Last week the Council of Ministers addressed the subject as part of their confidential agenda at their bi-weekly meeting.
Transport Minister Eddie Noel refused to reveal what was discussed at the meeting but said that all sections of the department were being reviewed.
Earlier this month the department announced plans to shed 61 jobs and outsource some services as part of the States-wide drive to save money.
Nick Corbel of Jersey’s largest union, Unite, has hit out at the plans and said that the move might result in a ballot for industrial action.
And he also fears that ministers are quietly planning to adopt proposals put forward by Kevin Keen while he was a consultant for the States tasked with identifying savings.
In his final report before he resigned from the post, Mr Keen recommended that TTS should be completely outsourced – a move which would result in hundreds of public-sector job losses.
In the report, a summary of which has been released following a Freedom of Information request, Mr Keen says: ‘TTS is the department which most resembles a business in the States of Jersey, but even its activities are diverse and its unrecovered costs apparently much more substantial than the Guernsey equivalent. It is also capital intensive.
‘TTS is carrying out a number of reviews, which stretches out to 2017, the conclusions of those reviews are likely to be predictable, it will be cheaper to outsource.
‘It is recommended that a strategic decision be made that TTS will exit service delivery and begin to outsource all of its activities as soon as possible.’
Mr Corbel said that this would put hundreds of jobs at risk and that Unite were preparing to ballot for industrial action if ministers pressed ahead with the plans.
He said: ‘I would suspect that the States may well adopt Kevin Keen’s proposals.
‘In light of that, it is leaving us with very little choice in terms of progressing forward with the issues and the concerns we have.
‘They have been embarking on this slash and burn approach to the cuts and that is going to result in hundreds of redundancies.
‘The bottom line is that we are being backed into a corner and we are preparing for an industrial-action ballot if we need to do one.
‘We are doing that so that we can press the button at any time’
Chief Minister Ian Gorst and Deputy Noel were today due to be questioned on the potential outsourcing of TTS in the States by Deputies Sam Mézec and Jeremy Maçon respectively.
Deputy Mézec said that such a move could be ‘very dangerous’, as private companies might not provide the same level of service, while the knock-on effects of redundancies could lead to a greater financial problem for the taxpayer.
He said: ‘If you outsource, then yes, you might be getting the work done a bit more cheaply but the knock-on effect negates that through redundancies and private companies driving workers’ wages lower.
‘The worrying thing is the reaction we might get from the workers about this. The unions have already said that they are preparing to take action.
‘Rather than potentially making a lot of people redundant the government would be much better going to the workers on the front line and talking to them. If they do that, then it would be much more likely to result in savings.’
However, Deputy Noel said that it was ‘business as usual’ for the department and that public services would still be provided by the States.
Asked after last week’s Council of Ministers meeting if there would still be a Transport Department as we know it in five years’ time, Deputy Noel said: ‘We are still going to be providing public services, there is still going to be a sewage system, there is still going to be an energy-from-waste plant, we have still got roads, still got sea defences, so in those terms, yes, we are still going to be providing some services.
‘But as has happened in the past and going forward we are always going to be consciously reviewing what we are doing.’
THIS summer it was revealed that the States will spend £5 million on payouts for the first round of voluntary redundancies to recoup £4.2 million in annual savings.
It was confirmed in August that there had been 329 ‘expressions of interest’ in the redundancy scheme, which led to 129 applications being submitted to the panel responsible for assessing voluntary redundancy requests after the scheme launched in June.
Of those, 104 approvals were given.
A total of 52 employees will leave their jobs this year with payouts amounting to £2 million, funding for which has already been agreed by the States.
A further 52 public-sector workers are due to leave the service at a cost of £3 million early next year, subject to a States funding approval that is due to be debated this month.
Approved voluntary redundancy applications by salary band:
- £0£25,000: 22
- £25,000£50,000: 59
- £50,000£75,000: 20
- £75,000£100,000: 3
FEW conversations about the cost of the public sector in Jersey pass without someone saying ‘that would never happen in the private sector’. And in many cases it is true.
Eye-watering pay-offs, the taking on of high earners to hold well paid managers’ hands while they make cuts, waste, delay and an approach to procurement which would make heads roll in many companies hit the headlines all too often.
Add to all that a culture which is insulated from the harsh realities of competitive enterprise and is, in some areas, resistant to change – not to mention strong unions – and the argument sounds pretty convincing.
And yet, with the UK experience held as a back-drop, the idea of privatising public services makes many recoil.
The reason for the suspicion is obvious – government departments should exist to provide excellent services for all and not be run for the benefits of shareholders.
Those in charge of providing health, education, roads and sewers must live within their budgets, but not be driven by profits and the bonus culture which goes with it.
The contradiction between these two views is screamingly obvious, and yet many people are left hanging somewhere in the middle.
Islanders want a leaner, more efficient public sector which delivers against shrinking budgets, but without going so far as to leave vital services in the hands of ruthless business leaders. They want private-sector savvy injected into States departments.
As reported today, ministers are discussing the ‘transformation’ of TTS – and many suspect that means outsourcing work to the private sector.
The detail is unclear because Transport Minister Eddie Noel is staying tight-lipped.
What we do know is that Kevin Keen, the man brought in as an expert consultant to advise the States on making the public sector juggernaut more efficient, has recommended the whole of the Transport Department is outsourced.
And let’s not forget that Mr Keen, a man who led the transformation of Jersey Post, walked away from the consultancy role exasperated by the resistance to change that he encountered. Tinkering with the status quo, it seems, is not viable.
With a robust and independent tendering regime, service-level agreements which meet the needs of Islanders and fully accountable management structures, outsourcing may well be the answer to the perennial question of how to reform the public sector.
Proposals must now be discussed openly. Nothing kills a good idea in Jersey quite like secrecy and the whiff of a ministerial fait accompli.
