Ian Burns, director general of Customer and Local Services, said that the £10.5 million government give-away in September and October had enabled his department to strengthen its databases, especially in relation to children.
After some criticism that cards had been sent out for people no longer in the Island and to wrong addresses, he explained that his team knew that there were question marks over the data held for a relatively small group of people. However, he said that they decided to take an informed risk given ministers’ wish to get the cards out to as many as possible to maximise the stimulus effect. It had been decided that asking people to apply for cards would not lead to as big a take-up.
‘It actually showed that we have better data than we thought we had,’ Mr Burns said.
‘Ministers wanted to deliver fiscal stimulus and we had to decide how we got the cards out to people.
‘We had about 4,300 cards returned to us and we issued about another 4,300. It was quite neat in a way. It gave us quite a bit of confidence that our data was better than we had thought.’
The government recently released figures which showed how the £10.12 million spent through the scheme had been split between different sections of the economy. It showed, for example, that £1.5 million was spent in hospitality and £4 million in wholesale and retail.
Mr Burns acknowledged that some people had suggested that the figure spent supporting the hospitality industry was relatively small, but he pointed out that at the time the cards were issued restaurants were busy. The consensus in government, including its economic advisers, was that it had been a notable economic success, he said.
Mr Burns explained that his team used social security contributions and housing and work law databases to identify who should receive the cards, and cross-referenced them with information held across government departments.
He added that they were aware that the data was not 100% accurate having identified a relatively small group of people who they could not be certain were still in Jersey as not everyone notified the government that they were leaving as they should. Some people had multiple addresses on different government databases and others, for example, were listed under the address of third parties, such as their tax advisers.
Mr Burns said that his team ended up with a relatively small group of people in a higher-risk category, because the data held about them could not be verified, but decided to take a risk in sending out the cards after some ‘sampling, checking and testing to give us some comfort.’
‘We knew that there were a number of children in the higher-risk category,’ he added.
‘But we decided it was better to take that extra risk in line, for example, with the policy of putting children first and making sure they benefited from the stimulus initiative.
‘We have learned some things from the exercise and we have been able to update our databases.’
He explained that under the current regime children were registered at birth, whereas before they only had to be registered at the age of 16.
‘We now have a much better understanding of children who are here,’ he said. There has also been significant progress in ensuring records include the most up-to-date address.
‘The database at the end of October was in a much stronger place,’ he said.
