I HAD an entertaining couple of days last week trying to get some some information out of the States archives. The process is a bit like trying to swim through treacle.

The information I was after related to a press release and report about the way that States funds are being invested. It all sounds a bit dry and dusty, but actually this is pretty vital stuff, especially at the moment when our government is trying to save every penny – or so we are led to believe.

The funds – which in all total £2.7 billion – that’s billion, not million – include the strategic reserve or rainy day fund; the Social Security reserve fund (the bit that pays a pension to people over retirement age); the ‘consolidated’ fund (the States current account); the Public Employees Contributory Retirement Scheme, or PECRS for short (the one that pays retired States employees); the Jersey Teachers Superannuation Fund; and lots of other bits and pieces besides, such as trusts and so forth – and there are 250 of those; and a currency and coins fund.

You may be surprised to learn that all of the above don’t just sit in various bank accounts, earning whatever interest the banks feel like contributing – they are managed by professional investment advisers.

What interests me – and I suspect a few other people – is what has happened to these funds since the start of the global recession, way back in 2007? It’s not rocket science to suppose that if even really wealthy people have not been making as much as they used to – and we know they have not, because the Sunday Times Rich List says so – some of the bad luck may have affected the States of Jersey funds, too.

So coming back to the States investment strategy press release and report, you might have expected some mention of the way that the funds have been faring over recent months. Not a bit of it.

The press release focuses on the things that the States wants to change, to make things a little better, like increasing investment in the stock market this year. That seems to make sense, actually, because you can buy shares really cheaply at the moment and values are so low that they may even go up, eventually.

Although the latest report tells us how much was in the funds at the end of December 2008, it doesn’t tell us how much lower or higher the funds have become as a result of paying the expert advisers to invest the money that the States are responsible for caretaking, on our behalf.

I did try wading through the States Assembly website, but not being able to find the reports I needed eventually led me back to the Treasury Department. Some phone calls later I am happy to report that between December 2007 and December 2008 the strategic reserve lost £2 million in value. The Social Security Reserve went down by £75 million.

The PECRS fell by £117 million. And the Jersey Teachers Superannuation Fund lost £54 million. So in all around £250 million has been wiped off the value of these four funds in the space of 12 months, bearing in mind, of course that comparisons are not absolute and depend on the moneys paid in and out. Even so, it is fair to say that this is a sizeable chunk of public money, given that the States are currently worrying about going into the red to the tune of about £50 million next year.

It would be even more interesting to see what has happened to fund values since the end of December. According to Jersey Finance the first three months of this year will have been the hardest hit by the global downturn. But we won’t find out until the end of the year, at the very least.

As I say, it’s a bit like swimming through treacle.