From John Boothman.
I HAVE not always seen eye to eye with Senator Philip Ozouf, but he is surely entitled to fairer treatment than he had from Peter Body in a recent column.

Mr Body accuses the Treasury Minister of talking ‘dangerous twaddle’ in attempting to persuade his colleagues to come up with what are described as ‘extreme cost-cutting measures’. It seems that this so-called twaddle consists of doubts expressed by the minister that fresh savings can be found only by reducing public services.

The ‘extreme cost-cutting measures’, as Mr Body goes on to concede, actually amount to less than one per cent of current expenditure – hardly draconian.

And his argument that departmental budgets have already been ‘cut to the bone’ flies in the face of the remorseless rise in States spending that has occurred not just in recent years, but for as long as many of us can remember.

In the last ten years alone, it has more than doubled and, even allowing for inflation and population growth, that is a formidable rate of increase.

To put things into perspective, public spending is now running at the rate of almost £2 million a day – Saturdays and Sundays included.

The standard justification for this growth – and one that Mr Body, whenever he writes on the subject, seems to view as entirely self-explanatory – is that it has been necessary to fund improved public services.

Yet surely some scepticism is permissible here. States services in Jersey are undoubtedly very good today, but were they much worse ten years ago?

For example, do hospital patients receive better nursing care now than they did in 1999? Are schoolchildren better educated? Are our streets safer, cleaner and better lit? Are the roads better maintained? Does the drainage system now cover the whole Island?

And even if the answer to all these questions is ‘yes’, we are surely entitled to ask whether the improvements have been proportionate to the additional resources consumed.

In the Health Service, for example, how much of the extra funding has found its way into new treatments and frontline patient care, and how much has financed pay rises, or more managerial and administrative positions?

Over long periods of time, irrespective of the economic system in operation, national standards of living are raised by raising productivity – or, to put it another way, by achieving more from the same resources. This can be done by the application of technology, by changing work patterns and by organisational reforms.

To resist such changes is tantamount to denying that the institution concerned is capable of performing better than it does at present. No organisation in the world is perfectly efficient and, even if it was, new technologies and management techniques continually provide fresh opportunities.

Is Mr Body really arguing that the States, alone of all organisations, offers no scope for such improvements?

These concerns are especially pressing during the current recession, when many personal and corporate budgets are under strain. It is surely right to insist that the States face up to the same tough spending decisions now being taken by Islanders and Island businesses.

Senator Ozouf has raised some awkward, but important questions about the way the States spends its or, rather, our money. He deserves better answers than he has had from Mr Body.