Guernsey Press

Civil service should be streamlined before any taxes are imposed

DEPUTIES know that the States must reduce expenditure (unless they are innumerate or unable to admit that the policies they have supported all their lives are flawed). Most do not do anything about this knowledge because they hope that someone heading a different department will grasp the nettle so that they don’t have to oppose the wishes of the civil servants in theirs.

Published

Guernsey’s civil service is far too powerful. A first step to balancing the budget must be to cut the service and the servants down to a manageable size. The work rate and efficiency of especially the most senior and most costly has to be increased dramatically, but how is this to be done when those who will be affected by the changes are being asked to implement them? As a guide, senior civil servants should be far too busy to get involved in matters of policy. If they do, it is a clear indication that their posts are supernumerary and can be safely cut.

Step 1. The civil service should be divided into two sectors, one with those carrying out specialist services directly to the public, who normally have to hold qualifications specific to that role. The other category is those civil servants whose work is purely or primarily administrative. Any public official who is not spending at least 50% of the time in contact with members of the public should be included in the second category.

Step 2. All senior civil service posts should be awarded on four-year contracts and all those contracts should run from a date one year after each general election. (This arrangement would mean that politicians newly taking control of a department would have the benefit of the advice of senior officers who had been in the post for three years, and senior officers taking up new posts would be working with politicians who had already had a year to start putting their policies into effect. This arrangement would ensure continuity while preventing ‘empire building’ by senior civil servants).

At the end of the contract, each senior officer should have their service assessed by a panel of politicians, junior officers and representatives of departmental clients. On the basis of this assessment, the senior officers should be retired or moved up, down or sideways to new posts. No senior officer should be allowed to serve more than one term in the same post.

Step 3. The remuneration of employees having specific qualifications is subject to market forces and cannot be controlled by artificial restraints but the cost to the island of States administration should be frozen for at least a decade. There must be no increases in the salaries of any administrative civil servants unless they are fully funded out of increased efficiency in the form of reduced staff numbers.

Step 4. Entry to the uniquely generous States of Guernsey pension scheme must be stopped now. Any new recruits must join a standard scheme like private sector employees. Subject to negotiation with the representatives of civil servants, the rules of the existing pension scheme must be changed to make it sustainable. If no agreement can be found, the pension fund should be allowed to become insolvent and collapse. Any additional funds required to prevent this must also come from savings made by reducing levels of administrative staff.

Step 5. The most efficient way to deliver the highest standard of publicly-funded services is through independent contractors competing for clients who are free to choose them as service providers. This is already done in relation to the supply of prescription medicines, preschool care of children and university education and should be rapidly extended to secondary and then primary education and to any other publicly-funded services delivered directly to the public.

Step 6. In conjunction with the steps set out above, the States should conduct a critical review of its activities and cut as many as possible of those which do not qualify as public services but are publicly controlled.

Step 7. Only when the six steps set out above have been fully implemented should the States even consider cutting benefits or services to the public, and only when that has been done should the possibility of new or higher taxes even be put on any States agenda.

BARRIE PAIGE

GY6 8BP