- Project to make States more efficient criticised by Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel.
- Only ‘pocket change’ savings have been made, says St John Constable Chris Taylor.
- Treasury Minister defends the Lean programme, which has cost £500,000 and saved just £610,000.
- Does the States have a ‘jobs for the boys’ culture? Take our poll.
POLITICIANS should instruct senior civil servants to target roles or posts that can be axed in an effort to speed up the public sector savings programme, a Scrutiny panel has said.
The Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel has said that the progress of the so-called ‘Lean’ programme designed to drive efficiencies has been too slow and has produced only ‘pocket change’ in savings.
In a hearing this week, new panellist and States newcomer St John Constable Chris Taylor said that unless cuts were made at middle and senior management levels the Island would not be able to provide services it was obliged to offer.
Asked by Mr Taylor what posts had been identified as being surplus to requirements in the last three or four years, Treasury Minister Alan Maclean said that he did not have the information to hand, but that if any had been identified there were not ‘many up to this point’.
Senator Maclean added that while essential frontline workers – nurses, teachers and emergency service personnel – always needed to be replaced, the States had around an eight per cent turnover in staff each year, which may provide savings opportunities through restructuring.
However, Mr Taylor went on to express his concern at what had been achieved to date.
He said: ‘I’m frustrated, as someone who is new into politics, that in the private sector you’re given 12 to 18 months to make changes in terms of man power. Here we are and in comparison after three to four years only pocket change has been saved.
‘Do you not feel that you need to be firmer and put down some markers to say in the next six months or 12 months we need to make X savings in man power?
‘Personally, I think it is very, very slow and I suggest that senior management don’t wish it to go any faster. Perhaps senior politicians should set targets and senior management should be a little more firmly instructed with regard to making savings in terms of man power.’
Senator Maclean said the timetable for further savings would be outlined in the Medium Term Financial Plan, adding that major public sector reform was a naturally slow process that was made more difficult by relatively short electoral terms.
Speaking after the hearing Senator Maclean said he broadly agreed with Mr Taylor’s comments, but added that a process had to be followed.
‘Everything he was asking about is being done as we have to drive efficiencies and cut costs as we have to make certain that we can fund the key parts of government within available resources.
‘It has been slower than it should have been and a lot of the process has been about preparatory work. It may not have been very visible, but we’ve got to go through it and work with staff to get the terms and conditions right,’ said Senator Maclean.
The Senator was joined by assistant Treasury Minister Deputy Tracey Vallois and States Treasurer Richard Bell. The Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel’s other members were chairman Deputy John Le Fondré, Deputy Kevin Lewis and vice chairman Deputy Simon Brée.
When asked about the panel’s suggestion Unite the union regional officer Nick Corbel said the States had made savings and reductions regularly for years and that further work would jeopardise frontline services.
‘In terms of cutting middle and senior managers I’m not in the game of calling for redundancies,’ Mr Corbel said. ‘Many of these managers are members of Unite and perform an important role in public sector provision.’
The union representative added that scrutiny should be more concerned with asking questions about money spent by senior States officials.
WITH eight per cent of States employees retiring or moving on each year, the public sector salary bill should be declining.
However, as the latest Jersey Labour Market survey shows, public sector core employment went up by 2.9% – 200 full-time posts – in the year to June 2014.
It is therefore not surprising that, with a structural deficit looming, the Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel wants to see more evidence of savings made by senior managers.
St John Constable Chris Taylor is by no means alone in feeling frustrated over lack of progress. According to Treasury Minister Alan Maclean, the so-called ‘Lean’ programme has so far cost £500,000, not far short of the £610,000 in savings achieved to date – hardly an impressive result.
On the other hand, as Unite spokesman Nick Corbel has said, Islanders have come to expect good standards and would be the first to complain if essential services were reduced. This is not just a matter of saving money, but affects people’s lives and livelihoods at the most basic level.
The Treasury Minister has been given a tough task which requires treading a fine tightrope.
KEVIN Keen is worth every penny. The businessman was in the headlines this week after it was revealed that he will be employed by the States as a consultant at the not-too-shabby rate of £650 a day.
His task?
To save them money. Now, it’s all too easy to sneer at the irony of asking a man to find ways of cutting costs when he is being paid roughly ten times more than the minimum wage to do so.
But that ignores one salient fact – Mr Keen is qualified to do this job.
He has earned a reputation in Jersey as a business guru, a man who is parachuted in to rescue an ailing company by balancing the books and turning red profit numbers into green. He oversaw a revamp of Jersey Dairy, putting the company back on its feet ahead of a move to its new factory in Trinity, and was then asked to do something similar at Jersey Post. It was an unenviable task – the business was still reeling from the loss of the lucrative low-value consignment relief market (cheap exported CDs and DVDs, to you and me) and it was one of many postal companies across the world struggling to maintain its position in the face of a digital revolution.
I’ve spoken to several workers at both of those companies, at both junior and management level, and none of them had a bad word to say about the man who was brought in to potentially trim their staff numbers and salaries.
They always said he was fair, honest and respectful – even if he did have hard decisions to make and enforce. I’m sure I’m not the only person who has hoped that Mr Keen would stand for the States in the last few years, but this appointment is potentially even better.
Nick Corbel, the shouty Unite union representative, predictably criticised Mr Keen’s appointment, describing his salary as a ‘slap in the face’ for workers and arguing that his success at Jersey Post and Jersey Dairy had been built on redundancies.
I would say that even if this were true, this makes him the ideal person to run an eye over States departments.
Why? Because we have one of the most bloated, overpaid civil services in the world. If we need to make savings, there is only one place to start.
I had a friend who recently worked for the States for a six-month stint while back in the Island for the first time in a few years. He had previously only been employed in the private sector and after a few weeks in his new job, he explained to me that he was finding it difficult to adjust.
Apparently, his bosses had to tell him to slow down because he was working too fast and showing everyone else up. He thought he was just carrying out his duties at a normal pace, but it turns out that this particular States office was notorious for its collection of paper pushers who all managed to stretch about ten hours of actual work into a 37.5-hour week.
‘It’s ridiculous,’ he told me.
‘I’m earning more money for doing about a fifth of the work. I understand now why they call it the “States’ Gravy Train”. It’s a joke.’
Here’s something fun. Google ‘Jersey’s Environment Department’ and have a look at the various jobs that exist. It’s amazing. Some of them must be made-up and others are so vague that I’m amazed there isn’t someone employed whose job description is just ‘plant stuff’.
If this was the good old days, and Jersey was rich, successful and flush with cash, then I wouldn’t mind if we indulged people doing absolutely pointless jobs for fat salaries.
But that isn’t the case. We are in a potentially perilous position. We have an ageing population to care for, people already struggling to make ends meet, a looming deficit and a care abuse inquiry that is likely to cost millions more than first thought.
We can’t mess around any more, which is why I hope Mr Keen is given full access and freedom to delve into our civil service, which has spread far too freely over the years, like a greedy virus tainting a Petri dish.
Every civil servant should be asked: would it matter if you didn’t go in to work tomorrow?
For people who actually do useful jobs – binmen, nurses, doctors, teachers, policemen – they would probably be missed within the first hour of their absence. We rely on them.
But all of the excess administrators, secretaries, assistants, middle managers, PR people, lackeys, ‘yes’ men and general slackers – would we miss them?
If we shaved, say, 250 people off the States wage bill, with conservative estimated salaries of £50,000 each, that would save the Island £12.5 million a year.
A year.
That would pretty much solve our problems within a decade
So, let’s not do anything stupid like try to cut corners at the Hospital, make teachers stretch themselves further than they do already or squeeze every penny out of the hundreds of Islanders living in poverty. Let’s tackle the single biggest drain on our resources.
No one is owed a living, I’m afraid. As anyone in the private sector will know, it’s been a tough few years and most of us have experienced redundancies in our places of work.
But while we’ve all been cutting corners, the civil service has inexplicably
expanded.
It’s time to rein it in.
And if it costs us £650 a day to do so, I’d say it’s well worth it.
