HOT TOPICS
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Nearly every country in the world fully recovered from an economic downtown 14 years ago. Jersey never did, despite significant increase in immigration that put pressure on our housing supply.
This has led to Islanders being less able to afford cost of local living and housing increases than residents in the UK.
Political decision-making has led to some local business interests having been supported over others without enough attention having been given to long-term public interest. We must break out of this cycle to be able to invest better in social and environmental improvements and to allow future Islanders to thrive.
Sustainability is important not only in respect of our environment but in respect of our economy. Diversity is another buzzword offered as a way of improving our economy, but we need to be realistic about the number and types of businesses government can sustainably support with our limited land and people resources and taxpayers’ money.
Jersey needs to create a business environment that encourages highly productive businesses with a low impact on our immigration requirements and environment.
Businesses throughout the ages have needed to modernise to stay competitive, usually at their own expense. Sometimes technology itself makes businesses redundant. PriceWaterHouseCoopers predicted 30% of local finance workers losing their jobs in the next fifteen years because of automation and artificial intelligence.
The independent Economic Council’s ‘New Perspectives’ Report’ has looked at the opportunity to improve the economy offered by the creation of new technology. This needs to be contrasted with a business seeking to use technology to stay competitive and paying the cost to do so if that business is successful enough to afford it and to compete globally.
Government needs to accept what has not worked in terms of its efforts to boost our economy, and to avoid future uninformed gambles with public land and money. It needs the knowledge capital necessary to earn a slice of the most productive global industries in the world of technology and data. It needs to stop avoiding the cultural, systemic and personnel changes required to modernise itself in the age of Big Data.
I understand complex issues that require objective thinking. I also respect the value of local knowledge, data, evidence and teamwork in providing satisfactory solutions. My ability in these areas can help put our Island’s economy back on track.
Government has made itself busy producing wish lists and plans to make plans. These often lack thorough research into community needs and areas that are lacking, let alone delivery plans with swift implementation.
This often leads to a new administration making political decisions all over again using the same flawed system.
Too often, the focus is on drawing up policies rather than on making political decisions that can improve that process. Too often the wheels of the ‘machinery of government’ just spin or prove to be square.
We need people in charge who investigate matters deeply and objectively, who look at parts of the world who have produced the best solutions and who know how to get things done swiftly and effectively.
Councils of Ministers and senior civil servants have been too reliant on:
States Members generally must stop
Many areas of Jersey’s government need urgent attention. To bring about positive change, most States Members will need to know not only what to do but how to achieve it and commit to doing so.
Voters Islandwide are unhappy the Senatorial role no longer exists. In the 2013 referendum, most voters in St Brelade voted to retain Constables and no option to have Senators was available other than by supporting the status quo of unfair representation between the Parishes.
In the last States Assembly, combining Islandwide representation with district representation in the form of Ministerial and Planning Committee roles compromised the ability of two out of our three of our former St Brelade Deputies to be more active in Parish planning matters.
Fair representation between Parishes or Districts should not be compromised by such random and unnecessary conflicts of interest.
If elected, I would seek:
The Ministerial system has not worked well in the way it is currently set up. Some Ministers and Assistant Ministers have acted little more than spokesmen of government departments that need major reform, while looking for advice from civil servants who are not truly independent.
There is no value to the public in having any elected States representative as a Minister or Assistant Minister unless that person is informed and courageous enough to properly oversee, and, at times, challenge the civil service departments and public sector agencies under his or her administration.
States Members need to accept that under our current political system it is unlikely that any future elected States representative will have the necessary skills to manage and oversee States Departments as a Minister acting alone.
We saw during the pandemic how Ministers dodged releasing minutes that could show their influence over political decisions with serious consequences for Islanders by arguing they needed a ‘safe place’.
Political accountability should not be avoided in this way.
If elected, I would seek that Ministers be required to:
The How Proposition List also includes proposed amendments to make Ministers more accountable and a right of recall of elected States Members. It also contains other detailed changes to improve the running of the States Assembly and the conduct of elections, all to add more value to your vote.
Funding of government and its services is becoming more and more challenging owing to the way our economy and public finances have been managed.
The less money Islanders make, the less government’s tax take and its ability to fund existing services, let alone new services.
Raiding government reserves harms the Island’s ability to borrow money to support existing services. Future taxpayers will be needed to help repay those loans.
Raising more taxes can increase funding in the short term but can adversely affect business productivity and Islanders’ cost of living.
Furthermore, government funding has become increasingly dependent on the income of wealthy residents so targets for tax increases need to be managed wisely as well as fairly.
If elected, I would support an urgent strategic review of our whole tax system, to make it simpler and fairer while supporting our local economy, including:
However, the next States Assembly very much needs to address:
In principle I support food and essentials being GST free. I also am aware our public finances may need to support those with lower incomes weather global inflationary increases in the short term in a more targeted way, with income support and tax allowance increases.
I remain in favour of removing GST from local agricultural produce sold locally. This could be presented as an option to retailers whose systems only favour GST uniformity.
Some government departments are not providing great service with unacceptable consequences for the public and government staff.
Some areas regard themselves as inadequately resourced. This is despite recent growth in the public sector workforce that the outgoing interim Chief Executive of government described as "unsustainable". He himself said a larger size does not automatically produce better service.
The more Islanders government employs, the fewer available for the industries that contribute to the Island’s economy. The more immigrants called upon to take up the slack, the more pressure on our housing stock, increasing the cost of housing.
Government management needs to be improved at all levels to improve efficiency, accountability, responsiveness and reduce costs, without cutting valued services or overloading States workers. Government needs to harness the talents that already are available in our community and stop unnecessarily resorting to engaging expensive UK consultants to provide ‘evidence’ as a tick box exercise.
Government also needs to learn massively more from the private sector how: • to make better decisions with better information
It needs a radical reboot to abandon or change the processes that get in the way of good government and to rapidly compensate for falling backwards in training staff in up-to-date management and administration methods, including IT expertise.
The How Proposition list seeks to build on the way in which the Treasury partnered with Ernst and Young to improve its capability. It proposes the transfer of senior management of certain areas of government administration to the private sector (or specially constituted local trusts) to:
in all cases with government acting as a watchdog with less overload.
Lack of accountability and transparency also are a problem in government.
The How Proposition list sets out specific measures to counter this, including giving the public a right to good administration supported by:
We need radical changes in the way government manages the economy. The local finance industry has been supporting less successful industries, but automation and artificial intelligence threatens a third of its jobs. Global political and economic factors make it vulnerable in other ways.
Homeworking saves commercial rental costs for finance businesses and could free office sites for much-needed housing. As we saw during the pandemic, that creates a problem for those hospitality businesses that are unable to cater for homeworkers. Some of them have already adapted, others have not. Some are tied to premises by leases and struggled to find alternative business tenants to replace them during the pandemic.
Change is inevitable as the global economy changes, driven by changes in technology. For more successful businesses to grow and acquire staff and premises, less productive enterprises need to be allowed to fail rather than be propped up with public money, except where that support can be justified in the greater public interest.
Earlier this year, States Members responded to anecdotal evidence alone to reject a proposal supported by consultants engaged by government to prevent hotels on the seafront of St Brelade’s Bay from being converted into flats without further planning permission.
This highlighted the need for the Minister for Economic Development to investigate economic hardship cases better and to become more actively involved in planning matters. Furthermore, it was revealed during the pandemic that government economists did no economic modelling.
The How Proposition list proposes the following to improve the economy.
to advance New Perspectives report, all to be co-produced with Economic Council under its direction.
The massive and costly infrastructure project for the new hospital is unlikely to boost the economy without increasing staffing and construction worker accommodation problems. Meanwhile, health management problems continue and need to be addressed.
The How Proposition List seeks:
with a focus on creating an open learning environment throughout the health sector.
Jersey increasingly needs parents to work to support its economy and keep down immigration pressure.
With Jersey’s high cost of living, more mothers work in Jersey than in other jurisdictions. Yet many parents struggle with the costs of childcare and Jersey is lagging behind the UK and other jurisdictions in providing free or subsidised childcare for 1-3 year olds.
More childcare support is needed not only to help working parents but to provide better safeguarding and potential family support for children.
Most parents are good parents. Some unfortunately struggle with parenting. Poor parenting leads long-term to a far greater cost to the public than the education of children. As a community, we need to improve the support of all children in their journey towards adulthood.
The How Proposition list proposes
Difficulties in staffing and government bureaucracy are preventing optimal education for the Island’s children while placing unreasonable demands on teaching staff.
The How Proposition list proposes a reorganisation of the education sector to improve its independence from government. This would lead to government providing a watchdog role. Government also to provide administrative support to, as opposed to management of, teachers.
Maintenance costs are increasingly expensive. They need to be considered with respect to proposals for shared equity schemes and rent regulation. Unless the social housing supply is increased, a failure to consider maintenance costs in rent regulation could reduce rental accommodation supply or trigger sales that lead to rent increases.
The proposals in the How Proposition List therefore focus on how to:
The How Proposition list includes proposals to:
In addition, How Proposition list proposals in other areas should help to alleviate the crisis as follows:
Planning needs to be made meaningful again and its processes more transparent. Conflicting policies in the Island Plan argued to support flexibility also support inconsistency and uncertainty.
A decision by elected States Members on the Planning Committee regarding the Wayside restaurant was overturned by the former Minister for the Environment on the advice of a single planning officer from the UK.
Planning inspectors who came to the Island to review the recent revision of planning policies did not regard the many concerns raised by Islanders regarding the revision process as within their remit.
The How Proposition list includes proposals to reform the planning process, to enhance tree protection and to improve sustainability and environmental safeguarding in farming methods. These include the following:
The How Proposition list also includes the following measures to encourage adoption of sustainable energy sources to move away from fossil fuel use.
The elderly need support in maintaining as active and independent lifestyle while avoiding isolation. The Jersey Care Model, if developed more transparently and with wider stakeholder involvement, could produce positive outcomes in supporting care in the home and within the community, along with wellbeing checks. However, health needs to remain affordable for the elderly, bearing in mind that pensioner poverty is relatively high in Jersey compared to the UK.
Measures described in this manifesto to improve health delivery, the economy and housing should benefit Islanders of all ages.
I would seek more tax deductions for personal pension provision and a dialogue within the Parish about elderly access to alternative free or subsidised transport for those unable to use buses or who need assistance with deliveries.
The proposed improvement plan for St Brelade’s Bay in the planning policies approved earlier this year remains a proposal. As the former Chairman of a Parish Working Party that tried to advance the proposal for a local development plan in the now superseded Island Plan, I am keenly aware how many formal planning proposals are not implemented owing to a lack of government resources and a decision by the Minister for Environment with more pressing priorities.
During the recent planning policy review, Constable Mike Jackson presented to the States Assembly propositions I drafted to protect St Brelade’s visitor economy and the Island’s wider economy.
This resulted in:
Disappointingly, only one out of our three Parish Deputies supported additional propositions to support and protect the Bay’s visitor economy.
If elected, and a more sympathetic Minister for Economic Development is appointed and the Bridging Island Plan further revised as planned, I will push for the consultants’ recommendations to be better respected and for the Economic Development Department to conduct a more thorough investigation of any alleged unfair hardship issues.
Vandalism has been an unfortunate problem in St Brelade.
Government initiatives to improve family support may be of future assistance as may police and Jersey Youth Service talks in schools. A dialogue, about whether local youth facilities could be of more service in this area, would also be helpful.
The late former Minister for Home Affairs began investigating the possibility of addressing anti-social behaviour for under-18s through the Parish Hall Enquiry (PHE) system last year.
I would support greater investment in cameras to assist in policing and the imposition of community service orders through the PHE system where there is clear visual evidence of under-18-year-old anti-social behaviour, provided the Children’s Commissioner’s recommendations published in her Youth Justice Report at the end of last year are respected.