THERE has not been a year in the past decade during which ministers or committee presidents have failed to declare that they will fight against waste in the public sector, and there can scarcely have been a month in which departments have not cried poverty and called for more funds. There is, therefore, considerable tension in the sphere of public spending.

Although successive Finance presidents and Treasury ministers have called on departments to tighten their belts, progress has been limited. Savings proposed in the Fiscal Strategy were diverted to fund new spending instead of coming off the bottom line, and where cuts have been proposed in the Business Plan, they seem targeted at ‘soft’ areas where a public backlash is guaranteed, allowing the proposed savings to be shelved.

The net result is that the numbers and the words tell different stories. Since the year 2000, States revenue expenditure has risen by 80 per cent – a 38 per cent increase in real terms. Over the same period, the public sector workforce has expanded to 6,750 – a nine per cent increase.
In the light of these figures, it is clear that restraining States spending is an uphill struggle. But the May 2008 report of Comptroller and Auditor General Chris Swinson which identified potential public sector savings of £7.8 million could have been a turning point in that struggle.

Those savings proposals were neither simple or pain-free, and involved, among other things, closing a primary school and privatising the Met Office. Mr Swinson’s document should certainly have provided a starting point for discussion, but since its publication 18 months ago, it appears to have languished on a shelf.

Given that the States face a £50 million structural deficit in the years ahead, the inability of States Members and senior managers to cope with cuts worth less than £8 million does little to encourage those Islanders who took seriously the promise that savings as well as new taxes and economic growth would plug future ‘black holes’.

But the looming gap in States finances makes it impossible for politicians and their advisers to keep ducking or delaying the matter of cuts. Tomorrow’s Public Accounts Committee hearing will mark the beginning of a public debate on States spending that is likely to dominate 2010. Ironically, the outcome of that debate could be decided by its timing. With the sole realistic alternative of tax rises

made more unattractive by the fact that Jersey is only beginning to climb out of recession, spending cuts are no longer just unpalatable – they are, quite simply, the only realistic option.