And the ‘black hole’ ongoing structural deficit is now said to be in the region of £56m. a year.
Full accounts will be published a week after the election but the Policy & Resources Committee released some information yesterday, before the island votes.
‘Our committee felt it was important to provide this financial update in advance of the general election given the significant and understandable focus on public finances from both candidates and the electorate,’ said P&R president Lyndon Trott.
‘In October when we published our 2025 Budget proposals I described the state of public finances as parlous and that remains the case – the States cannot continue to rely on reserves built up in the past to fund the services of today and tomorrow.
‘The new Assembly will need to immediately focus its attention on the issue of improving public finances. I cannot stress enough how important that is to the long-term prosperity of the island.’
The extent of the structural deficit has caused much debate in the past couple of weeks at election events, with campaigners against a goods and services tax querying the States Accounts.
P&R vice-president Heidi Soulsby said that the message remained simple.
‘We’re not raising enough through taxes to fund the services our community relies on,’ she said.
‘The bottom line is we had a significant deficit in general revenue last year. The work we did earlier in the year shows a looming need to invest in essential infrastructure projects, with funds to pay for only a fraction of that.
‘The decision for the next States will not be whether something needs to be done, but what should be done to balance the books.’
In March P&R indicated that provisional general results were for a £9m. deficit, a shortfall of £21m. against the budget.
The updated figures showed that on ‘core’ government day-to-day activity – income collected and the cost of running services and benefits – was £44m.
This consisted of a £9m. deficit in general revenue, £13m. in social security funds and £22m. of non-infrastructure project expenditure, such as IT transformation, elements of the revenue service programme and electronic patient record.
Strong investment performance saw values on paper rise £130m. year-on-year. Allowing for this, and depreciation and other accounting adjustments, the overall States ‘core’ surplus was £34m., but the States reinforced this was a paper value only, not actual returns.
The 2024 States Accounts are the first to be fully compliant with International Public Sector Accounting Standards and to be given a ‘true and fair’ view by the auditors.
Among other changes this year, group accounts are now being prepared which consolidate all the entities under the control of the States of Guernsey, including the Guernsey Housing Association, Guernsey Electricity, Aurigny, Guernsey Post and internal trading entities such as the Ports and Guernsey Water.
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