In October, the States’ Assembly was on the verge of throwing out the Committee’s request to support GST in principle when a late amendment avoided a vote on GST. Instead, the Committee was directed to carry out more consultation on tax policy before returning to the States for another debate by July this year.
The Committee recently launched ‘Our Island, Our Future’ – a campaign of engagement with the community to explain the need for tax rises and why it considers GST coupled with major changes to social security contributions to be not only the most effective but also the fairest way of bringing in tens of millions of pounds of additional tax revenue each year.
Despite the challenge it is facing of trying to secure support for its controversial flagship tax policies, the Committee does not intend to increase its modest promotional budget.
The Committee said the budget of £20-30,000 “includes all of the published material, the new ourfuture.gg website, social media and roadshow events”.
Pictured: The Policy & Resources Committee’s public engagement campaign kicked off last week with a press conference at Candie Museum.
Households have received printed leaflets. The new website extensively explains the reasons for the challenging financial projections and the options studied for addressing them. Public drop-in sessions are being held in February and March.
“The Committee is also being flexible on what further opportunities and events it will include in this period of engagement going forward,” it said.
It also reiterated that all campaign funding is being spent with local businesses.
However, the Committee declined a request from Express to break down the costs of the various elements of the public engagement campaign – for example, on roadshow events, digital advertising and print advertising. It provided only the total estimated costs for the entire campaign.
Digital adverts encouraging the public to take part have been appearing on islanders’ social media feeds through sponsored content and on websites.
Some of the adverts appear to have been put together less carefully than they might have been and contain errors.
Pictured: An inaccurate States’ advert on the website Cruisedig invites readers to “learn more about why goods and services tax”.
The Committee said that it is “listening to community feedback on the engagement itself and responding to that in the coming months before final recommendations are prepared and put to the States in the summer”.
“The first roadshow event in St Peter’s was very well attended and members of the public had constructive conversations with the political members.”
The next public drop-in event takes place at Cobo Community Centre on Saturday 5 March between 13:00 and 14:00.