Senator John Le Fondré has come under increasing pressure to reveal the details behind the large spending cuts he is proposing to make over the next three years.
A total of £20 million of efficiencies have already been identified, but that is not enough according to backbenchers who have been pushing for more information.
Senator Kristina Moore, who chairs the Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel, wrote to the Chief Minister last month calling for more details to be released earlier, to allow the cuts to be properly scrutinised before the Government Plan debate in November.
But in his response, Senator Le Fondré said he planned to present the efficiencies to the Council of Ministers in October and that is the timetable he was still working to.
Senator Moore, who has regularly challenged the Chief Minister to reveal more in-depth details of spending cuts, said this was not good enough and did not allow enough time for adequate scrutiny of the government’s financial plans.
She said: ‘There should be a 12-week time period ahead of the debate and at the moment this is an incomplete Government Plan.
‘It says there will be detail to follow but that is not good enough and shows this is a government of chaos and they are not prepared to have what is their most important debate.
‘I will continue to push for more details but it doesn’t seem they will be forthcoming. It simply isn’t ready. We will continue to do our very best with the information we do have.
‘It doesn’t help the members of staff in the government either, with all this uncertainty about the impact it will have on jobs. It has been an uncertain time for civil servants and the public sector and that needs to come to an end.’
Senator Le Fondré said some details would be shown to the One Gov Political Oversight Group and the Council of Ministers over the coming weeks, but the full impact on departments’ 2020 budgets would only be made available by the end of October.
Deputy Kirsten Morel, who lodged a proposition last week in an attempt to force the government to release more information, said the Chief Minister’s refusal to budge on his October date raised the question of whether work on efficiency savings had been done yet.
He added: ‘The chief executive [Charlie Parker] has been carrying out work on savings for two years, and now it seems like everything is just being rushed and being done at the very last minute.
‘It is poor that not enough time is being given to scrutinise and that is letting Islanders down.
‘But I don’t understand why all this work is having to be done at the last minute when the chief executive has been working on savings for the last two years.
‘If the government isn’t giving in to pressure that makes me question if this work has even been completed.’
