No disciplinary action over flights – but all costs to be published every six months

Monday 13 June 2016

There will be fewer business class trips by civil servants after States’ travel rules were tightened up – even though a review has found that no rules have been broken.

A review commissioned after two senior civil servants took a taxpayer-funded £14,784 trip to South Africa for a conference has found no “clear evidence” of rules being broken or abused by civil servants.

And the two officers who took fully flexible, business class flights - Economic Development Chief Officer Mike King and Locate Jersey Director Wayne Gallichan – will not face any disciplinary action after being cleared by the review.

Mr King had already apologised unreservedly after a flurry of media stories about their trip to a mining conference in Cape Town, after it emerged that he had taken his golf clubs to go and play a round immediately after arriving.

The States have subsequently revealed that almost £400,000 was spent on flights costing more than £1,000 over the last five years. The most expensive flight on the list was a £6,852 trip to Hong Kong in 2011 by Colin Powell, the “Adviser – International Affairs” from the Chief Minister’s department.

The review published on Friday found that around £3m per year is spent on travel by the States, but just £150,000 goes on international flights.

The tightening up of procedures means that any States’ staff booking flights will have to justify the costs of the trip to their managers and will have to demonstrate that they have found the most cost-efficient ticket possible.

All travel or entertainment bills over £500 will be published every six months.

The reviews do not cover expenses by ministers or assistant ministers, who last year spent £78,468 on travel. Ministers will now be asked to consider to set their own rules on travel expenses.

Mr Richardson said: “We did not find any clear evidence of people breaking the rules.

“What we found was that there is areas where – and it is not the individual’s fault – the rules were not clear or tight enough, or some departments had developed their own policies or procedures that were slightly different.

“There was a spread of how it was interpreted.

“We did not uncover anything which across the board identified any serious occurrences which would warrant disciplinary proceedings against any individual.”