P&R has met separately with each of the seven principal committees – between them responsible for well over £500m. of public spending each year – ahead of finalising an income and expenditure package for debate by the States Assembly in November.
Each principal committee confirmed that its members had been invited to meet P&R members in the summer to discuss spending pressures and savings opportunities.
This was a new move, recent budgets having been compiled without such direct dialogue between members of committees, and may be an indication of P&R’s wish for spending committees to take firmer political ownership of the direction to cap spending increases to 1% below inflation in each of the next three years.
P&R must finalise the details of its draft budget in the next three weeks.
‘Committees have developed and submitted their budget requirements, and P&R is currently undertaking the final stages of engagement with those committees to review and discuss their proposals and priorities for 2027,’ said the senior committee’s treasury lead, Charles Parkinson.
‘A number of important steps are still to be completed, which include concluding discussions with committees, considering the overall budget position, and finalising the package of proposals that will be presented within the 2027 budget.
‘The committee remains on track to submit the proposed budget on 5 October for publication on 6 October.’
Deputy Parkinson acknowledged there was ‘some uncertainty created’ by the Assembly’s failure to agree a long-term tax and spending strategy at its meeting in July ahead of the summer adjournment. That debate will resume when the Assembly sits next, on 30 September, but mostly concerns measures which would come into effect in 2028 at the earliest. Deputy Parkinson said the 2027 budget could therefore ‘be prepared largely on the basis of the existing tax framework’.
Each principal committee openly explained how it had formulated its budget request for next year and the relationship between political members and officials during the process.
Each one also said that it was waiting to hear back from P&R about any differences between the funding it had requested and the final proposals to be contained in the senior committee’s budget to be submitted to the States.