P&R vice-president Gavin St Pier said that having taken over the pre-existing work on tax reform, the committee felt it would be useful to have professional research carried out to help understand the awareness and sentiment of the community on various issues.
The aims of the research are to:
Understand attitudes towards public services in Guernsey and how they are funded;
Measure understanding and awareness of taxation and proposed tax reforms;
Explore support and opposition for proposed tax reforms, and the reasons for either position;
Identify gaps in community knowledge on need for tax reform, to support further engagement work.
‘The research began in October with focus groups [six groups of six people] discussing tax reform with an independent facilitator from the research company carrying out this work on our behalf,’ said Deputy St Pier.
A phone survey, which is being carried out by Rigour Research, is the second phase of the research.
It is aiming to collect 250 responses.
‘The survey team use random number generation to select the phone numbers, which is a commonly used survey method,’ said Deputy St Pier.
A representative mix of ages, genders and other elements, such as parish of residents, have been ensured by the researchers for both the focus groups and phone survey.
The total cost of the project has been about £36,000 and it is due to be completed by mid-January. P&R will consider the findings as part of its wider work on tax reform ahead of bringing proposals to the States looking for a final decision on a funding solution by the end of June 2026, said Deputy St Pier.
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