A LOG to keep track of the progress of agreed States decisions could be set up, the chair of the Island’s procedures watchdog has said – because ministers have missed deadlines for implementing approved propositions.
Constable Karen Shenton-Stone, who chairs the Privileges and Procedures Committee, said that the panel had ‘previously discussed how to ensure better compliance, principally on the part of ministers’.
She added that States Members had a number of options available to them, including bringing forward votes of censure or no confidence, using States questions to ask for an explanation for delays or bringing further propositions requiring actions.
Responding to a written States question from Deputy Sam Mézec, Mrs Shenton-Stone said: ‘In 2021, PPC discussed what sanctions could be applied to ministers for failing to implement a States decision. The present position is that, procedurally, there are no special rules requiring ministers to implement the requests made of them by the Assembly (although there is a political imperative on ministers to heed those requests).’
Earlier this year, Deputy Mézec accused the new Council of Ministers of failing to enact agreed propositions – citing three in particular that had not been progressed. In an open letter to Chief Minister Kristina Moore, Deputy Mézec said that Members needed to be able to decide whether delays or a diversion from approved policy was acceptable, but that ministers had failed to provide any reasoning for the delays. He accused ministers of failing to progress proposals – on assisted dying, an empty-property tax and the removal of GST from period products.
Deputy Moore, in response, said that the Council of Ministers ‘maintain full respect for our parliamentary democracy’ and denied that the decisions had been disregarded.
Mrs Shenton-Stone said: ‘During its discussions, PPC noted that there is no track of decisions of the States to show what ministers have been asked to do and what progress towards implementation has been made. On that basis PPC had started to explore the idea of a States decision log, which would be backdated to 2018 and published, which would require departments to provide progress updates every quarter.
‘The intention behind this would be to make it easier for Members and the media to question ministers about the implementation and to scrutinise the reasons given for any delay. Where ministers had decided not to implement a decision, the reasons would need to be stated publicly and Members would have the information they need to question ministers on this, both in Scrutiny and in the Assembly.
‘The tracker is a work in progress, partly due to PPC’s workload before the election. In that regard I will make sure that an item is placed on a future PPC agenda in order to continue our discussions on this matter and the Deputy’s suggestion of requiring ministers to make a statement in the States will be included in those discussions.’
