How can States cut costs when they don’t know what they are?

Friday 26th February 2010, 3:00PM GMT.

From John Dix
FOLLOWING an earlier letter in which I suggested that our elected representatives and their Chief Officers do not actually know what services their staff deliver, I have read the draft Strategic Business Plan from end to end and am none the wiser.

Throughout the document there are beautifully crafted statements of high-level strategies together with their costs and the number of staff employed in their delivery and all the critical success factors vital to their delivery.

At no stage does the document spell out the details of what all these dedicated public servants actually do, and, more importantly, whether what they do has actually been sanctioned by our elected representatives in the States as a service without which our society would cease to function.

Until our States Members can review the details of all the services delivered by the various ministries, I do not see that they can begin to review and reduce the costs of those services.

The role of our government is to be an enabler of the services we require, but that does not mean that its default, unquestioned position is to be the provider of those services.

A full review of the services the States provides is long overdue, but the proposed Strategic Review pays only lip service to this principle, as the information required for a root-and-branch review is just not being made available to either the tax-paying public or their elected representatives. Will any Scrutiny panel member take up the challenge of proving me wrong?

1
joker

March 1, 2010 at 11:41 am

I think you’ve misunderstood what a Strategic Business Plan is Mr Dix. The hint is in the title… “Strategic” which outlays strategic objectives in the medium to long term at a high level. A strategic plan certainly should not contain job descriptions for all 7,000 or so States workers as you seem to want.

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2
428 CJ

March 2, 2010 at 7:48 pm

Mr Dix hits a very important nail on the head. Consider also the fact that Jersey States services are lavish to say the least for a jurisdiction of Jersey’s standing. Four other important jobs to do to ensure Jersey quickly reigns in excessive spending – Identify what public services are mandatory by law to be delivered, identify those which can be more effectively delivered in the private sector and also address the shocking lack of governance and control around departmental accounting, expenditure and general good practice in basic management. Finally ensure the Corporate Governance Board does what is says on the tin and excercise real leadership.

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3
Bean Bag

March 16, 2010 at 12:47 pm

The States of Jersey will make no serious attempt to save £50,ooo,ooo. or any other amount of money, they will not have the guts to dismiss any Senior Civil Servants or prune any one for that matter, they will be quite content to make all the noises, but they will wait a year or so before they increase G.S.T. by as much as they can get away with, and they will also increase Social Security contributions, that is the way it will go.

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