Comptroller and Auditor General Karen McConnell has recommended that the Jersey Innovation Fund is closed until ‘very significant failings’ are addressed and a fundamental review of the scheme – which to date has received just 26 per cent of the repayments it has been due – is carried out.
She is also considering reporting some ‘third parties’ associated with the fund to the Attorney General because of conduct which she said ‘falls below expected standards’.
The fund’s board, which is made up of private businessmen, and the former chief officer of Economic Development, Mike King – who was the accounting officer for the fund and the Economic Development Department, under whose remit the fund fell for most of its existence, are all criticised in the report.
The fund currently falls under the political remit of Assistant Chief Minister Philip Ozouf. It was proposed by Treasury Minister Alan Maclean in 2013 when he was Economic Development Minister and passed to Senator Ozouf in January 2015.
Ms McConnell concluded that the JIF was ‘not fit for purpose’ and said that Mr King, who resigned earlier this month, should have ‘done more to ensure that public money was protected’.
Full report in Thursday’s JEP.
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