What are the priorities of Guernsey's new chief minister?
De Sausmarez, who has pledged to unite the assembly and end factionalism within the States, was born in Asia and spent her upbringing travelling and studying between the region and Guernsey, according to her bio.Her further education was completed in Scotland before she attended Durham University to study English.Adventure to Australia followed where she worked several jobs and engaged in charity work.She returned to Guernsey permanently in 2004.
De Sausmarez, who has had a long career in the media production industry, including television, radio, theatre and as a writer, first started photocopying film scripts for Granda in London, according to her LinkedIn profile.Just prior to becoming a politician, she spent nearly 15 years at Specsavers working in the TV department helping to deliver advertisements.
Outside of work, De Sausmarez said she enjoyed volunteering, walking and sea swimming in her spare time.She is also a keen touch rugby player for more than two decades and has represented Guernsey many times.
In her pitch to States members, De Sausmarez committed to reviewing the island's tax system again by the first quarter of 2026.She said there was a "clear mandate" to look into the controversial territorial corporate tax proposal again, but said this should be done quickly and in a way that reassured business groups.
Housing tops priorities
De Sausmarez recognised "many are worried" about new taxes and said every option would be explored, including increasing productivity.In her manifesto, she said public services must be funded sustainably but in a way that protects businesses, pensioners and working people.
Housing appears top of a list of priorities in de Sausmarez's manifesto.She told deputies moving forward with Leale's Yard was not just essential for housing, but also for "reinvigorating the Bridge area" and allowing major infrastructure projects.The new P&R president said work completed last term meant there was a "healthy pipeline" of new housing sites coming forward in the coming years.She warned the committee had become too passive with strategic oversight of things such population and promised it would be more open with data and information.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News
14 minutes ago
- Sky News
New front door to House of Lords cost £9.6m... but doesn't work
A former spending watchdog has been asked to investigate after a new front door was installed at the House of Lords that cost nearly £10m and does not work. A security officer had to be permanently stationed at the door to press a button to open it, which one peer calculated was costing £2,500 each week. It also emerged the cost of the work spiralled by nearly 60% from the original estimate of £6.1m. The Lord Speaker has now written to independent crossbencher Lord Morse, who led the National Audit Office for a decade, to investigate the £9.6m door debacle. In his letter, Lord McFall of Alcluith, who chairs the House of Lords Commission that oversees the running of the site, said: "The commission identified that it was unclear how many issues were due to manufacturing and installation failures and how many were due to issues with the initial identification of requirements and subsequent need for alterations. "Additional information will be needed to understand the failures, including information on costs - both how the initial project figure of £6.1m was arrived at and the increase to the current total of £9.6m, and any unanticipated additional costs such as increased staffing to manage and operate the entrance. "It will be important to assess the quality of the decision-making in establishing the project and the ways in which the evidence provided for the specifications of the new entrance were tested to ensure they took account of user requirements." He added: "The problems that have arisen around delivery of the new entrance pose larger questions about effective programme delivery, including capability within parliamentary departments." Speaking at Westminster, senior deputy speaker Lord Gardiner of Kimble, who also sits on the commission, said: "It is unacceptable that the Peers' Entrance does not operate as it should. The commission has directed urgent work to resolve this." He added: "The cost to remedy defects will not be borne by the House and will be met by Parliament's contractors." Former Tory minister Lord Robathan said: "I do not hold the senior deputy speaker responsible for this scandal, but it is a scandalous waste of public money." Demanding to know who was responsible "by name", he said: "It is now nearly £10m for a door that does not work. Somebody accountable should be identified and should perhaps resign for this terrible waste of public money." Tory peer Lord Hayward said: "The senior deputy speaker told us the total cost, but the staff manning that door, calculated on the written answer he provided to me, are costing £2,500 per week. That cost has to be borne by someone." In response, Lord Gardiner said: "On the issue of the number of people involved in the manual use of the door while it is being repaired and made usable, I am assured that they are within the existing complement of members of staff."
Sky News
29 minutes ago
- Sky News
'Trust and confidence lost' over grooming gang failures in Manchester, watchdog warns
Despite making "significant improvements", Greater Manchester Police (GMP) has lost the "trust and confidence" of some victims of grooming gangs, according to a report by the police watchdog. Michelle Skeer, His Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary, said that since 2019, when GMP started to review its non-recent child sexual exploitation investigations, "the force has improved its understanding and approach to investigating allegations of child criminal and sexual exploitation". The document, published today, said police have live investigations into "multi-victim, multi-offender" child sexual exploitation inquiries, involving 714 victims and survivors, and 1,099 suspects. Grooming gangs scandal timeline 2:00 But despite recording improvements, a report by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) also identified: • Various training gaps within the investigation team • Lack of consistency in evaluating case files between social care, health and police • Failures to initially support victims meant they had "lost trust and confidence" in police The report was commissioned by the Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham in 2024 to evaluate whether police, councils and health services can protect children from sexual exploitation in the future. Its release comes days after Sir Keir Starmer announced he was launching a new national inquiry into grooming gangs after previously arguing one was not necessary, 1:40 The findings were issued as the final part of the CSE (child sexual exploitation) Assurance Review process which started in 2017. The first three reports examined non-recent child sexual exploitation in Manchester, Oldham and Rochdale. Mr Skeer said that the force has been trying to improve its service to those who have experienced sexual exploitation, but previous failings have badly affected trust in GMP. He said: "For some, trust and confidence in the police had been lost, and the force would not be able to rectify their experiences. "It is vital that improvements are led by victims' experiences, and if they do come forward, they are supported, protected and taken seriously." A recent report by Baroness Casey found a significant over-representation of Asian men who are suspects in grooming gangs in Greater Manchester, adding though authorities are in "denial" more needs to be done to understand why this is the case. 6:52 Inspectors also said there were "training gaps" in some investigation teams and issues with data sharing, with local councils sometimes not willing to provide detectives with information, leading to "significant delays in investigations" into grooming gangs. It cites problems with intelligence provided by Manchester City Council, which took months to arrive and "was so heavily redacted that some pages contained only a few words", the report said. GMP is the only force in the country to set up a dedicated team to investigate grooming gangs. Called the Child Sexual Exploitation Major Investigation Team (CSE MIT) it has about 100 staff and a ringfenced budget. In October 2024, the force told inspectors there were 59 live multi-victim, multi-offender child sexual exploitation investigations, of which 13 were being managed by the CSE MIT. The report adds: "The force fully accepts that it made mistakes in the past. "It has taken positive and effective steps to learn from these mistakes and improve how it investigates recent and non-recent child sexual exploitation." Separately, the Baird Inquiry published in July 2024 found officers at GMP were abusing their power - making unlawful arrests, unlawful and demeaning strip searches, sometimes treating victims as perpetrators, and traumatising those who have suffered sexual abuse or domestic violence.
Times
31 minutes ago
- Times
Is reform of the welfare system still possible?
During the chaotic debate that led to the implosion of the government's disability benefit reforms, Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, acknowledged: 'Welfare reform is never easy, especially perhaps for Labour governments.' The question after her full-scale retreat on disability benefit cuts is whether it is possible at all. How did we get here? Alarm has been growing over the surge in sickness benefit claims since Covid, with total spending of £81 billion this year, almost £30 billion higher than in 2019. Numbers claiming both for incapacity, because they cannot work, and disability, to compensate for the extra costs of sickness, have been rising. But the jump in the latter is been particularly stark: a thousand people a day start claiming, double pre-pandemic levels, and another two million claimants are projected by the end of the decade. The Conservatives announced plans to deal with it shortly before losing power and Labour took office pledging to control spending. What was Labour proposing? As well as an overhaul of Jobcentres and employment services, Kendall is pledging contentious reforms to benefits to get people back to work. This included a new requirement on the long-term sick to discuss plans to get back to work, and halving of incapacity benefit for new claimants to increase incentives to get a job. But the most controversial were cost-cutting plans that would have made it harder to claim personal independence payments (PIP), the main disability benefit. These were junked in a chaotic climbdown in the face of a mass revolt from Labour MPs. What's left? The universal credit health element will still be halved for new claimants deemed unfit to work, costing 730,000 people about £3,000 a year, while Labour MPs have largely accept the long-term sick do need to do more to consider work. A ban on those under 22 claiming incapacity benefits also remains. But so too does extra spending from boosting the standard rate of universal credit for 3.9 million people who get an extra £265 a year, cancelling previous Tory cuts and boosting spending on employment support by £1 billion a year. What happens now? Sir Stephen Timms, the disability minister, will lead a review into the future of PIP, promising that this will be 'co-produced' with disability groups and will not set out to make savings. Tom Pollard of the New Economics Foundation think tank, said it was possible this would lead to plans that could enjoy widespread support while controlling costs, but warned: 'There has been a lot of trust lost, and disability groups will go in alert to the idea that the government wants to save money, so the risk is you end up with a stalemate through lack of trust.' Campaigners said that the cuts to public services and restrictions on social welfare would be detrimental to people receiving disability assistance CARL COURT/GETTY IMAGES Politically will Labour MPs accept welfare reform? Most Labour MPs agree that Kendall's case for reform is strong. One loyalist said that PIP has 'become totally unmoored from its original purpose' and that more fundamental rethinking is now needed. But no one can agree who should lose out: squaring the circle of pleasing disability groups while saving money appears all but impossible. Ben Zaranko of the Institute for Fiscal Studies warns that 'there is no way to save big sums without taking big sums off people who are currently classed as disabled', and many Labour MPs have shown they will not accept this. Even the loyalists have been burnt by repeatedly defending contentious changes which were subsequently junked. What happens if welfare is not reformed? Spending on sickness benefit is back on course to top £100 billion by the end of the parliament, leaving less for public services. Zaranko warned that the benefits system 'clearly isn't on a sustainable trajectory' and that any government would have to make changes. 'We do need to have a view about slowing that rise and targeting support at those who need it most,' he said. When can the government expect savings? Most now accept that any reforms are going to take too long for the government to persuade the Office for Budget Responsibility to bank savings in the short term. Deven Ghelani, director of the consultancy Policy in Practice and one of the architects of the universal credit system, said the reforms were 'bungled because Treasury-led reforms don't work. While the government can score the savings at the start of the parliament, they are never able to deliver on them.' MPs and experts point out that welfare reform is notoriously slow — universal credit was introduced more than a decade ago and many claimants will not move on to it until next year. What other ideas are there? With MPs saying that 'tinkering' has not worked, there may be appetite for more radical options. The Centre for Social Justice has suggested those with milder mental health conditions should no longer be able to claim, with a portion of the savings ploughed back into NHS therapy. Joe Shalam, its director of policy and former DWP adviser, said that 'all is not lost for welfare reform', arguing: 'By targeting mental health benefits and investing in therapy and back-to-work support, ministers will save money and change lives'. Zaranko said PIP was 'designed with an old-fashioned view of disability when a lot of the fastest growth has been for mental health conditions'. He suggested that it should be 'redesigned from the bottom up. We need to think about what the most appropriate kind of support is, which for some people may be counselling'. What about addressing the underlying problems? While benefit claims have outpaced the rise in disability, there is no doubt we are becoming sicker. 'What's going on in the benefits system is symptomatic of an ill society where there is poor health, poor public services and a lot of poverty,' Pollard said. 'Ultimately the path to savings is to have fewer health problems because you're spending more on prevention.' Yet in the short term, that too is very costly. Whatever the future for welfare reform, the certainty is that there is no quick fix.
