Can States prove it can save before it spends?

THE till operator has just finished bleeping your weekly shop through.

They ask you to pay up.

Do you, (a), reach for the necessary cash in your wallet and hand it over, or, (b), tell them that you expect to save some money next month on the heating and walk off with the goods?

Well, if you're a deputy at the moment it's likely to be more like (b).

Because while much States debate this week will centre on which new services deserve money spent on them, some argue that not enough attention is being paid to the fact that the money is not actually guaranteed in the first place.

When the States Strategic Plan was approved, with it came a recommendation that predicted efficiency savings from one year can be spent on new services the next.

Hence we find £2.4m. of services being recommended in a report before the States which fails to detail where the money is coming from, or, indeed, whether it has been collected.

That detail is to come in the Budget.

Deputy Robert Sillars, who became a States member in 2008, will place his first-ever amendment this week when he tries to resolve this.

The move is is double-pronged, because it also wants to drill down into exactly what is meant by an 'efficiency saving', but more of that later.

Depending on how the debate goes, it may even be his birthday when the vote is taken – he turns, well, a year older on Thursday.

Last year he seconded an amendment led by Deputy Martin Storey that only attracted 11 votes – it, too, only wanted to spend what was saved, but it wanted the savings put into paying off the black hole.

That was obviously a step too far, so now Deputy Sillars is back with what he hopes is a more palatable alternative.

'This time it's the art of the possible.

'We have to go for something that we have a chance of getting through,' said Deputy Sillars.

'Let's prove we've saved it before we spent it, which every household and business does.'

If successful, the amendment would not impact on the plans for new services in 2011 but would bite instead for spending earmarked for 2012.

'So much work has gone into the new services that it would be wrong to try and change it now. What's more important is the long term – let's get this good bookkeeping in place.'

Under the current plans, if efficiency savings are not actually made, the equivalent amount is deducted from what would be spent the following year. But you could see something of a snowball effect.

This time around we are talking about £2.4m. in 'efficiency savings', but in future years in could be more like £10m.

What happens when a predicted £10m. does not turn up and the services are running anyway?

And what is an efficiency saving?

At the moment it includes unexpected fees collected by the company registry and the increase in the bus fare.

Deputy Sillars said the bus fares were simply driven by market forces.

'It does reduce the States grant, but it's hardly an efficiency saving.

'Would you argue that raising taxes is an efficiency saving?'

Hikes in planning fees, housing licence application fees, all could be used under the current policy – not really the States proving it has become as efficient as it could be before taking more money off the public.

People were probably thinking more like energy efficiency, cutting the fuel bill, or, breathe deeply, staff numbers.

Deputy Sillars has been surprised by the reaction from his fellow States members to his amendment.

'Some I would expect to be fully behind it are not. Others, who I thought may have more of a social agenda, which I welcomed, are behind it.'

One of the left-leaning deputies, Sean McManus, is seconding the amendment.

Deputy Sillar's added: 'I hope it goes through, it's common sense.'

He left it at that, but the usual thoughts of there being precious little of that around at times in the States apply.

The States meeting begins on Wednesday, with the SSP the main event.

Of the recommendations by the Policy Council and its opaque scoring system, Culture and Leisure's bid for money to improve heritage storage is the most firmly in the firing line.

You may expect short shrift given to an accelerated bid to bring in a GST, and Alderney will struggle with its bid for the cash earmarked for Guernsey's Renewable Energy Commission.

By the end of it all £2.4m. will have been spent, you just won't know where it's coming from.