Wow! See how easy it is to make savings in the States? All you’ve got to do is set up a website, give it a catchy name such as Value Jersey, launch a Twitter account and wait for the dozens of fantastic money saving ideas to flood in from the public.

It makes you wonder why we need all those cost accountants, change managers and bean counters beavering away in States Treasury. It’s so simple finding savings in the States, even the public can do it.

This is not strictly accurate, of course, because there’s not much chance the States will take a blind bit of notice of most of the ideas from the public – thank goodness. If I were just a cynical journalist, I would therefore have to conclude that Value Jersey is either just a PR exercise or a sign of desperation. My money is on desperation.

Having spent several years in a Comprehensive Spending Review, those charged with saving £65m have suddenly realised that it’s not going to be as easy as they first thought. After all it was just a figure plucked out of the air to provide a target.

They had no way of knowing whether savings of that magnitude could be made without damaging essential public services. They simply looked at what needed to be saved to balance the books and made the cuts accordingly. I suppose you can’t expect much else when you’re only looking at one end of the equation.

So we have this target, which may or may not be realistic, and we’re going to achieve it even if services the public cherish are in danger of being damaged. Some will call that living within our means; others will see it as a sign of panic brought on by recession and the willingness to follow the UK’s draconian measures even though the scale of the problem is very, very different.

Public spending has therefore become as acceptable as wife beating, and no stone must be left unturned in the quest to squeeze as much of this evil out of the system as possible. Unfortunately the public get upset when they become aware of how these inevitable cuts affect them (even though they haven’t seen anything yet).
A way has to be found of softening the blow of the inevitable and so the States need to involve the public in the process so that they feel part of this great crusade against waste and over-spending. You never know, they might even have some good money saving ideas.

Even though it’s doubtful the public can come up with something that management and the bean counters haven’t already thought of, I suppose it’s worth a try. Hence we have Value Jersey which should, in the words of the Treasury Minister, ‘help to ensure that we build and maintain a culture of continually reassessing and seeking efficiencies throughout the public sector’.

I thought that’s what management was supposed to do.
The response to Value Jersey has apparently shown that islanders are keen to get involved and they have submitted quite a few money-saving ideas. Here’s the list of those received so far and my opinion of them, for what it’s worth.

• Centralise all States admin departments in one, out of town, up to date site and sell town offices. Not a bad idea, but full of problems – where’s the site, and do you want Cyril Le Marquand House, Morier House and Philip Le Feuvre House to become flats? The banks have other sites earmarked.

• Sell Jersey airport. Yes, and let UK or Spanish shareholders enjoy the profits while we have to pay for the upkeep of the runway. Perhaps we should include the harbour as a job lot, or if we are selling off infrastructure, what about Victoria Avenue? It’s ripe for being turned into a toll road.

• Stop subsidy for Aquasplash as it is a private enterprise. Quite right to. Let the swimmers pay the full cost of using the facility and the squeals will be worse than an injured dolphin.

• Keep school trips closer to home to minimise the cost of sending teachers. Of course we can’t expect our students to have the same foreign travel opportunities as their peers elsewhere.

• Provide student loans, to be repaid by graduates, with incentives for graduates who return to Jersey to fill essential jobs. The banks already provide loans and there should be enough incentives already for students to return (although a little more forward planning would help).

• Reduce the length of time claimants receive income support after they start a new job. I don’t understand this one, but it doesn’t sound like a major saving.

• Means test any benefits which are currently universal. I wouldn’t object, but others might.

• Require healthy benefit claimants to do unpaid work for States. It would be better if they did work for another employer and for money.

• Increase the ceiling on Social Security payments to £85,000. Fine by me, but again not much of an impact except on those employees we need desperately to keep in the Island.

• Reintroduce prescription charges, subsidised for long term sick and low earners. This is probably on the cards already, but a small charge paid by everyone would be simpler.

• Introduce work permits. All this would do is create more bureaucracy.

• Offer part-time working for people aged 60+. We don’t have enough full time jobs already without adding to the problem.

• Allow online booking for States sports facilities to improve service and reduce staffing. I understand this minimal saving has been made.

• Produce nine hour paycards – motorists using four hour cards are generally parking all day and have to use three cards. Good idea, now we only have to find the rest of the £35,999,000 in savings.

• Privatise car parking provision to reduce expenditure, increase revenue, or both. Sounds like an idea from a former president of the Chamber of Commerce whose only example of suggested privatisation tended to be car parks. If you want parking charges to include the profits a private company would require, then it’s OK by me, but I’ll be going into St Helier even less frequently.

• End free parking for States Members and States staff. Another real money-saver from a jealous member of the public. In any case what kind of an employer is it who provides free parking for his staff? Ridiculous!

• Reduce the number of politicians. Cutting down the pool of ‘talent’ available to fill ministerial posts won’t save us much.

• Text reminders for outpatient appointments, then charge patients who miss appointments. Good idea, except it would probably add to costs, not save anything.

So all in all, it’s not a very encouraging start for Value Jersey if the aim is to cut spending. Perhaps there aren’t that many new and acceptable ways of cutting costs that haven’t been thought of already. Perhaps also some of the effort spent on the initiative could have been better used to explain to the public that if you want good quality services, you have to pay for them.

Peter Body is Editor of Business Brief magazine