In brief: Jersey’s Housing Minister, Deputy Mark Ferey, has been criticised by a scrutiny panel for being insufficiently familiar with his brief four months into the role. The Environment, Housing and Infrastructure Scrutiny Panel raised concerns about his approach to homelessness, a potential contradiction between his housing priorities and official data, and a lack of cross-departmental working.
Panel fires warning shot at Housing Minister
It was only the first quarterly hearing between the Environment, Housing and Infrastructure Scrutiny Panel and Deputy Mark Ferey, Jersey’s Housing Minister, but it was not a comfortable one. Following the session on Thursday morning, the panel issued a statement pulling no punches: “The panel is concerned that the minister isn’t yet up to speed with the Housing remit four months into the role and after the publication of the Common Strategic Policy which includes providing more homes as a key priority.”
Deputy Ferey’s response to the panel’s concerns was, to put it charitably, brief. The BBC reports that he “did not wish to comment further at this time.” Whether that reflects quiet confidence, careful legal counsel or something else entirely is left to the imagination.
The numbers don’t quite add up
One of the panel’s more substantive criticisms concerns the relationship between the minister’s stated priority of building more homes and what the data actually shows. The panel pointed to Statistics Jersey figures indicating that the island’s housing shortage amounts to just 310 units. Crucially, the panel noted that in a net nil migration scenario, Jersey would have a surplus of homes by 2040.
This creates an awkward question: if the data suggests a shortage of the right type of homes rather than an outright lack of housing, why is the minister’s headline priority simply to increase housing supply? The panel noted that Ferey is also responsible for population policy and “did not give a clear reason behind that disconnect between data and policy.” That is a significant gap, and one that will need addressing before the minister can credibly claim to have a grip on his brief.
Homelessness concerns and silo working
The panel also raised the issue of homelessness, noting that there has been a slight increase in the number of islanders without a home. Despite this, the BBC reports that the minister has yet to meet with the homelessness cluster, the group of organisations working to tackle the problem. The panel’s statement was direct: “The minister has yet to meet with the homelessness cluster in order to discuss how to tackle this.”
Further, Ferey apparently does not see the need for a ministerial group spanning departments to address the wider causes of homelessness. The panel described this as raising “further questions about silo working within the government.” It also highlighted that the minister “hasn’t yet held structured meetings with the planning and regulation minister and infrastructure minister while developing his housing policy and priorities.” For a minister whose remit sits at the intersection of planning, infrastructure and social need, that is a notable absence of joined-up thinking.
Source: BBC News
