By Orlando Crowcroft
ANYONE who knows me will know that prominent on my list of pet hates – and, granted, it is a long list – is surveys. Or, more specifically, press releases – and, sadly, news stories – that extrapolate generally held views or opinions from them.
I’ve held court about this before, if you remember, when the government used the results of its BeHeard survey back in February to argue that government workers absolutely loved their jobs.
It later emerged that the only thing the BeHeard survey really showed was how few people took part in it: just 3,000, or 39.3% of employees, of a total of over 9,000 States employees in 2024. That figure was even lower than a year earlier, when 3,881 filled it out.
“You can’t force people to fill out a survey,” the vice-chairman of the States Employment Board, Malcolm Ferey, retorted when I asked him about the turnout. And he was right, of course, but it was the government that, knowing this, decided to fudge it and issue a press release anyway.
On this occasion, a journalist at the JEP (this journalist) pushed the government on the numbers and the lack of turnout became the story. But more often than not these lines get parroted with very little scrutiny: like, for example, the recent survey into the future of Fort Regent.
“Survey finds Fort Regent plans backed by the public,” said one local news outlet on 11 June, and: “Overwhelming Jersey public support for £110 million Fort Regent plans, survey finds,” gushed another. It continued that “almost 90%” of visitors, residents and students who responded are satisfied with the Jersey Development Company’s scheme for the beleaguered landmark.
And I am sure they were: Fort Regent is not only a money pit – as revealed recently by this newspaper – but it is an eyesore and something of an embarrassment, frankly, looming over St Helier like some sort of Poundland Eden Project. But look at the fine print and you see that just 6,000 people filled out the survey, which is hardly a resounding success in terms of turnout.
Indeed, it represents 5.45% of the population.
I put these views – which are those of several readers, not my own – to the JDC, which, suffice to say, does not feel the same. Chief executive Lee Henry replied that the survey, carried out by 4insight, garnered 6,003 responses, “a substantial and statistically significant sample. The response size offers a high degree of confidence that the findings are representative of the wider population.”
Lee argues that a survey response of 2,400 would yield a plus-or-minus 2% margin or error for a population of 110,000. “On that basis, the 2025 Fort Regent survey substantially exceeds the sample size required for high statistical reliability. We also understand that this survey achieved the highest ever number of responses for local public survey of this kind,” he said.
Since we’re talking about the Fort, I may as well make my feelings on it clear: I think it should be demolished and the historic fort that it is built on restored as a tourist site.
But as regular readers of this column will know, nobody listens to me.
I’ve reached out to the Infrastructure Department but not heard at the time of writing.
Nice work if you can get it
“What a privilege to speak at the 42nd Annual Caribbean Group of Banking Supervisors conference in beautiful Grand Cayman!” the Jersey Financial Services Commission’s head of innovation Andrew Evans gushed in a recent LinkedIn post.
The official JFSC account, reposting Mr Evans’ post, added that “international co-operation and innovation are key to shaping the future of financial regulation”. It was, itself, “liked” by three people, including Mr Evans himself, who reposted it.
I’d be a hypocrite to sit here and be snide about anybody’s use of social media. Hell, I worked at LinkedIn for around 13 extremely unhappy months (that’s a story for another day). But what I will do is point out that execs jetting off to the Caribbean for dubiously relevant international conferences ruffled a few feathers among those whose licence fees ultimately pay for it.
“It is a classic example of how they are wasting money travelling around the world on initiatives that don’t add any value whatsoever to Jersey. If it was their own money, they wouldn’t spend it,” one said.
But things are not always as they seem. I did my due diligence and reached out to the JFSC for comment, who confirmed that Mr Evans had travelled to Cayman courtesy of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, who paid for his flights and his hotel.
As such, it did not cost the Jersey business community anything.
I’m here to observe
There was disappointment for members of Jersey’s government this week when it emerged that neither of the two members who applied to observe Guernsey’s election were selected for the task.
Instead, a trio of politicians from Scotland and the Caribbean islands of St Lucia and Montserrat were selected to take part in the eight-person Commonwealth Parliamentary Association mission.
The chair of the Jersey branch of the CPA, Deputy Rob Ward, told this newspaper that he didn’t think there were “political reasons” why Jersey members were not chosen. “I have a lot of faith in the process they use,” said Deputy Ward who, it emerged, got a cushy trip to the Cayman Islands earlier this year to observe their elections. Again, nice work if you can get it.
Oo La La
This week in Freedom of Information rejections I must reveal that my attempt to find out how many people had actually been turned away from visiting hours at La Moye Prison for being in breach of its stringent rules on revealing clothing has failed, with the States of Jersey Prison Service saying that it does not hold the data.
You may remember that I’d mentioned this in my last column after I noticed the restriction during my visit with mystery swimmer David Law, and wanted to find out who polices it and whether they had actually enforced it. So it is now over to you: Do you know of anyone who has been turned away for wearing revealing clothing who would tell me about what happened?
As ever, reach out at orlando@allisland.media – and not just on this. I can tell you that the ammunition for this entire column – and last week’s – came from emails, tip-offs and texts from Islanders. Please keep them coming and be sure that I am reading them, even if my sleep-addled brain (I have two children under six) means that I don’t always reply immediately.
