Deputy Sasha Kazantseva-Miller sits on the Reducing the Cost of Public Services Sub-Committee.
She’s made assurances that all the suggestions will be analysed as part of the next stage of their work.
“I’d like to once again thank everyone who took part in the survey for their contributions. The themes that are emerging are interesting, but there’s still a lot of work to do to analyse the many suggestions.
“All of the suggestions are being reviewed, not only the ones that came up more frequently. Ultimately this exercise has been about involving the community to unearth good and effective ways of reducing the cost of public services, which may not necessarily be the most popular.”
Pictured: Deputy Sasha Kazantseva-Miller sits on the Reducing the Cost of Public Services Sub-Committee, which is chaired by Deputy Dave Mahoney.
“We are also continuing to actively engage with States Members and Committees, so there is a lot to do,” continued Deputy Kazantseva-Miller. “But ultimately, the Policy & Resources Committee is committed to making recommendations to the States Assembly to deliver these very significant reductions in cost, which is just one part of helping to ensure we make Guernsey’s public finances sustainable again for future generations.”
The Sub-Committee is working to identify and recommend steps which could deliver recurring cost reductions of at least £10m – £16m per annum, within five years.
The decision to find savings this way was made by the States earlier this year in a bid to ensure public finances are sustainable for future decades.
With a forecast deficit in funding public services of around £100m a year by 2040 the island needs to cut spending or bring in more money to cover the shortfall.
Respondents to the survey were asked to suggest ways of doing this, with various themes emerging from the replies.
Your ideas
Members of the public and States employees were asked to come up with ideas.
Pictured: The surveys for the community and for the public sector were identical in format, and overall there were many similarities in the responses.
The most popular theme in the public survey responses was ‘Tax’ with ideas around changing income tax, property taxes and corporate tax, as well as introducing new taxes such as a consumption tax.
Suggestions included both raising and lowing taxes.
The most popular theme in the employee survey was around restructuring/rationalisation of the States’ property and infrastructure portfolio.
Other suggestions across both surveys included changing benefits, offering new support measures so more people could work and changes to States employees pay, pensions, working hours and incentives.
States Members pay was flagged as an area ripe for change while eternally hot topics like paid parking were also suggested.
Outsourcing public services, charging for some currently free services and means testing for some services were all included too.
Under Law and Order, there were suggestions around raising revenue through cannabis, changing the way fines are levied and collected and the cost effectiveness of prison services rehabilitation, and certain court functions.
Now that the sub-committee has more than 1,400 ideas to go through it is scoring each one to work out which should be taken forward to the next phase with further details expected next year.
Only ideas focused on the cost of public services will be included at this stage so any proposals which don’t fit with this work stream will be shared with the appropriate Committees for consideration.
The review of public sector spending was one of the elements of the Fairer Alternative propositions which emerged as the main opponent to P&R’s plans to introduce GST debated earlier this year.
The sub-committee was formed out of one of the few actions agreed after the tax debate, when members threw out the GST proposals and many other options intended to address the looming £100m.+ blackhole in States finances.
This sub-committee is chaired by Deputy Mahoney representing P&R, with Deputies Kazantseva-Miller, Carl Meerveld and Simon Vermeulen working with non-States Member Dave Beausire to try and find up to £16m of savings over the next five years.
There is also a separate sub-committee – chaired by Deputy Mark Helyar – that is looking at corporate tax options.
READ MORE…
1,200+ saving suggestions so far
Hundreds of cost saving suggestions sent in
Public asked to find savings when States committees did the opposite