Friday 27 January 2012
A parliamentary committees' report on improving governance arrangements in the States of Guernsey is published today [27 January 2012] in the Billet d'État for the March States' meeting.
In March 2011 the States committed to adopting six Core Principles of good governance. The Public Accounts Committee, Scrutiny Committee and States Assembly and Constitution Committee were directed by the States of Guernsey to jointly report back to the States on the next steps for the implementation of the principles in practice.
The report asks the States Assembly to debate and approve in-principle fifty separate recommendations.
If the Joint Committees' proposals are approved, the Policy Council would then be tasked with reporting back to the States by January 2013 with an implementation plan for those recommendations agreed to be taken forward. In the next term (2012 - 2016) improvements in governance would be monitored and reported on by the Public Accounts and Scrutiny Committees, which would have an addition to their mandates for "the promotion and monitoring of good governance". Finally, the Joint Committees are recommending that in 2016 the Policy Council commissions an independent review of the standards of governance in the States of Guernsey.
Deputy Matt Fallaize, who chaired the Joint Committees' Working Party for the governance project, explains:
"Improving governance is a continuous process and should not finish with this report. The Public Accounts Committee's previous work with the Wales Audit Office got the conversation started and made governance an issue at the top of people's minds. This report takes it a stage further in identifying a range of measures that might be taken to apply the core principles in practice."
Deputy Leon Gallienne, Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, says:
"This is the first joint project of the three parliamentary committees. Working together has enabled us to make recommendations for improvement with a much broader focus than any one of the Committees would have been able to achieve individually."
ENDS
Contact information
Alysa Martel or Christine Foster on 01481 717116.
