‘Political bias’ claim rejected by Housing
Saturday 18th April 2009, 2:29PM BST.
HOUSING yesterday staunchly denied any allegations of political bias when determining housing licences.
‘I strongly refute any allegation that the Housing Department has any political bias against the Health and Social Services Department and challenge the person who made it to provide the evidence to back up this allegation,’ said Housing minister Dave Jones (pictured).
‘It is true to say that the Housing Department carefully scrutinises every licence application made by HSSD – but that is no different to the manner in which the department deals with every other island employer. It is also true to say that we don’t always consent to every licence application from HSSD, but then we don’t always agree every licence we get from other employers either.’
He added that just as Housing dealt with all licence applications regardless of where they came from, if a licence application from Health was rejected at its first presentation to the board, it was prepared to reconsider the application and change the decision if the department provided more compelling evidence of its licensing needs.
Former Health and Social Services board members have campaigned long and hard about the impact of Housing’s stance on licences.
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Waffle–in plain English Bull–
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Question for Dave Jones can people from Alderney get housing licences here or are they treated as UK personnel.
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Dave Jones
He is a card.
I like the way he challenges others to provide evidence but never provides any himself.
Deputy Jones – please publish all the licence applications for the last 2 years by fiscal calendar on this post, with a break down of:
Number of applications
By Sector (Private / Public)
By Group (Health, Police, Education etc)
Type of Licence (9months, year, 3 years, etc)
Number of rejections
Re-submissions
Number of all licences with applications which were accepted.
Also-licence extensions and with the same criteria as above.
Please don’t tell me this is not possible as this is public interest material and there is nothing private about it.
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Well Darren;
I’ll say this about you:
You are are optimist, if you think he’ll answer; the true facts that is;
You’ll get another of those it is decided by those higher than me: which will prove he isn’t fit for the job.
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Andy
People from Alderney can apply for housing licences just like any other applicant from the UK or elsewhere, for the purposes of licences they are treated as a separate self governing jurisdiction which is of course what they are.
In other words Guernsey’s Housing control law does not extend to Alderney. If Alderney States however were to introduce controls that were compatible with Guernsey to prevent Alderney being used as a back door to get around Guernsey’s housing control laws, then we could possibly extend our current laws to them.
Darren
Most of the information you require is out there in the public domain. The licence statistics are printed in the Billet every year, giving categories and numbers issued.
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I always wondered why other bailiwick islanders were not allowed to come and live here without a licence as i thought it rather unfair. Now i think i understand what Dave Jones is saying: that Alderney, and presumably Herm and Sark residents are not necessarily Bailiwick born and bred and could have come from anywhere? If someone can prove they were born in the other Bailiwick islands and have lived there for the same times that Guernsey residents have to in order to gain local residential status do Housing then grant them licence to stay here or can they never stay in Guernsey for more than 5 years unless they have a 15 year licence or get married to a local resident etc?
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I have to say that Dave Jones does try and engage with the public. Some may perceive that to be arrogance but the man cannot win really. His department have been asked to keep the population down and that is what they are trying to do without bringing Guernsey businesses to a stand still. It is a very difficult job – and unlike a lot of other politicians at least he has the guts to come on here and try and answer questions.
He has his own views and having lived here for many years (and be married to a Guernsey lass) is prouder of Guernsey than a lot of so-called locals who do nothing but winge all the time. We are lucky to be able to live here as long as we want but we have the freedom to go and live and work in the UK without restriction (at the moment) …….. stop moaning at the man and come up with some solutions to the problems that will not be detrimental to the island.
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