02 June 2020
There are a number of different regulatory agencies with responsibility for making sure people are kept safe during the current Covid-19 pandemic, including the Police, Health and Safety Inspectors and Environmental Health Officers.
There are also different pieces of legislation which may be applied to ensure the risks from Covid-19 are managed and controlled effectively under different circumstances. Whilst this results in a wide variety of tools and legal powers being available to us to encourage and secure compliance with the law, this guidance seeks to provide reassurance that we all follow the same general principles and adopt a similar approach to enforcement, which is fair and proportionate.
We will also endeavour to ensure the most appropriate regulator deals with those matters which they are best placed to deal with, to maximise effective use of regulatory resource and avoid unnecessary duplication.
We will adopt the following four-phase approach to regulating Covid-19 related matters.
1. Engage
We will speak to people to try and establish their awareness and understanding of the situation we are talking to them about. We might ask people about their circumstances, whether out in public, at their place of work or anywhere else. We will listen, give them an opportunity to express their views, and take their responses into account.
2. Explain
We will try to give advice and guidance to educate people about any personal risks they are taking, and highlight the wider social responsibilities we all share to help keep the people of Jersey safe. This may include applying Government of Jersey and Public Health instructions, as well as prescriptive legal requirements, relating to physical distancing, gatherings, workplace restrictions, al fresco dining etc. as relevant to the specific circumstances.
3. Encourage
When necessary we will encourage people to act responsibility. In some cases this may involve us instructing somebody to do something, including returning home, stopping work or otherwise changing their behaviours. We will be consistent in our approach and will explain why we are requesting a certain course of action to be taken.
If we have been explicit in our request for someone to take action, explained the risk and encouraged people to be reasonable in order to protect against the risk of Covid-19 and save lives, and they have refused, then it may become necessary to:
4. Enforce
We may, as a last resort, use our legal powers to secure compliance with the law. This may result in those accountable potentially being prosecuted and fined for a breach of legislation.
In all such cases, we will exercise a high level of professional judgement and make sensible and proportionate decisions in accordance with our individual regulatory agencies enforcement policy as usual.
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