The States is faced this week with a stark choice between reducing public spending by 1% in real terms, or increasing it by 1.3% after inflation.
Guernsey’s only political party, Forward Guernsey, put forward an amendment to introduce a halfway house of freezing budgets in real terms.
In putting forward the compromise, Deputy Rhona Humphreys said it was a holding position, which would allow a structured programme of efficiency savings to be brought in over a longer timescale.
‘We want to spend less where we can, spend better where we must, and stop wasting money where we have no good reason to spend it,’ she said.
‘This isn’t about making the easiest cut. It’s about finding better ways of doing things.
‘That is what we set out to achieve in our original amendment, and that is why I urge you to support Option C. A more nuanced approach which gives us longer to achieve the same outcomes, and outcomes many of you supported.’
It attracted limited support with some describing it as a ‘Goldilocks amendment’. But it also attracted flack from both sides.
Some felt it was backsliding from the assembly’s previous commitment to cut spending, while others thought it was not generous enough to avoid harmful cuts to services.
There was also widespread concern over delegating the final decision on committee budgets to Policy & Resources, including from members of that committee itself.
Deputy Neil Inder said it was giving yet another task to a busy committee, while Deputy Tina Bury commented that it would produce such uncertainty that ESS would have to withdraw its policy letter on uprating benefits.
P&R vice-president Deputy Yvonne Burford claimed the only practical approach might be to share out cash based on current budget allocations – a theme almost echoed by the committee’s treasury lead when he was summing up.
‘If we seek to protect important services like Health and Education, then we will end up pretty much wiping out smaller departments such as Economic Development or Environment & Infrastructure,’ said Deputy Charles Parkinson.
He also agreed with a comment made by Deputy John Gollop that finding meaningful savings was not nearly as easy as many people seemed to think.
‘The reality is that making savings is really hard, real world government is quite difficult, it’s messy, and doesn’t lend itself to following simplistic formulas,’ he said.
The Forward Guernsey amendment was lost by 26 votes to 12.
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