Ministers deploy new communications team

Wednesday 07 February 2018

More fresh blood in the States’ Communications and HR departments - to help the new Chief Executive in his mission to ‘reform’ the public sector - is set to cost taxpayers another quarter of a million pounds over the next six months.

Four new communications officers – two for internal purposes and two for media relations – will join government ranks until at least June at a cost of £120,000, averaging £30,000 each in that period. They'll be joined by an HR expert at a further cost of £135,000.

That's all in addition to the £700,000 spent on the ‘Transition Team’ – a band of four UK consultants brought in to help Chief Executive Charlie Parker adjust to his new role. It was that team who it seems identified what is described as “weakness” within the current communications department.

In a report justifying the expenditure, officials explained that a new States-wide communications strategy had been developed by the executive team and that the new recruits would help the existing communications department, which they described as “not sufficiently resourced to support transformation as the pace of change accelerates.”

“These teams are planned to grow with permanent additional resource under the formal Communications Division restructure, but the urgent need for communications support for transformation cannot wait for the restructure to be carried out. The temporary resource will therefore enable the current team to widen and deepen its activities in support of reform without waiting for the restructuring process to complete over the next six months,” the report added.

Pictured: Four new recruits will be added to the government communications team - based at Cyril Le Marquand House - for £120,000, and an HR expert will join at a cost of £135,000.

The HR department will also be bolstered for half a year by the recruitment of a £135,000 ‘Resourcing Specialist’. They will oversee recruitment and people management across the entire public sector, which is currently undergoing a controversial ‘Workforce Modernisation’ process that could see thousands of employees take a real-terms pay cut or redundancy. The States recently circulated 2,000 postcards to employees urging them to ‘vote yes’ to the proposal, but were slammed by workers and unions who launched a counter-campaign.

Both expenditure requests for the five employees were signed off by the Treasury Minister two weeks ago, following email approval by Mr Parker’s team.

Added to the £700,000 spent on the temporary Transition Team, the five new roles will bring the government’s total spend on external consultants following Mr Parker’s appointment to nearly £1million.

Together, the team will be expected to help steer what “challenging but straight” Mr Parker has previously dubbed “the modernisation train.” In a speech to his new employees in November, he warned that those who do not embrace his new way of public sector thinking – apparently focused on transparency and the breaking down of silos – may “be left on the platform.”

A spokesperson for the States of Jersey told Express that the spate of recruitments was because the government is “stepping up the pace of modernisation.”

Pictured: Chief Executive Charlie Parker is spearheading a number of sweeping public sector reforms - the new team have been called in to assist with this.

They explained: “…We need to be able to explain the changes we’re making to staff, Islanders and stakeholders. To help us do that, we are appointing four communications professionals on temporary contracts. More broadly, we will soon start a process for restructuring government communications as a whole. When the new communications structure is up and running, these four temporary roles will end.

“We are also making an interim appointment to the Human Resources team. This post will support recruitment and training of staff as the States goes through the process of restructuring and modernisation.”