Concerns over how accessible and understandable Guernsey’s States Accounts are have been reiterated by the committee tasked with scrutinising our government.
Deputy Andy Sloan has already stated that he struggles to understand them.
The economist and strategist is President of the States Scrutiny Committee.
His committee has now backed up his concerns with a public statement – sharing their “principal concern” which “is not whether the Accounts are technically correct, but whether they are sufficiently accessible and understandable to those for whom they are ultimately intended”.
Scrutiny has said that “an interested taxpayer would struggle to determine” “whether government is living within its means, where tax revenues have been spent, how much of reported surpluses are attributable to operational performance as opposed to investment market movements, what level of reserves is genuinely available, and how major projects and programmes have affected the overall financial position”.
As an example, Scrutiny said that the 2025 Accounts report a Group surplus of £106 million, “yet readers are also directed towards a core government surplus, an operating surplus and an estimated underlying funding gap of approximately £50m”.
The conflicting figures are explained within the Treasurer’s Report which “seeks to explain why certain headline figures should be interpreted with caution and why alternative measures may provide a better understanding of the underlying fiscal position”.
Scrutiny said the “need for extensive explanation raises an important question: if informed Deputies require significant narrative interpretation in order to understand the Accounts, how realistic is it to expect members of the public to do so?”
Deputy Sloan had already shared his own concerns on the States Accounts during a recent Scrutiny Hearing with P&R. The letter of comment published today will accompany the Accounts when the States debate them later this week.
It will allow other deputies to share their views on whether the States Accounts are “accessible and understandable”.
Scrutiny accepts the accounts are “technically robust and compliant with the reporting standards” but “technical compliance alone is not sufficient to satisfy the broader accountability expectations of Deputies and the public”.
Addressing the public’s desire for transparency, Scrutiny cautions that “the challenge for future years is not to produce more information, but to present existing information more clearly so that the States’ true financial position and financial sustainability can be readily understood.
“Public accountability depends not only on the accuracy of financial reporting, but on its clarity and accessibility.”
