A flagship £20m grant scheme to improve business productivity and skills has had “questionable benefit”, and not enough consideration was given to Brittany Ferries’ bid to continue to serve Jersey, according to a now-former Assistant Minister within the very department which took those key decisions.

Deputy Moz Scott resigned from her role as second in political command at the Economy Department earlier this month, citing “fundamental differences” between her priorities and the rest of the Council of Ministers.

Now, further details of those differences have emerged, with Deputy Scott – who has decided not to seek a second political term in June – publishing her resignation letter to Chief Minister Lyndon Farnham.

No longer bound by rules on ministers breaking rank, in her letter Deputy Scott said:

  • That the Better Business Support Package, which offers matched funding alongside a dedicated fund to develop tourism, has been of “questionable compensation or overall benefit to the economy”.
  • That a £40,000 grant to airline Finistair for a summer trial of flights to and from Alderney and Brest was approved on “cultural grounds” despite advice that the route was unlikely to be viable without further government subsidy.
  • When the ferry contract was being decided, “disproportionate weight” was given to representations from businesses with “lower levels of investment” in freight operations. However, “insufficient weight” was given to a performance guarantee offered by Brittany Ferries “and the potential benefits of inter-island triangulation”.
  • New external business opportunities identified in a 2020 report by the independent but government-established Economic Council called New Perspectives were “deprioritised” in favour of support for “less globally competitive local businesses”.
  • The Economy Department has “structural, managerial and cultural shortcomings”.

In a separate report sent to the Government’s CEO, addressing that last point, Deputy Scott said: “Despite the competencies and dedication of individual policy officers, my professional experience has poorly equipped me to adjust to a work environment as poorly led, poorly organised and poor in culture as the Department of Economy.”

The St Brelade representative then goes on to suggest a series of reforms, including having a “flatter management structure” and possibly merging the department’s Economy Unit with policy officers in the Cabinet Office.  

Speaking to Express to expand on her criticism of the Better Business Support Package, Deputy Scott said: “It is of questionable economic benefit because it is too easy for a business to suggest it can increase productivity by reducing costs with the help of a government grant.

“Most viable businesses would be expected to find funding to invest in their businesses anyway.

“Also, there is a lack of clear measurement of success. Jersey Business [which oversees the scheme] has to give money away or it and the scheme is perceived to have failed. Further, light-touch scrutiny of financial position increases the potential for fraud.”

She added: “Contrast all that with the political benefit, which is businesses getting free money even if they would have made the full investment anyway.”

And concerning the ferry contract, Deputy Scott said that then-incumbent Brittany Ferries’ bid was dismissed too quickly and that Jersey’s negotiating team were “fixated” on the flat-rate card for freight and did not produce or share analysis of the rate card’s impact on supermarkets or loss of shared costs with Guernsey.

She added that there was also a lack of analysis on the chosen contract’s impact on carbon-neutral goals and the disruption for tourism from delayed decision-making and a “lack of transition plan and triangulation on inter-island travel”.

Deputy Scott called the ferry contract with DFDS “one of the most expensive political mistakes in Jersey’s history”.

Elsewhere in the letter, she said she was “disappointed” to have not received the Chief Minister’s “support for a proposed change to the Code of Conduct to strengthen States Members’ leadership in cybersecurity”.

She also said that Deputy Farnham and Deputy Morel had “pressed me to abstain” from voting on a plan to curtail public funding for medicinal cannabis growing, which she claimed was “to preserve an appearance of Ministerial unity”.

Asked for his response to Deputy Scott’s resignation letter, Deputy Farnham said he had no further comment to make.

Express will publish a response from Economic Development Minister Kirsten Morel, which is to follow.