Sunday 27 October 2019
In response to a story published on Saturday 26th October 2019 in the Guernsey Press & Star, Deputy Matt Fallaize, President of the Committee for Education, Sport & Culture, said:
"We were advised that disclosing documents which compromised the privacy of third parties could breach data protection laws. We have always wanted to disclose everything related to the appointment because this is what will allow all of the facts to be known and the integrity and good intentions of the Committee to be confirmed publicly. We have had to work with the Scrutiny Management Committee and legal advisors to get to a position where we are able to disclose everything related to the review while respecting the need to observe data protection laws.
"A couple of weeks ago I met with Deputy Green, the Principal Officer of the Scrutiny Management Committee and other colleagues and we were able to work through the data protection issues. Having done so, on behalf of the Committee I agreed we would provide all of the documents requested by the end of the first week of November. I do not know who the Scrutiny Management Committee is going to appoint as their reviewer, but he or she will certainly have access to all of the relevant papers held by or known to members of the Committee together with a full account of events from each member of the Committee in turn.
"My Committee has always been committed to co-operating fully with whatever review or inquiry anyone wanted to carry out and of course this remains the case.
"I read your report [in Saturday's Press] about a review which you state is ongoing into the application for a work permit for the role in question. I have to tell you that I know absolutely nothing about any such review. I have asked officers about it and I have received no information whatsoever. Nobody connected with any such review has made any contact with me. However, perhaps that is not surprising because I had nothing at all to do with the application for a permit and I have no knowledge of who made the application, what was contained within it or the outcome. I have never been involved in nor had any influence on any such permit application - it is not a role for elected members."
