Staffing and budgets for the Environment Department (FOI)

Request

A

How many employees (broken down by full time and part time) have been and are currently deployed in the Environment Department to inspect residential properties for:

i) minimum Standards

ii) the Rent Safe scheme

for each of the years 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021?

B

How many employees (broken down by full time and part time) are forecast to be deployed in the Environment Department to inspect residential properties for:

i) minimum Standards

ii) the Rent Safe scheme

for each of the years 2022, 2023, 2024?

C

What was the financial budget for employees deployed in the Environment Department to inspect residential properties for:

i) minimum Standards

ii) the Rent Safe scheme

for each of the years 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021?

D

What financial budget is forecast for employees deployed in the Environment Department to inspect residential properties for:

i) minimum Standards

ii) the Rent Safe scheme

for each of the years 2022, 2023, 2024?

E

What will be the change of budget and expected expenditure for employees deployed in the Environment Department to inspect residential properties for

i) minimum Standards

ii) the Rent Safe scheme

should P.33/2021 be accepted by the Assembly on 8 June 2021?

Response

A

The Environment department was merged with other departments towards the end of 2018 as part of the ‘One Government Structure’. It became part of a wider department now known as Infrastructure, Housing and Environment, (IHE).

The Public Health and Safety (Rented Dwellings – Minimum Standards and Prescribed Hazards) (Jersey) Order 2018 did not come into force until December 2018. It is therefore not possible to answer this question for 2017 and 2018 as the law was not in force at the time.

The voluntary Rent Safe scheme was launched with a significant part of the assessment to ensure that residential dwellings meet minimum standards.

Six full time equivalent (FTE) staff have been available to work on the matters detailed in your question from 2019 to date. Note however that these staff are multi-disciplined and enforce a wide portfolio of legislation that spans multi-Ministerial portfolios.

Therefore, in respect of housing, this would also include compliance work around the Residential Tenancy (Jersey) Law 2011 (RTL), Lodging Houses (Registration) (Jersey) Law 1962 and some investigations around housing related to the Statutory Nuisance (Jersey) Law 1988, as deemed appropriate for the dwelling and circumstances in question.

It is therefore not possible to split staffing for ‘Minimum Standards’ and ‘Rent Safe’.

In March 2020, Environmental and Consumer Protection (ECP) staff, as authorised ‘Public Health Inspectors’ prioritised the formation of the Contact Tracing, Monitoring and Enforcement Team to support Covid-19 in accordance with the Business Continuity Plan.

A ‘skeleton’ staff remained to manage urgent cases in all work areas, with a phased return to normal staffing duties as replacements were recruited and trained for the contact tracing team. Therefore, it is not possible to provide a detailed breakdown for 2020.

B

In 2019 we commenced a service re-design which resulted in the merging of Environmental Health and Trading Standards teams to form a new team within IHE, which is now known as Environmental and Consumer Protection (ECP).

This work continues with staff currently in formal consultation as part of the ‘One Government structure’ Therefore, we are not able to provide any future information beyond 2021 whilst structures are in development.

C

The budget for staff to work on matters relating to your question is detailed below:

• £395,500 – 2019

• £411,500 – 2020

• £473,800 – 2021

D

We are unable to provide this information due to the on-going service re-design, see question B.

E

P.33/2021 has not yet been debated by the States Assembly, therefore we are not able to provide any budget updates at present.

However, if approved, the inspections would be carried out by the existing team with a more targeted approach, therefore we anticipate no change in manpower.