Deputy: Health wage blunder - those responsible will be held to account

Wednesday 12 December 2018

A Jersey Deputy has warned that revealing a £750k States pay blunder just before Christmas won't mean it slips off the agenda over the festive season.

Deputy Rob Ward has promised those responsible will be held to account, even though the island's politicians now don't meet again until 15th January.

His comments come in response to what he described as “a knee jerk decision” to regrade 36 different health and social care roles, which involved some staff being bumped up as many as two pay grades, at a £746,000 cost to the public purse. 

The staff said to be “primarily” involved in the decision are reported to no longer be working for the States, but the St. Helier Deputy wants to see those involved in approving the idea at all levels undergo proper scrutiny.

News of the costly mistake came in a report by external consultants published yesterday.

Pictured: 126 health professionals including physiotherapists, occupational health staff and social workers, will see their salary uplifts reversed in April.

Reacting to its findings, Deputy Ward said he was sceptical about whether all staff involved in the divisive decision, which apparently “set colleague against colleague”, had answered for their actions. 

Picking up on the use of the word “primarily” in the report, the Deputy told Express: “It says that those ‘primarily’ responsible for this issue are no longer with the States – we need to be certain that that’s the case and the word ‘primarily’ concerns me because there are also others that would have been part of this process perhaps that need to really be accountable.” 

Due to some initials that were left unredacted in the publicly available document, it has been ascertained that one of the members of Health’s Corporate Directors Team mentioned in the report was former Chief Officer for Health and Community Services Julie Garbutt. 

Mrs Garbutt left her role to look after her elderly parents in early June of this year - at around the same time the investigation into the pay review was commissioned by Interim HR support to the department Darren Skinner. 

Pictured: Julie Garbutt left her post as Chief Officer for Health and Social Services in early June of this year to look after her elderly parents.

Deputy Ward argued that accountability is particularly pertinent given the cost to the public purse, particularly as it comes amid escalating rows between union members and the States over pay. “After all… this is costing the States £750,000 at a time when we’re told ‘there is no money’”, the Deputy reasoned.

The news of the failed pay review follows the narrow defeat of a proposal brought by Reform Jersey’s Deputy Geoff Southern to raid States coffers to resolve the ongoing dispute over public sector wages. 

Deputy Rob Ward, who attended and spoke at the recent civil servant strike at Liberation Square, told Express that the reversed pay review is part of what he sees as a lack of value placed on the public sector.

"We don’t want to be wasting money that could be going directly to those services and I just wonder whether we need to look at those layers of management that make that sort of decision as to whether they need to be a lot more accountable… equally as accountable as the staff who are on the frontline," he said.

Pictured: Deputy Rob Ward addressing striking civil servants as they gathered in Liberation Square last week.

He continued: "We need a long-term commitment to our public services and the people that work within them, not short term knee-jerk reactions which are divisive and do nothing for the whole workforce.”

Despite the report being published just before the month-long Christmas break, Deputy Ward said he isn’t concerned that the backlash over the pay review reversal will dissipate over the holidays and is determined to keep the issue on the agenda.

“It doesn’t mean it’s going to go away… I think there is a change in this Assembly of keeping these issues at the forefront. I know I certainly will be…”