MINISTERS have welcomed analysis labelling the 2027 Budget “boring”, with the head of the government telling a Scrutiny panel that stability and balancing the books were key priorities for the new administration.
During a meeting of the Corporate Services Scrutiny panel focused on the recently-published Budget for 2027, Chief Minister Lyndon Farnham said he was comfortable with the reception the financial proposals had received.
“I share the desire of the Treasury Minister [Senator Alan Maclean] to balance the books, I think we all we all do,” he said. “I want to do more than balancing, but to be in a position where we have a surplus that we can invest back into the community through investing in Jersey and into stabilisation funds and strategic reserves and and so forth.
“That’s why this Budget has been described as boring by some – it aims very much to be a little bit boring, because we’re still in the process of steadying the ship from [previous] growth.
“The Treasury Minister was quite pleased that it was being described as boring because what we want is stability, and we realise there are big financial and affordability issues facing Islanders and businesses, so before we can properly address those, we need to make sure our books are balanced and we’re pointing in the right direction – that’s really the aim of this Budget.”
Senator Farnham stressed on several occasions that having set out the government’s short-term aims for 2027, the intention was to move to a three-year budgetary cycle that would start with the 2028 to 2030 period.
Although the ambition is to achieve greater financial efficiencies across government, including arm’s length organisations, chief executive Paul Wylie said some bodies would be exempt from this drive. The same approach would apply to the office of the Children’s Commissioner, he added.
Members of the panel also asked about the introduction of a public services ombudsperson to handle complaints against the government, with Deputy Chris Rebindaine highlighting that £385,000 had been allocated towards this role in the Budget.
But after commissioning a report into the role prior to this year’s election and then opting not to push ahead with it until after polling day, Senator Farnham said the matter had not yet been discussed since the make-up of the new government was finalised in mid-July, but that it would be tabled for discussion by the Council of Ministers before the end of this year.
“There are a number of different views about whether we should have it, whether we shouldn’t, and if we do have it, what size and shape it takes – those are the sort of areas we need to discuss,” he said.
