POLITICIANS who lead the panels tasked with scrutinising the government’s Budget for the next four years have raised concerns about a lack of long-term planning and the continued growth in spending on Health.
Chairs of the five Scrutiny panels questioned Chief Minister Lyndon Farnham about the Budget ahead of next week’s scheduled debate in the States Assembly.
Deputy Inna Gardiner, chair of the Public Accounts Committee and president of the Scrutiny Liaison Committee, expressed fears that the Budget was focused on short-term rather than long-term needs, as well as not being sufficiently evidence-led, with reduced funding to Statistics Jersey liable to reduce the availability of evidence.
Insufficient monitoring of the “burgeoning” Health budget was also mentioned, with what Deputy Gardiner referred to as “an increased risk of silo-based decision-making”.
“It leaves us with the concern that [the Budget] is reactive rather than pro-active and has a short-term outlook by making headline spending cuts without a clear long-term vision,” Deputy Gardiner added.
But the Scrutiny Liaison Committee said it was pleased to be given commitments about incorporating propositions into legislation and the need to maintain States-owned buildings, notably Fort Regent.
The Budget debate is due to begin on Tuesday morning and is likely to last several days.
