Delayed flight report circling – expected to touch down next Friday…

Friday 03 June 2016

The delayed review into how civil servants spent almost £400,000 on business class flights in five years is now expected to be released next week.

The Chief Minister’s department say that the review, which has been completed and submitted to the Treasury department, has got to go to the Corporate Management Board of chief officers and the Council of Ministers before it can be released.

They say that will happen next week, and that the report will be out by Friday at the latest.

The report – which covers States’ travel policy, a disciplinary investigation into two civil servants who took a £13,000 trip to South Africa and a review of the last two years’ travel expenditure – was expected to be out by the end of May.

At the same time, the Public Accounts Committee is also undertaking a review of civil service flights, including whether internal financial rules have been broken, what controls were in place, and whether any cost/benefit analysis of trips was undertaken.

The story began with the revelation that Economic Development Chief Executive Mike King and Locate Jersey Director Wayne Gallichan had spent £13,000 on fully flexible, business class flights to a mining conference in Cape Town.

But it soon emerged that there was more to the story – figures showed that almost £400,000 was spent on flight tickets costing more than £1,000 over five years, including a £6,852 trip to Hong Kong for States International Affairs Adviser Colin Powell.

In States questions sessions since the story broke, Chief Minister Ian Gorst has said that any civil servant who has earned Avios points from taxpayer-funded trips should have to use those points for work-related trips, not family or personal travel.

He has also said that Jersey should adopt a UK-style system whereby all spending on travel and hospitality by ministers and senior civil servants would be posted online.