Select a region
The government's spending watchdog says she is "concerned" about the slow progress of identifying cuts before they’re announced - with £80m of proposed £100m savings still yet to be accounted for.
The challenge comes in a new report from the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) Karen McConnell, in which she reviews the way finances are managed across the civil service.
Amid wider questions raised about the savings programme, which was first announced by the Chief Minister almost a year ago, the C&AG has voiced her concerns that only a fifth of the proposed £100m worth of cuts have been identified in the island's first ever Government Plan.
Having already recommended that the Government “develop[s] more sophisticated mechanisms for identifying efficiency savings”, Ms McConnell found that progress on this front has been progressing “slowly” in one of her last reports in post before she steps down at the end of this year.
Pictured: Jersey's first ever Government Plan only accounts for one fifth of the planned savings.
Although a Steering Group has been established to locate areas where cuts can be made, the most recent Government Plan was published before the entirety of the £100m savings had been identified.
This group met in February of this year in “a series of meetings and workshops", but they are yet to identify £80m of the total proposed efficiency programme planned over the next four years to cope with the forecast £30m ‘black hole'.
The report states: “The Government Plan as lodged includes unidentified savings. Management are undertaking further work to identify efficiency savings.”
Of this, the C&AG remarked that that changes she recommended “are in their early stages” and that “efficiency savings were not identified in sufficient time to prevent unidentified savings being included in the Government Plan.”
Chief Minister Senator John Le Fondré’s refusal to disclose further detail about proposed cuts has garnered criticism from scrutineers, backbenchers and even one Minister.
Pictured: The Chief Minister has refused to disclose further details about the savings plan.
His letter to the Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel, in response to Senator Kristina Moore’s demands for more information, promised that the Council of Ministers met yesterday (18 September) “to finalise and agree the further details.”
However, the C&AG report published today says that these details should have been pinned down much earlier – before the Government Plan was published.
According to the Government Plan, efficiencies totalling nearly £20million have been identified so far under Chief Executive Charlie Parker's 'OneGov' programme, with the majority (£8.2m) the result of “transformation in services” and “driving improvements in productivity” – but islanders and their elected representatives have largely been kept in the dark about what these entail in tangible terms.
The savings already identified include:
Further to this, the details of the savings plan are not clear and when Express made enquiries under the Freedom of Information Law, the request was declined on the basis that the government needed a “safe space” to develop its money-saving policy.
Elsewhere in the report, the C&AG also urged that base budgets need to be scrutinised just as much as bids to increase funding.
Having already called for the Government to operate using “zero-based budget reviews” where at every new financial year, each department starts from scratch rather than build on previously established budgets.
Pictured: The efficiencies that have already been established (Government Plan 2020-2023).
Ms McConnell found that although “substantial progress has been evident” following the move from the format of the Medium-Term Financial Plan to the Government Plan due to increased flexibility, strategic-oriented budgeting and the consideration of income and expenditure simultaneously; there is still work to be done.
She states: “There has been insufficient focus on the scrutiny of existing expenditure as opposed to plans for growth.”
In her conclusions, Ms McConnell suggests that management should focus on “taking stock of the experience of preparing the first Government Plan and learning the lessons for the future.”
Despite these concerns, overall the watchdog reported back a general finding that progress was being made, noting that “where recommendations have yet to be implemented or fully implemented there are in many cases plans for implementation.”
She reminded the Government that the delivery of her recommendations “require collective action” in order to “embrace ongoing cultural change” and “ensure that a culture of good governance is seen as the bedrock on which successful change is built and embedded.”
Released last night, a response statement from the government Treasurer Richard Bell did not address the C&AG's savings-related concerns, but welcomed her more positive findings.
Pictured: Treasurer Richard Bell at the Government Plan launch.
Thanking Ms McConnell for carrying out the review, he commented: "...The C&AG has highlighted the significant work carried out by the department in the past year, in particular the implementation of a new Public Finances Law, preparation of a new Public Finances Manual, the earlier preparation of the States' Annual Report and Accounts and a new Risk Management Strategy.
"Critical to the delivery of improved financial management was the key structural changes that took place, consolidating all finance staff into Treasury and Exchequer with a new operating structure. I would like to thank the team that led this transformation and for the patience and dedication of colleagues during this period of change."
He continued: "I also welcome the recommendations made by the C&AG to help further improve our financial management and internal controls, recognising the work still to do and the investment required. While some of these actions are already underway, I will be working with my leadership team to put in place an action plan in order to address the recommendations made."
Comments
Comments on this story express the views of the commentator only, not Bailiwick Publishing. We are unable to guarantee the accuracy of any of those comments.