JEP political correspondent Ben Quérée this weeks takes a look at the 2011 Business Plan which was published last week.

‘Just to recap, here are the key figures in rough: cuts, £12m; added spending, £10m; extra taxes, £22m. You don’t have to be the acting Treasurer of the States sitting in a room at the L’Horizon Hotel on £950 a day to understand those numbers, especially in a community where around a quarter of workers find financial literacy fairly crucial to their job prospects.

‘I get it, you get it, the average eight-year-old in primary school gets it, although the eight-year-old’s question might be framed more along the lines of: if Philip has 12 apples, and eats ten of them, how many apples does he have left?

‘The answer to all of this, of course, is that it doesn’t matter. Philip can just bash you over the head and take another 22 apples out of your shopping basket and call himself a financial genius while he’s doing it.’

• Read the full column in today’s Jersey Evening Post