Minister rubbishes claims that DfI to become trading company

Friday 21 July 2017

The Minister for Infrastructure has rebutted claims that his Department is to become a trading company by 2020.

The claims emerged during the contentious debate over the liquid waste charge in the States on Wednesday afternoon.

During the debate, Deputy Judy Martin drew attention to the Minister's response to a critical Scrutiny report on the charges.

In it, Deputy Eddie Noel wrote: “In order to achieve an element of ‘ring-fencing’ of the income raised by the new user pays charges, the Department for Infrastructure (“DfI”) is proposing to move towards becoming a States Trading Operation from 1st January 2020, as outlined in the report.”

But the report to the liquid waste proposition had only mentioned the waste management services becoming a “trading operation,” not the whole department, leading Deputy Martin to push for the debate over the charges to be pushed back for members to consider this.

“Did you know that DfI was going to become a trading company in 2020? Have you approved this?” she questioned fellow States members.

If true, the result would mean DfI acting similarly to Ports of Jersey, which was incorporated in 2015, and allows the company to operate independently and control its own finances.

Pictured: Deputy Noel said that the Department for Infrastructure did not aim to emulate the Ports of Jersey by 2020.

But Deputy Noel denied that his department would become incorporated in the same way as Ports of Jersey.

He clarified to Express that his comments had merely referred to the “waste side” becoming a trading fund, emphasising that it would not be a trading company or privatised.

He said: “It is proposed as a trading fund, just as we already have a car park trading fund and a fleet management fund… What it does do is to ring fence them and prevent any surplus income from being used elsewhere in the States.

“It is a proposal to bring this in before 1 January 2020 i.e. the next MTFP and has been part of our waste charges proposals since they were agreed in principle last September in order.”

The debate over the liquid waste charges – the proceeds of which Deputy Noel proposes to ring-fence – will not resurface in the States until December.