Savings requested as part of the government’s soon-to-be-debated spending plans could force the island’s children’s rights watchdog to make “difficult decisions” about the work it undertakes and “restrict” its ability to improve the lives of children and young people, a scrutiny panel has been told.
The Office of the Children’s Commissioner for Jersey raised its concerns in a written submission to a review of the proposed 2026-2029 Budget.
It is being carried out by the Economic and International Affairs Scrutiny Panel, with the government’s intended spending plans due to be debated next month.
In the OCCJ’s submission, the children’s rights watchdog states that – under the current Budget figures being put forward – it will be required to make a saving of £61,000.
In meeting the value for money savings required in the proposed 2026 Budget, this will effectively restrict the OCCJ’s capacity to do the job that it was established to do
Office of the Children’s Commissioner for Jersey
It explained that, when combined with savings across the previous two Budgets, this represented a cut of £139,000 in three years.
“When operating on a small budget, this level of cuts is significant and impacts on our ability to fulfil our statutory functions and add value to children and young people’s lives through influencing positive legal, social and cultural change,” the submission continued.
“Although the government expectation is that this further saving will be achieved through role reductions, the majority of this saving will have to be made in non-staff areas.”
But it also noted that the requested savings were equivalent to a full-time-equivalent role.
It argued that, having already “surrendered” one full-time-equivalent position from its total staffing complement of nine, the OCCJ “does not believe that it is appropriate, proportionate or efficient to be asked to lose one more” in 2026.
“Particularly having recently gone through a restructure process, which saw the current structure agreed in January 2025,” the submission added.
“In meeting the value for money savings required in the proposed 2026 budget, this will effectively restrict the OCCJ’s capacity to do the job that it was established to do and require it to be administered on a very tight, almost shoestring budget, of an estimated non-staff
budget of £208,000.”
The OCCJ also stressed that half of this would be taken up by “fundamental operations charges”, such as rent, service charges, utilities and IT support services.
“While the remainder will cover the cost of some of our core work, such [as] a World Children’s Day event, website maintenance, maintaining our work at the UK and at an international level, servicing the required advisory panels etc, it will still require us to make difficult decisions about the extent and nature of the work we are able to undertake.”
The OCCJ is not alone in having raised concerns about the potential impact of the 2026-2029 Budget.
Environment Minister Steve Luce has also warned that funding cuts could result in “significant challenges” for his department, telling a scrutiny panel that: “We find ourselves under increasing pressure year on year.”