2016 "an outstanding year for States finances"

Wednesday 24 May 2017

Jersey’s Treasury Minister has clarified the state of the Island’s finances after the Chief Minister said recently that the island was going to “broadly balance” the books earlier than expected.

In the States this week, Senator Alan Maclean was more cautious, saying that Jersey was actually, “broadly on track” to balance its budgets by 2019 as planned, but that there were potential “headwinds,” such as Brexit, which could affect that.

The tone was noticeably different in the picture painted of States finances between the current Treasury Minister Senator Alan Maclean on one side, and the Chief Minister and the former Treasury Minister Senator Philip Ozouf on the other. 

In the States, Senator Maclean said that 2016 had been a very strong year, and that meant the Island was in a stronger position than previously expected.

He said there was a operating deficit of £17million in 2014 (£76million after depreciation) which fell to £5million (£50million after depreciation) in 2015. 2016's results will be published in June, along with a forecast for future years: 

"While 2016 has been an outstanding year for public finances, the headwinds and uncertainties remain. Nevertheless we remain on track to achieve our aim of balancing the books over the MTFP period (until 2019).

"We have been running deficits following the advice of the Fiscal Policy Panel to do so. We are broadly on track to achieve balanced budgets by 2019."

But only last week, in a speech which was strongly reminiscent of the stance taken by the former Treasury Minister Senator Philip Ozouf, the current Chief Minister Senator Ian Gorst was a bit more bullish:

“We must continue to focus on doing all we can to prevent inflation rising more sharply into the future, and for our part in government, that does mean that balancing the…broadly balancing the books early is a good thing, because it means that we need to balance our budgets at the right time, we need to continue to strength competitive, helping businesses to keep prices low.”

And then in the States this week, he repeated those comments, that the budgets were broadly balanced earlier than forecast:

"My message was this sir, income was improved...spending was less than budgeted, but we must keep on track to ensure that 2016 is balanced, that 2017 is balanced and that 2018 is banned too, Sir."

Senator Ozouf spoke to the IoD at lunchtime yesterday, and said he had always been a "deficit deny-er," and that public finances were in a strong position, much better than the negative state which was reported in the media. 

Pictured: Senator Ozouf speaking to the IoD at the Grand Hotel.