Auditor General to take over inquiry
Thursday 22nd September 2011, 2:58PM BST.
The Lime Grove building near the Green Street roundabout
AFTER 12 public hearings, access to hundreds of pages of documents and thousands of words of transcripts the Corporate Services Scrutiny panel has come to the conclusion that the collapse of the Lime Grove police station deal is too big an issue for it to deal with.
AFTER 12 public hearings, access to hundreds of pages of documents and thousands of words of transcripts the Corporate Services Scrutiny panel has come to the conclusion that the collapse of the Lime Grove police station deal is too big an issue for it to deal with.
Its report, published this morning, has ducked the key questions about what went wrong, how the £8.25m deal fell apart and who was responsible – and has instead shifted the job over to the Comptroller and Auditor General.
The hearings about the Lime Grove deal were explosive, showing fault lines between senior ministers, painting a picture of a Property Holdings department that had ‘gone rogue’ and presenting very different versions of whether the Lime Grove deal would have been a cheap option that solved all of the problems, or an expensive disaster waiting to happen.
A full report on those questions is now unlikely to appear for several months, as the States’ independent spending watchdog Chris Swinson has agreed to review it, although he is on holiday for the next four weeks.
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Why oh Why oh Why has no one in the states got the balls to make a decision!
Its not as if they are even accountable at the end of it. How much is this debacle costing us!!
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Too big an issue or too incompetent to deal with it?
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It feels like I’m in an episode of Dad’s Army or some other farcical comedy. Except it is all funded by real money..
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Kick the can down the road until after the election and appointments to COM? We can then spend a few more quid going round in circles.
Meanwhile the ‘watchdog’ is on holiday for four weeks, until after the election. They must think we don’t have a Scooby.
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Bit disappointed really, I thought that, at last, Sen Ferguson would rise to the challenge and produce a no-nonsense report. Maybe election-time has put pressures on Scrutiny members who have aspirations for ministerial posts in the new House.
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whatever decision Minister Ozouf made he would have been criticised!!
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Is the person who is going to review this on a retainer for when he comes back from his 4 week holiday (nice work if you get it).
I am definitely in the wrong job
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re 6
surely the whole point of releasing this info is to ascertain if Mr Ozouf was the person responsible in losing the contract etc and the financial costs that may be involved.
Rather than giving the people the answer of who was responsible, the powers that be have decided to pass this onto someone who cannot start for 4 weeks (pure coincidence that the election happens in that window)
Nothing new
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I suggest you read the full report – which Ben seems not to have done!
The review raised questions as to the way the States does business, the management and treatment of employees and the conduct of the Minister and his team.
We were also concerned by the issue of confidentiality clauses in end of contract agreements. It seems grossly unfair that one party should be unable to defend themselves, except in a scrutiny hearing, whilst the other is free to make use of the all the media alternatives.
This goes far beyond the basic question of the purchase of a building and brings up a number of issues – which are included in the report.
The report is available on line on the scrutiny website.
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‘We were also concerned by the issue of confidentiality clauses in end of contract agreements. It seems grossly unfair that one party should be unable to defend themselves, except in a scrutiny hearing, whilst the other is free to make use of the all the media alternatives.’
Sarah,
It is a shame that this wasn’t noted by our esteemed States members in relation to Graham Power’s suspension debacle following the release of redacted reports/reviews by the Home Minister to the media
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Senator Ozouf had the backbone to try to undercut the price and given that the building had been empty for so many years should be praised for trying to save the tax payer an additional half million pounds. He could have taken the “safe” option and offered half a million over the odds and guaranteed the contract.
At least he has proved that he can make decisions rather than relying on Civil Servants and advisors. People need to remember that all such deals are a gamble as to how the market will react or what cards the other party holds. Having so many States members publishing confidential information on their blogs in the name of “transparency” does not help the ministers trying hard to get the best deal on behalf of us taxpayers.
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Sanity – I would suggest that you read the transcripts from the scrutiny review – although not easy to follow, they give a quite contrary view to the spin posted by Senator Ozouf on his blog
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‘We were also concerned by the issue of confidentiality clauses in end of contract agreements. It seems grossly unfair that one party should be unable to defend themselves, except in a scrutiny hearing, whilst the other is free to make use of the all the media alternatives.’
Whats new? How many times has this happened how many times has this happened before This is the Jersey Way.
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A really radical idea!
A Ststes employee, journalist or member of the public should be allowed to question a States member on a level playing field.
What next, democracy?
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