Panel concerned housing minister not 'up to speed'

A scrutiny panel has raised concerns the housing minister "isn't up to speed" with his remit.

The environment, housing and infrastructure scrutiny panel issued the statement after a hearing with the minister Deputy Malcolm Ferey on Thursday morning.

The panel's responsibilities include reviewing the work of the housing minister and its concerns include how he prioritises house building, and over the fact he has not met with organisations involved in tackling homelessness despite an increase in homelessness.

In response, Ferey said he "did not wish to comment further at this time".

It was the first quarterly hearing the panel held with the minister, which focused on the government's proposed budget and also discussed wider policies.

Following the hearing the panel issued a statement which said: "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."

The panel went on to explain that there appears to be a contradiction between the minister's priority of building more housing and Statistics Jersey data.

The data shows there is a shortage of the right type of homes rather than an overall lack of housing.

The panel said: "The Statistics Jersey data shows, that the shortage of properties we have in Jersey is just 310 units which in a net nil migration scenario... [which] means we will have a surplus of homes by 2040, and the minister's main priority which is to increase housing.

"The minister is also responsible for population policy and did not give a clear reason behind that disconnect between data and policy."

The panel also said: "There has been a slight increase in the number of islanders who are homeless, but the minister has yet to meet with the homelessness cluster in order to discuss how to tackle this.

"The minister also doesn't feel the need for a ministerial group, across departments, to tackle the wider causal issues resulting in homelessness.

"This raises further questions about silo working within the government."

It was 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."

Follow BBC Jersey on X,Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to channel.islands@bbc.co.uk.