During a Health and Social Security Scrutiny Panel meeting, Social Security Minister Susie Pinel and officers from the department were asked for assurances that the support the disabled receive would not suffer from government cuts designed to plug a projected £113 million black hole in Jersey’s finances.
Social Security is being asked to make £3.5 million savings by 2019 under the Middle-Term Financial Plan, and this includes the funding it provides to the Jersey Employment Trust, which works with disabled Islanders and employers to help them find and sustain paid employment.
The charitable trust, based at Oakfield at Highlands College, runs Acorn Nursery and the Wood Shack in Trinity and it currently receives £1,977,500 a year, and the 7.4 per cent cuts it is being asked to make are required to be made over three years.
