THE government will cut five of nine roles within its in-house marketing agency, the Studio – six years after it was established to reduce spending on external agencies and freelancers.
The JEP has learned that the impacted employees will either be made redundant or redeployed.
A government spokesperson would not comment on the specifics of the job cuts, as the consultation process is ongoing.
The move comes as a freedom-of-information request revealed that the government spent more than £70,500 on external marketing agencies last year, with the vast majority going towards video production.
In a response to the request, the government blamed a lack of capacity in the Studio for spending on external agencies and freelance resources.
The FoI showed that the biggest spender was the Cabinet Office, which spent £16,980, followed by £10,850 by Infrastructure and Environment, and £9,250 at Justice and Home Affairs.
In 2024, the Economy Department had already spent £12,200 between January and June 2024, while Children, Young People, Education and Skills spent £9,430. Health and Community Service spent £5,600 in 2023 and has already spent £6,050 in 2024.
The JEP revealed earlier this month that the government had imposed a nine-month hiring freeze on civil servants above Grade 11 (those who earn more than £66,000) amid concerns about the Island’s ballooning public service.
In its response to the FoI request, the government said that while it had an in-house marketing agency, the Studio, “due to capacity constraints, specialised skills and equipment required and the limited availability of in-house expertise, not all requests can be handled by the Studio.
“Some design, videography and photography services will need to be outsourced to freelancers or agencies at a cost”.
Chief Minister Lyndon Farnham has pledged to curb spending across the government, including in the Cabinet Office.
He told Bailiwick Express, the Jersey Evening Post’s sister title, on 6 August that his department’s cost “will reduce in real terms next year”.
Savings of £1.7 million will be made from staff reductions and a recruitment freeze, he explained, and by 2028 more than £2m will be saved from real-terms reductions.
The amount that Jersey’s government spends on communications and marketing has come under scrutiny in the past after it emerged in 2023 that the total cost of staffing was more than £2.4m.
The-then Assistant Chief Minister with responsibility for government communications, Deputy Lucy Stephenson, said: “We have also made decisions in recent years to bring things like the studio work, so graphic designers and photographers in-house, rather than spend out to contractors and that was seen to be financially the best way forward.”
