Major office plan to save millions going to ministers before summer

Friday 24 April 2015

Plans for a new major States office block could be a reality within a few years, according to Jersey’s top civil servant – who says that the site they have in mind is already in public ownership.

States Chief Executive John Richardson says that ministers could sign off the first stage of the major project before the summer, and that it could see civil servants based in only a couple of sites.

And he says that although it would mean investing millions of pounds, it would save taxpayers money in the long-term by reducing the number of buildings used by the States, bringing public sector workers closer together and using a more modern and energy-efficient building.

It would also enable the States to unload millions of pounds worth of property in locations such as South Hill (where the Planning and TTS offices are) as well as the Highlands campus (where the Education department work) and the Home Affairs building in Hill Street.

Mr Richardson said that although the idea was first put forward a few years ago, the plan to create a more flexible States workforce and the recently-announced plans to cut £60 million from the States £1m-per-day States pay budget mean that now is the perfect time to get the project moving.

Yesterday, Treasury Minister Alan Maclean threw his weight behind the move, saying it was “critical” to saving money from the public sector, and saying that the Waterfront was not under consideration as a site for the new building.

Mr Richardson said: “We can start to make some real savings in the amount of office space that we require. In addition to that, with modern communication systems and modern electronics, do we really need every member of staff assigned to a desk? The answer is no.

“I want to have something in front of the Council of Ministers in the next two months, we are moving quite quickly. We have some fairly clear ideas about the sites we need, but commercially, I cannot yet go into what we want to do and how we do it.

“It has got the potential to be a really good project, but there is a lot of work involved – there is an awful lot of people issues involved.”