“Scrap TTS, cut civil service jobs and start outsourcing” - cuts report revealed

Wednesday 25 November 2015

Ministers have been told to outsource the whole of the TTS department as soon as possible, focus on cutting civil servants not manual workers and to benchmark Social Security costs that have doubled in the last decade to cut costs and fix the deficit.

Business leader Kevin Keen filed the report on how the States could save money to fill the looming £145 million ‘black hole’ before quitting his advisory role last month.

And the report lays bare the scale of the challenge – it compares Guernsey’s annual cost of running their government of £5,907 per person to Jersey’s £9,326.

That means Jersey’s public sector is almost 60% more expensive per Islander than Guernsey’s.

The executive summary of the report has been disclosed in response to a Freedom of Information request by Bailiwick Express. The full report has not been released because it could ‘prejudice the commercial interests’ of the States, and because it could ‘prejudice pay talks’.

The recommendations include:

- States departments should focus on functions they absolutely need to do, and either stop, reduce or outsource everything else.

- A new office should be set up to lead States reform and cuts, and it must have the “teeth” to ensure civil servants deliver.

- All options must be considered to fight a States culture that is conservative and unaccustomed to major change.

- The focus should be on civil servants (who make up 36% of the pay bill) and not manual workers (who make up 9%), and layers of management and organisation structures should be challenged.

- A strategic decision should be made that TTS “will exit service delivery and begin to outsource all of its activities as soon as possible”.

- A dedicated regulatory department should be set up, and a single combined States laboratory service should be established.

This morning, the Council of Ministers are meeting - on the agenda for discussion is an item titled "Transport and Technical Services Transformation", but no further details have been revealed.

Last week, it was revealed that the public sector workforce has been cut by 120 jobs already this year with another 45 due to go by January.

The figures were released by Chief Minister Ian Gorst, and show that although confidence in the States’ efficiency and reform programme has been knocked by the departures of Mr Keen and Assistant Treasury Minister Tracey Vallois, the work is still going ahead.

The States are aiming to cut £70 million from the States’ pay bill by 2019 as part of a package of measures to fill the looming £145 million deficit in public finances.

Ministers plan to hit that target by cutting jobs, by freezing public sector pay, and by reviewing salaries to make sure that they match the jobs that people are doing.