An email sent by group commander Marc Le Cornu to officers in Jersey Fire and Rescue Service has been leaked to the JEP and outlines a ‘direction’ from the director-general of the Justice and Home Affairs Department, Julian Blazeby, which has been described as sounding like a ‘gagging order’.
It comes after the service released a statement ten days ago stating that following a high number of call-outs due to accidents involving fireworks the Island was at one stage left ‘without cover due to all resources being allocated to incidents’.
Increasing numbers of public-sector staff are voicing concerns about being unable to publicly express their opinions or facts, with health and education workers understood to be particularly unhappy.
The email sent to firefighters, which is entitled ‘news release direction’, specifically indicates that the public should not be told about resourcing shortages and instructs staff not to refer to the matter.
‘Following direction from the director-general [Mr Blazeby], no news releases or social media posts will mention any reference to our stretched resources or lack of resources able to attend any incidents,’ it says.
‘We need to be informative and reassuring to the public in our messaging and any resourcing issues will be dealt with at a political level.
‘By all means continue giving good information on what we are dealing with and mention what resources we are using and that simultaneous incidents are happening, but do not make any reference to any resourcing issues.’
It was revealed last month that Jersey Fire and Rescue employs 20 per cent fewer firefighters than 15 years ago. According to figures provided to the JEP on 18 October there were 62 full-time firefighters in the Island and 40 ‘on-call’ firefighters.
Craig Channing, chairman of the Fire and Rescue Association, said that he had not seen the email due to being on annual leave but said that any restrictions on communication would be ‘fought’.
‘I can’t comment other than to say that any gagging order placed on staff or trade unions will be fought as it is not in the best interest of industrial relations or transparency,’ he said.
‘As we all serve the public of Jersey it is surely in the best interests of their safety to be honest about staffing and levels of front-line availability to reassure and inform them about what they expect from the services they pay for.’
Mr Blazeby said that the email was ‘much more prescriptive’ than he would have liked.
‘I had a conversation with one of my senior leaders about the need to take care in the use of social media, following a post last weekend about a busy night for Fire and Rescue,’ he said.
‘This unfortunately led to an email to staff, which was much more prescriptive than it should have been. I didn’t issue any direction, nor did I send the email, but I recognise that this incident demonstrates how important it is to take care in how we phrase things.’
A spokeswoman for the States’ Communications Unit said that they did not know about the email and had no involvement in the matter.
