Chief Minister: States travel expenses will be published

Tuesday 15 November 2016

A new States travel expenses register will be up and running by the start of next year, following the furore over two Jersey civil servants who travelled to South Africa in February on business class flights costing £13,000.

The pair attended a mining conference, but also played golf while in Cape Town during the visit and the fall-out from their heavily criticised trip led to the call for a States travel expenses register.

Speaking at the Corporate Service Scrutiny Panel last week, Deputy John Le Fondre asked the Chief Minister: "At a meeting in June this year you said you fully expect in six months time the States should be able to publish all travel expenses over £500 online."

The Chef Minister confirmed: "It will be online by January 1st."

Senator Sarah Ferguson said: "The UK Government publishes all sorts of information online including everybody's salary in the cabinet office. Why are we being quite so precious about it?"

Senator Gorst replied: "I think we have always had the view in this small community of everybody knowing everybody's business - and it is that closeness which adds a complexity - we therefore need to be mindful of what we publish about individuals. In a large country you don't get that. If we want to continue, in certain areas, of bringing in expertise, we have to be mindful of the privacy aspect. 

"It's not that we are not going to do it, but more work needs to be done thinking about those issues and the implications of data protection."