Services review will see States get back to the fundamentals

The Policy & Resources Committee has said that it would shortly submit to the Assembly draft terms of reference and costings for what it has described as a ‘fundamental services review’.

But P&R president Lyndon Trott talked down the chances of the review leading to cuts in public services.

‘What we’re talking about here is whether some of these services should remain universal or not. In other words, should everyone get them? Or should some people not get them because of their income levels?’ said Deputy Trott.

‘Are we necessarily talking about cuts to services? No. I think we’re probably talking more about how they’re funded, and by whom and when, and that’s an important distinction to make.

‘I don’t want the community panicking that suddenly those who are the most vulnerable in our community will see a very inconsiderate States behave in an unpleasant way. That is not what is intended.’

A previous initiative, the Financial Transformation Programme, struggled to generate savings when the former senior committee, the Policy Council, tried to run it itself, but eventually cut annual spending by more than £28m. after all committees were included in the work.

P&R vice-president Heidi Soulsby said the committee was mindful of that experience and was working on how the new review might be structured.

‘What I want is not what we ended up with at the very beginnings of the FTP, when I think committees didn’t feel that they owned the process,’ said Deputy Soulsby.

‘It definitely has to be something that committees are all part of, and personally speaking I think the community needs to be involved in this because this is about what we as a government provide.

‘What is it that government should provide? What is it that it should commission out? What shouldn’t it provide? What can we subsidise?’

She thought the States would need some external assistance to carry out the review.

When it announced the review in October, P&R said that taxpayers needed more reassurance that money was being spent efficiently.

The issue was raised when the committee faced the Scrutiny Management Committee at a public hearing.

Deputy Trott told the hearing that people also needed to understand that public spending in Guernsey remained comparatively low.

‘It’s important to remember the backdrop that we already spend less per capita on public services than our competitors,’ he said. ‘We deliver public services, generally speaking, quite efficiently.’

He said there was obviously some waste and inefficiency in the public sector but claimed the States was not ‘riddled’ with it.

P&R member Deputy Jonathan Le Tocq said the island needed to understand that it could not provide all of the same services offered by governments in larger jurisdictions and that more flexible thinking was needed.

‘At the moment, Health & Social Care is dealing with some backlog in operations by sending people to the UK for operations which would normally take place here in Guernsey.

‘In future that could be a commissioned service to some sort of private facility in Guernsey that would bring income and enable some of those things to take place here in Guernsey,’ he said.