03-07-2025
Minister warns regulations department at 'breaking point'
A minister has warned a team in his department is at "breaking point" and would struggle to implement new tenancy reforms if the States votes to approve them in principle next Steve Luce, the environment minister, said it would be up to his "fully stretched" department to enact parts of the changes put forward by housing minister Deputy Sam Mé proposals aim to increase protections for tenants and said a move to allow landlords to end the tenancy with seven days' notice if the tenant "has caused or permitted a repeated or serious nuisance" would require inspections by officers in the regulations team.
He said: "The regulation department is fully stretched. We have a huge number, 39 different laws to administer, and every time a new law comes on it's more work for the same number of officers and we are really at breaking point."The minister was concerned at the additional workload the changes could have on his said: "Anything to do with getting a complaint together and putting it before a court requires a huge amount of time and effort visiting sites, creating the data and making sure all the different angles are covered so that when you present a case in court it stands up. "That's a huge amount of work every time you go to court."
Luce said Mezec had spoken to officers in the regulation department "about how it would work".He added his team had regularly similar challenges every time a new law requires regulation."New laws require more work for us and we will need more resource," he said.
'A concern but not a surprise'
The head of the environment scrutiny panel, Deputy Hilary Jeune said the Ministers comments were a concern but not a surprise."We constantly hear from the environment minister and from the department that there is a lot of pressure being put on them to carry out their functions and the regulation department is under a lot of pressure.""I think the whole council of ministers and the States Assembly at large need to understand the role of regulation, the importance of regulation so we can all ensure there is enough resource for it."The BBC has approached Housing Minister Sam Mezec for comment.
