From Melissa Bonn.
I WANT to add my pennyworth to the debate on the Business Plan before our representatives have their say.

I read today of possible cuts in the health service, the question mark over a small grant that would make the Jersey Seaside Festival happen, then turn to a piece on plans for extending and refurbishing Les Quennnevais (£7.6m), which finished with a note on the £7.7m redevelopment of St Martin’s school which has already been covered in an earlier edition of the paper.

We have read of the problems of funding for the Jersey Heritage Trust and we have read of what amounts to brinkmanship played with the lives of vulnerable people in the crass handling of the budgets for Brig-y-Don and Les Amis.

Last night I went to the presentation evening for a Youth Included project, which left everyone glowing with pride for a group of youngsters at the very edge of our community who came through a course with a new sense of their worth. As I write, there is no confirmation that this project will run next year as there is no budget.

On the one hand we see the ease at which ambitious costly capital projects are put together, made part of a plan and executed like clockwork, and on the other hand what amounts to a hand-to-mouth existence for a whole range of exemplary services and initiatives that lie outside the mainstream public service and that quietly and effectively do such an impressive amount to improve the quality of life for the most vulnerable in our community. I am sure every reader has their own special list.

If times are hard, and there is plenty of evidence to show that they are indeed, then surely we need to look at those capital projects again and make big strategic decisions that would save lots of money, instead of chipping away at a hundred budgets and grants that have been squeezed or axed year on year, and which may give ministers the sense that cost cutting targets are being reached, but which in reality none of us want because we know they are needed.

So I would like the ministers to take a look at the big picture and realign capital projects (for now), public service size, pay and pensions, and how we move towards retirement and agree on a new pensionable age. Then we would begin to address funding inbalances.