The JEP has invited the 21 Senatorial candidates to answer a series of questions covering a wide range of key topics in the election

Question:
Should Jersey adopt the Guernsey system of making extra social security payments
to provide for an ageing population?

Nick Le Cornu
The crisis is already here. More resources will be required for carers, and this will mean importing people and there is a refusal to pay good wages for skills. Caring will have to be given status as a career. The elderly should be assisted to convert their own homes for disability or sickness. We cannot rely on charity – it must be as of right.

Deputy Alan Maclean
It is essential that we make appropriate provisions for our ageing population. Increasing the cap on social security contributions is one good option to provide the necessary funding for an elderly care scheme.

Senator Philip Ozouf
Social Security contributions were raised a few years ago to ensure that pensions could continue to be afforded. People are living longer. We also need to add a care component. Adding more benefits will mean also raising income for the fund – this will need to be consulted on. We should also consider lifting the cap on social security payments by, say, introducing an additional contribution over the current cap for the higher-paid, to help contribute to this.

Mick Pashley
Our ageing population require as much help as possible, and extra payments – if only a very small amount – will help to ensure that the later years of someone’s life are easier.

Trevor Pitman
I support this wholeheartedly. Having seen it at first hand, the fear of losing your home to pay the costs of residential care in your old age must be removed. As I have said at the hustings, I agree with Deputies Southern and Breckon that we can learn from the Guernsey scheme to improve on it. If I am elected, this will be a key priority. To make this reality, of course, the Social Security department will need to be supported in terms of budget and staff as there are number of related issues that will need to be tackled.

Deputy Geoff Southern
Yes, definitely. The fear of losing your home to pay the costs of residential care in old age must be removed. Further, I believe we can learn from the Guernsey scheme to improve on it. However, the Social Security department must act on three major fronts. It has to create the residential care scheme, correct the failed income support scheme and solve the supplementation crisis, while bringing in new employment measures. It will need extra staff and budget if it is to deliver these targets in a realistic timescale. I will press for this additional resource.

Deputy Peter Troy
We do need a system that provides for all residential fees to be covered by a central fund, thereby ensuring that the elderly do not have to sell their homes. The Guernsey system is not perfect, as it requires pensioners to continue to pay into the system after retirement age, and it has no ability to pay for care at one’s home. Putting all elderly people into caring homes is not desirable if they can be more adequately and cheaply cared for at home.

Adrian Walsh
I believe that removing the current ceiling on social security payments for high earners will bring a vast improvement in the social payments available to our pensioners and would negate a need to introduce extra social security payments. The benefit of this is that there would not need to be extra systems put in place to retrieve the money, and the extra income would effectively cost the States nothing to implement.

Deputy Alan Breckon
I support the introduction of an elderly care social security-based scheme – where everyone contributes – but which provides defined care and benefits to those who need it, based on medical need, but protecting the family home. Jersey public opinion should be sought, as Guernsey has had a system in place since 2003 through their Social Security system which pays £341 a week towards residential care and £637 a week towards nursing care, with recipients paying £154 a week. This safeguards the family home, which is a very real concern to many people. Jersey can learn from this and do better.

Mark Forskitt
This is preferable to artificially increasing the population to cover projected deficits. Incremental increase of the caps on social security contributions may be necessary. Also increasing retirement age as people’s life-span and fitness increase.

Cliff Le Clercq
No, we are paying enough taxes now. Properly managed finances are what are required. We are awash with financial expertise – let’s see some of it demonstrated creatively. Remember Imagine Jersey. The ageing population won’t all need the same amount of support and assistance.

Ian Le Marquand
As I understand it, the Guernsey system provides for free residential care in old age by an increased social security payment which continues after retirement. An increased social security rate would be the best way forward for Jersey to make this provision, but I think that this should end at pensionable retirement age. However, there will also be a need to provide improved services for the elderly who choose, as very many do, to stay in their own home, and support and hospital services will need more money to meet the expected increased number of elderly patients.

Jeremy Maçon
If we raised the Social Security ceiling or removed it completely, we would have no problem with funding the old-age pension deficit. Also, if we used the pot from which free prescriptions are now funded, we would no doubt go a long way towards solving this problem very quickly. There would be no need to make extra social security payments, as in Guernsey.

Nick Palmer
In years to come we will have to live more sustainably or the consequences don’t bear thinking about. The benefit of sustainable living is that it actually requires less income, so the ‘demographic time-bomb’ of pension funding may prove to be less dire than Terry Le Sueur’s forecasts. I do think that the cap on social security contributions has always been a big mistake and should either be removed or set much higher.

Chris Perkins
The current policy to combat our ageing society through continuous population growth is wrong. It will not solve the problem of an ageing society. Indeed, it will only create greater problems for the next generation to solve. We would need vast numbers of immigrants to keep the dependency ratio at its current level. The result will be that there will just be a greater number of old people in the future. Government should address the issue through a combination of fair taxes, social security contributions and increased retirement age.

Senator Paul Routier
Jersey needs a sustainable system of funding the costs of long-term residential and nursing care. Having examined the Guernsey system in depth, I am aware that there could be some adjustments so that it would be possible to stay in one’s own home and access support as well as the option of care in a nursing or care home. The principle of an insurance scheme is good. We must first ensure that we have the supply of quality care beds at an appropriate price and then we can establish the scheme, which I intend bringing forward next year.

Montfort Tadier
Currently we seem to be favouring perpetual population growth and immigration as the way to solve the universal problem of an ageing population. Of course this is not sustainable. I believe the Guernsey model would be ideal for Jersey and would provide the relevant support needed in old age in a fairer and more dignified manner.

Senator Mike Vibert
Ensuring our increasingly ageing population is properly provided for is vital to the Island’s future. Jersey should adopt its own system of establishing an insurance scheme to provide for an ageing population, learning from Guernsey’s mistakes. Such a system should ensure that, in future, home owners and others who have saved are not unfairly penalised for their prudence.

Daniel Wimberley
Any system should reward those who have saved, but not reduce anyone, whether unwise or unlucky, to unacceptable living standards. Older people should not be anxious over whether their care needs will be met. We age differently and our care needs, and the associated cost, vary widely. Our physical and mental health will determine our care needs, so health promotion is vital. If we build social networks where care becomes part of the informal economy, the need for paid care declines. The answer to the question is yes, if it is the technically best option, bearing in mind the above points.

Deputy Sarah Ferguson
I understand that Jersey and Guernsey are in talks to discuss this and that a scheme is proposed. This must make allowances for people who want to remain in their own homes as long as possible.

Mike Higgins
Yes in principle, though the way we go about things may differ from the scheme in Guernsey. Although no one likes paying more in taxes or in social security, no one wants to sell their home to cover the high costs of staying in nursing homes either. This is a debate that has been shoved out of sight and delayed for too long and the issue needs to be addressed, as do many other issues surrounding the demographic changes affecting us.