IT’S now been nearly a month since the JEP published its investigation into the Jersey Financial Services Commission and the regulator has still not offered up any senior figure for interview. Indeed, the only communication we have had from the JFSC was a boilerplate statement when we published on 1 October, and the by-now infamous statement from JFSC chair Jane Platt on 16 October. My last request to the JFSC for an interview was ignored, as were previous requests. So here, in this public forum, I am making my offer official: would Ms Platt be willing to be interviewed by this newspaper? If so, get in touch.

What I have had since since we ran our series is dozens and dozens of emails from readers echoing the comments of those we interviewed.

We’ve also had a robust response to our survey about the JFSC, and I can tell you that all but a tiny handful have been critical. We’ve even had the Minister for External Relations, Deputy Ian Gorst, tell this newspaper and the States Chamber that he supported our calls for an independent appeals process. Speaking to the JEP, Deputy Gorst, unlike Ms Platt, acknowledged the testimony of those who said that the regulator had ruined their lives and careers. The JFSC by contrast simply said that the claims were unsubstantiated.

What we are left with, therefore, is an odd juxtaposition: on the one hand an admission that things are not right at the regulator (from Deputy Gorst) and on the other an absolute refusal to accept that anything is wrong (from Ms Platt). So which is it?

Freedom of (mis)information

We’ve been buoyed here at the JEP by the apparent conciliatory attitude of the council of ministers towards our call for arm’s-length organisations to be added to the Freedom of Information Law. Deputy Gorst told the States that they had met earlier this week to discuss it, so perhaps the JEP’s Inaction-o-meter is having the desired effect. We’ve also asked every arm’slength organisation whether they were willing to be FoI-ed, and the results are a bit of a mixed bag. Most have argued that they are already transparent enough, while others (a minority) have said they have nothing to hide. We are still waiting for a couple of outliers (you know who you are) but as soon as everyone gets back with their answers we will let you all know how our beloved ALOs stack up.

Deputy Gorst told the States on Tuesday that his objection to the ex-tension of the law was due to the lack of an absolute exemption for commercially sensitive information. Under the current FoI law this exemption – Article 33 – is qualified, meaning that it has a public-interest test applied to it. If the public interest is in revealing the information despite its potential commercial sensitivity, it is revealed.

One can understand why – particularly in the case of government-owned utility companies – commercial sensitivity is relevant, but the effort to make Article 33 an absolute exemption is worrying: there are numerous occasions where the public should have the right to know how much of our money the States is spending and on what.

We will be watching – and we would encourage you to do the same – to make sure that under the guise of widening FoI, ministers are not actually trying to neuter it.

Park life

By way of example, an FoI request was made recently to find out how much rental income had been received by the States for the use of Howard Davis Hall in the St Helier park of the same name. You may remember that the building underwent a £750,000 refurbishment in 2022 and was reopened as an events space, with the government claiming it could raise £1 million over the next four years.

It is now 2024, so it would be fair to ask the government how much it actually had raised two years into the plan, wouldn’t it? It would not, it seems, as an FoI to find out just that was rejected, using – you guessed it – Article 33, which protects “the commercial interests of the company”. This is stupid on a number of counts: firstly, how would a figure for total revenue be commercially sensitive? Secondly, it is the public that owns the hall, which, like Howard Davis Park, was gifted to Islanders by TB Davis in tribute to his son, killed at the Battle of the Somme. Since 2022, the hall has been closed to the public: How much have we made from losing that asset? We deserve to know.

On the subject of missing assets, the JEP has also asked about the fate of the portrait of Howard Davis that once adorned the walls of the hall and which, we are informed, has since vanished. Jersey Heritage has confirmed that they have the painting and there are no plans to put it back on the wall.

Ferry furore

The award for story that made me laugh out loud this week goes to Bailiwick Express, which revealed that Economy chief Richard Corrigan – the most senior civil servant in the department running the ferry tender process – had voted for DFDS in a Facebook poll.

Mr Corrigan was subsequently replaced as senior reporting officer, and rightly so.

Economic Development Minister Kirsten Morel said that Mr Corrigan had made a “genuine error” and only took part in the poll in order to view the result, but it has also emerged that this wasn’t the first time Mr Corrigan has played the role of social-media fanboy to the Danish provider, congratulating DFDS on a contract award ten months ago.

It is all very amusing until you reflect on the fact that a) the ferry tender is arguably the most important commercial contract the Island will sign in the next decade, and b) Mr Corrigan is paid up to £245,000 per year. Maybe he should spend some of his significant wedge on social-media training, although they do say you can’t teach common sense.

Monkey business

My grandparents were both zoologists and knew Gerald Durrell, and I am reliably informed that if I was to whisper that I am related to Peter Crowcroft at Jersey Zoo I would get in free (I haven’t tested this yet). Perhaps that’s why I have been following the difficulties of the Zoo in recent years with some interest. That, and the fact that while I have my misgivings about using caged animals as a form of entertainment, my kids love it.

To be fair, it would be hard for anyone to have to ignored the Zoo recently, given thedeserved pasting it got in the UK press over damning pictures of animals in distress. That was compounded by the PR train wreck that followed the stories.

As always when the Island finds itself in the national media crosshairs, the whole affair was handled badly, and ended up making Zoo management look self-satisfied and recalcitrant.

Now it has emerged that Durrell execs have brought in “an external HR company” to “conduct an independent review of all applicants and a first round of interviews” for the eight open positions on its board of trustees. And – surprise, surprise – a senior former Zoo employee turned critic, Quentin Bloxham, who spent 45 years at the institution, didn’t make the cut. I sense another train wreck on the horizon.

As always, if you work at the Zoo and want to speak about what’s going on there anonymously, reach out to me at orlando@allisland.media.

On anonymity

Actually, I wanted to close this column with a few words on anonymity, because I feel like not everyone knows what it means when it comes to talking to journalists.

It means this: if you contact me with a story or to give me information that you think would be useful to me and say it is “off the record” or you do not want to be named, I will never, ever, name you or say where I got the information from. No one will ever know you’ve spoken to me – or at least they will never hear it from me.

In cases where I think that information may identify a source – for example, if he or she was to tell me something that only a couple of people know – I work with that source to make sure that they are not identifiable. If there is even a chance they would be, I wouldn’t use it. I take this responsibility very seriously, and I always have.

I say this because after six months in this job I can see how scared people in the Island are about speaking up: I want to help change that. Just look at the impact that JFSC series we ran a few weeks back has had already – and I hope will continue to have. Fear and secrecy have held us back long enough.

So I end this column as I began it, by saying – simply – call me.