£46k clearly isn't enough - States Members bag an extra £600 per year for IT

Monday 17 March 2014

States Members are getting a new allowance of £600 each per year on top of their salary and expenses to help with their IT costs.

Chief Minister Ian Gorst has signed off a formal decision to spend £31,000 per year on States Members’ IT – it will be entirely up to them what they do with their new £600 annual allowance, which would be enough to cover an annual broadband connection and a new mini-iPad every January.

The change was first agreed by Deputy Jeremy Maçon’s Privileges and Procedures Committee in November.

States Members currently receive a salary of £42,600, plus another £4,000 to cover their expenses.

Ministers also have facilities provided by their departments, and separate travel and expenses budgets covered by the taxpayer. Those costs used to be provided every year, in line with a commitment made by then-Chief Minister Frank Walker in 2006, but the most recent figures for 2012 and 2013 have been delayed and are now due to be published next month.

The last report, for expenses in 2011, showed that ministers had racked up £61,000 in travel and entertainment expenses, with former Senator Freddie Cohen managing an impressive £25,000 of that on his own, for his work as assistant minister.

According to the decision that Senator Gorst signed off last week, the money would be for “the provision of hardware, broadband and software to assist them in their work”. The report said that: “Devices purchased would be categorised as personally owned and operated under a ‘Bring Your Own Device’ policy and members would be advised to take out device insurance against loss and damage.”