down and deal with the issues.’