The States Trading Supervisory Board, which oversees the trading bodies, wants them to show the same financial discipline as States committees, which have also collectively been directed to take 1% off their spending in real terms in each of 2027, 2028 and 2029.
The board hopes the move will also help relieve upward pressure on customer charges as the island’s cost of living challenges deepen.
‘It will not be easy,’ said STSB president Mark Helyar.
‘Pay costs are the most significant component of expenditure and, even with restraint in future pay awards, further efficiencies will be necessary.
‘We want to help embed a culture which ensures this is a process of continual efficiency improvement rather than a one‑off exercise.’
The board’s direction affects the ports, the dairy, States Works, waste services and lottery operations, as well as Guernsey Water, albeit the latter is working towards incorporation by the end of next year.
The States’ incorporated businesses, including Guernsey Electricity, Guernsey Post and Aurigny, are unaffected.
Nearly all of the unincorporated trading bodies have also been set the objective of becoming financially self-reliant by the end of 2029.
‘By that I mean able to fund their operating costs and a sustainable programme of capital investment from their own income, using borrowing only where that can be properly serviced from revenues,’ said Deputy Helyar.
Several of the unincorporated trading bodies have reported operating losses in recent years, following the effects of the pandemic, Brexit and spikes in inflation and energy costs.
The STSB said that they were now on a firmer financial footing, owing to tighter cost control, efficiency measures and a more commercial approach to fees and charges, and were forecasting operating surpluses for 2025, excluding exceptional items.
It hoped there would be no return to the trading bodies routinely requiring support from general revenue to fund their commercial activities.
Guernsey Waste is the one unincorporated trading body left out of the direction to become financially self-reliant by the end of 2029. It was not set up to act as a commercial business.
‘This is not about treating essential infrastructure as pure profit‑making enterprises,’ said Deputy Helyar.
‘It is about ensuring they are run with the discipline, accountability and clarity that islanders are entitled to expect, and that the taxpayer is asked to step in only for strategic reasons which are openly debated in the Assembly.’