Home Affairs on naughty step over plan

The ‘monumental task’ of meeting annual 1% savings targets over four years will require the public sector staff of Home Affairs and its politicians to transform.

That will require everybody within the various sections of the committee – including law enforcement, fire, prison and civil servants – to work as one towards a common goal.

Only then will they have a chance of succeeding, especially as Home Affairs needs not only to identify how it is going to make savings but also negotiate deals on the 94% of its work that overlaps with other States committees.

It will be a genuine test of whether the ‘silo’ working of States’ committees can be broken down under the current system.

An urgency comes through the Medium Term Financial Plan: things need to get moving if there is to be any chance of success.

It also warns against complacency. With each year that goes by, the task gets harder as the total savings target up to 2021 is going nowhere.

How those senior officers will have reacted when told by the committee in March that ‘further work was needed’ after their briefing paper was presented is hard to judge.

What can be said with certainty is that Home Affairs is under huge pressure to deliver savings and yet it is currently unable to communicate a clear vision to either its staff or the public.

Officers who are proud to have helped deliver £4m. of savings from 2012 to 2017 are now told that an oversight board has been established where the president and vice president of Policy & Resources have been brought on board to help Home Affairs deliver.

The committee present that as a positive.

But it is impossible to escape the conclusion that the politicians have dragged their feet for so long about finding savings that the committee has been placed on the naughty step in a bid to give the process some impetus, belief and commitment.