THOSE who escalate concerns about the safety of vulnerable children are treated as “part of the problem” rather than listened to, a former government safeguarding manager claimed during a dramatic employment tribunal hearing yesterday.
And a controversial recording of a meeting of Jersey’s most senior public officials – in which the Island’s police chief described the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry as a “noose round the Island’s neck” – was finally played in public for the first time.
The hearing marked the final day in Alison Renouf’s unfair-dismissal case against the States Employment Board, which has attracted widespread attention over allegations of safeguarding failures, whistleblower retaliation and multiple government attempts to prevent the recording from being shown.
A packed public gallery – extended into a second room by opening a dividing screen – watched as Ms Renouf, representing herself, faced more than three hours of cross-examination by the government’s lawyer yesterday.
Visibly anxious at times, the 57-year-old even requested a shorter lunch break so she could “get it over with”.
But throughout the questioning, Ms Renouf maintained that her decision to share the meeting recording with two children’s charities had been motivated by genuine fears about the safety of vulnerable children.
“I did not intentionally breach my contract,” she told the tribunal. “I took action that I thought was proportionate and necessary to protect the safeguarding system.”
Registered social worker Ms Renouf claims she was dismissed by the government in retaliation for whistleblowing about failures in Jersey’s child protection arrangements.
The States Employment Board maintains that she was dismissed for gross misconduct after disclosing confidential information outside authorised channels.
Ms Renouf said her decision to share the video was “not a hasty or impulsive decision”, but rather “the culmination of increasing concerns over a period of many months”.
She told the tribunal: “I took those actions for genuine safeguarding reasons – and those concerns about the process have played out worse than I ever thought possible at the time.”
The social worker claimed there had been “concerted attempts by senior leaders to shut down scrutiny and accountability of Children’s Social Care”.
“I believed there were serious shortcomings in the functioning and effectiveness of the safeguarding partnerships and that children were being put at risk,” she added.
“I believed that any improvement in safeguarding practice made as a result of the Care Inquiry was fragile and was in the process of being undone.”
Any improvement in safeguarding practice made as a result of the Care Inquiry was fragile and was in the process of being undone
alison renouf
Her concerns included alleged pressure from her superiors to minimise the findings of a review involving children who had experienced “serious harm”, and attempts to “heavily redact” another serious case review containing “highly critical” findings about Children’s Social Care.
Ms Renouf also accused independent safeguarding partnership chair David Goosey of editing a report in November 2024 in a way that understated the seriousness of its findings.
“He edited it in a way which I felt seriously downplayed the findings,” she claimed. “The seriousness of the case was significantly downplayed in his redrafted version.”
Mr Goosey had not attended the meeting from which the review arose, she said, and she questioned whether he could have properly examined the evidence, including a chronology exceeding 100 pages, before making his changes.
“I thought rewriting the review report without discussion and against the objections of myself, the author, undermined his role as independent chair,” her witness statement said.
By January 2025, Ms Renouf said she had lost confidence in the safeguarding system’s ability to challenge itself.
“I was concerned that those who continued to escalate safeguarding concerns, or who were seen as continuing to raise concerns with Children’s Social Care, were being treated as part of the problem, rather than as safeguarding partners whose concerns need to be examined on their merits.”
Central to the dispute is a recording of a government meeting held on 9 January 2025.
The meeting brought together senior figures from government departments and the police – including police chief Robin Smith, then-government chief executive Andrew McLaughlin, Justice and Home Affairs chief officer Kate Briden and Children’s Services director Donna Marriott.
The recording was made with the knowledge of attendees to assist with preparing minutes.
However, Ms Renouf subsequently shared it with Family Nursing and Home Care and NSPCC Jersey, arguing that the charities needed to know about discussions which she believed could threaten their government contracts.
The recording became controversial after comments emerged in which Mr Smith described the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry as a “noose round the Island’s neck”.
The landmark inquiry, which was published in 2017, exposed decades of abuse and failures in Jersey’s care system.
Mr McLaughlin also accused external organisations of “dining out on what happened a decade ago”.
Mr Smith subsequently apologised for his choice of words, maintaining that his intention had been to encourage progress based on the inquiry’s lessons.
Yesterday, those attending the tribunal heard the officials’ remarks in their original context as the video was played in public for the first time.
Ms Renouf said she was “deeply concerned” by what was said during the meeting, which she claimed “made clear” what senior officials thought should happen to those who challenged government decisions: “They should leave the organisation”.
The meeting recording was only played after a lengthy legal dispute over whether it should be heard in open tribunal.
Last week, tribunal chair Dr Elena Moran rejected the government’s application to prevent its public playing, following representations from the JEP supporting open justice.
The hearing was then adjourned to allow the States Employment Board and anyone present at the meeting to seek permission to appeal.
The government sought to have reporting restrictions placed on the recording transcript – which had already been referenced as evidence during the tribunal – during that adjournment, but that was also rejected.
No submissions were filed by the deadline, meaning the government’s application for leave to appeal fell away and the tribunal resumed yesterday morning.
Even before the evidence began, government lawyer Advocate Christopher Austin opened the hearing by voicing concerns that media organisations – including the JEP – had obtained access to the recording before it was played publicly.
But the tribunal chair repeatedly stressed that her jurisdiction over material obtained outside the tribunal’s disclosure process was limited.
“To be clear, I have no jurisdiction over what the media do,” said Dr Moran.
The bulk of the hearing involved Advocate Austin challenging Ms Renouf over her decision to share confidential information outside the government’s whistleblowing procedure.
Taking her through her employment contract and government policies, he argued that the safeguarding partnership lead must have understood confidentiality requirements.
“It is simply not plausible that someone with your experience and training [believed] that exposing a confidential meeting to third parties was not a breach of confidentiality,” argued Advocate Austin.
He also questioned why she had approached outside organisations so soon after beginning the internal whistleblowing process.
“You simply did not give the process a chance,” he said.
Ms Renouf disagreed.
“I had lost faith and didn’t think the process was going to address my concerns in a timely fashion, and my concerns were urgent,” she told the tribunal. “I felt I was being bullied and the bullying was escalating.”
Advocate Austin argued that the government’s policy provided a route for raising concerns without negative repercussions, provided employees complied with its requirements.
“It is accepted that you did whistleblow within policy, but then you stepped outside that process – and that is the basis of your dismissal,” he said to Ms Renouf.
But the former government employee described the whistleblowing procedure as a “catch and kill policy”, arguing that it effectively shut down complaints rather than properly investigating them.
“You risk everything to whistleblow and then you get nothing back from that,” she said.
“I don’t think that the whistleblowing policy is fit for purpose. It’s more like an internal complaints policy than a whistleblowing policy.”
Advocate Austin pointed out that Ms Renouf had identified the Jersey Care Commission and Children’s Commissioner as organisations with the specialist expertise to investigate her concerns, questioning why she had therefore also shared material with the two charities.
The social worker explained that those disclosures served different purposes because she feared the charities’ contracts were at risk.
Ms Renouf also challenged the suggestion that confidentiality was straightforward in her role, which she said routinely involved sharing highly sensitive information with safeguarding agencies external to government.
“Just saying something is ‘confidential’ does not make it simple,” she said.
Ms Renouf accepted that sending the recording to her personal Gmail account would not normally be appropriate, but maintained that there had been exceptional circumstances.
“My job description said that safeguarding of children was paramount,” she explained. “I did it because I thought it was necessary for safeguarding reasons.”
Advocate Austin told her: “You acted outside the terms of the policy; you breached confidentiality by providing copies of the recording to third parties.”
He also suggested that, had Ms Renouf followed the government’s whistleblowing policy and maintained confidentiality, there would have been no grounds for dismissal.
Her response was immediate. “I think they would have bullied me out instead,” she said.
Ms Renouf maintained that her actions had been taken in good faith, without malicious intent or personal gain.
“Whistleblowing doesn’t make you popular,” she told the tribunal. “I had whistleblown about senior leaders, up to and including the chief officer, which made me vulnerable.”
She also alleged that her dismissal had been retaliatory, rather than a proportionate response to a breach of confidentiality.
The States Employment Board disputes her account, maintaining that the case concerns serious breaches of confidentiality rather than retaliation for whistleblowing.
The tribunal must now determine whether Ms Renouf’s dismissal was unfair. No judgment has yet been delivered.
