The GSD says the Government’s reply to issues raised by Action for Housing is “as much shocking as it is unsurprising”. 

A statement from the GSD follows below:

The Government’s high-handed reply to the serious issue raised by Action for Housing is as much shocking as it  is unsurprising. 

The treatment of a long established and respected NGO such as Action for Housing and in  particular its chairman, Mr Pinna, is nothing short of scandalous. The personal attack directed at members of the  committee of Action for Housing amounts to bullying tactics of the first degree in an attempt at silencing a  representative group to submission. This intolerable abuse of power was witnessed recently in the Government’s  treatment of the Community Care Action Group and is becoming a hallmark of their style.  

The public knows all too well, from past experience, how this is going to pan out.  

Mr Picardo will attempt to bury a point of serious public concern about the allocation of public housing in a  quagmire of red-herrings and irrelevant points. This is precisely what he has done with so many other issues of  grave public concern – citing “sub-judice” with the Professor Burke controversy or “not in the public interest” with  the McGrail enquiry. In the current controversy Mr Picardo hides behind “data protection”.  

The common theme, running through all of these incidents, is that Mr Picardo prefers to hide the true reasoning behind his Government’s decisions, rather than be properly scrutinized by the opposition and the public at large.  

The GSD Opposition is sensitive to matters of data protection and does not call on the Government to act  irresponsibly or illegally in this respect. The Government, however, cannot be absolved from its duty of  transparency and fair play on this basis and needs to go beyond its current explanation which is that this  particular case received favoured treatment because of ‘serious, extenuating circumstances’. Mr Picardo must set out what circumstances were deemed serious enough to catapult this person ahead of all those on the long  waiting list, in circumstances where there was no eligibility for Government housing at all. It is possible to do  that without breaching data protection.  

The Government should also state who took the decision - whether it was the Housing Allocation Committee, the  Minister for Housing or the Chief Minister himself. 

Despite his professed concern for data privacy, the Chief Minister has shown no qualms about making revelations  about the purchases of post war estates by members of the Action for Housing committee. The Chief Minister  should clarify in what circumstances he came into this information – a matter which in its own right raises huge  data protection concerns.  

The long-suffering applicants for public housing and their families deserve greater transparency. Anything less  is precisely what will lead to the vilification which Mr Picardo is supposedly so keen to avoid.  

If the Government’s concern really is data protection it should share the information with Action for Housing on  a confidential basis and allow it to draw its own conclusions. Not doing so will only raise further questions and  be a further blot on the Government’s increasingly questionable record in power.