St Brelade Constable Mike Jackson has lodged an amendment asking for £500,000 to be set aside for an independent review of the Island’s response to Covid-19, which he said should be delivered by April 2022.
He said ‘it is time’ for an inquiry which would lead to ‘recommendations and guidelines for the management of any future pandemic or similarly disruptive event’.
Brigadier Nigel Hall, who has experience in crisis management, recently called for the States Assembly to debate holding a public inquiry into the Island’s Covid-19 response, saying that the government’s reluctance to hold an review was a ‘naked attempt’ to protect itself from criticism. But during a States sitting last month, Chief Minister John Le Fondré said that there were not sufficient resources to conduct a review ‘in the immediate future’ and added that such an initiative would cost around £5 million, ten times what Mr Jackson has proposed for the project.
The Constable suggested a ‘time- and cost-limited’ exercise which, if approved, could start as early as January 2022.
In a report accompanying his amendment, Mr Jackson said: ‘Some jurisdictions have begun to establish their pandemic-lessons-learned inquiries. It is time now for Jersey to meet the widespread public expectation that we also need to harvest, analyse, learn, and apply our own lessons from the pandemic in order to safeguard our population. We must demonstrate that we can be agile when required. We can best protect Jersey by authorising a rapid, short, bespoke lessons-learned inquiry, so that urgent lessons can be learned and applied.’
He added: ‘We are not considering here a full, expensive, public inquiry, but a “safety first” rapid lessons-learned exercise. Following commercial and military best practice, this should start within weeks and it should be time and cost limited. It should be noted that any inquiry held on the basis of “rapid lessons learned” would not preclude a more substantial review at a later date.
‘In order to ensure that this rapid lessons-learned exercise cannot be misinterpreted as a witch-hunt or blame-game exercise, indemnity and anonymity safeguards can and should be designed so that witnesses giving evidence to the panel can speak freely and feel personally secure.’
If the proposals are approved, Mr Jackson said that an independent panel of up to five people could be appointed.
He said that the States could choose a chairperson who would then select the other members of the panel – which would include ‘medical and scientific experts’ who had not been directly involved with Jersey’s pandemic response.
Mr Jackson added that the costs involved should be capped at £500,000. The proposed Government Plan is set to be debated next month.
