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Former Chief Minister John Le Fondré’s government spent more than £100m on consultants, interim staff and agencies in its final year, new reports have revealed.
Between July and December 2021, £47m was spent on external help, while £54m was spent between January and June 2022.
The spending was laid out in two reports published by the Chief Minister.
Express took a closer look at the key areas of spending…
Consultancy: £15.3m in the latter half of 2021, £15.1m in the first half of 2022
Contingent Labour: £7.3m and £11.7m
Fixed Term Contractors: £13.9m and £13.8m
Local agency: £2.5m and £2.9m
Agency healthcare and social workers: £8.1m, rising to £10.3m
One of the greatest spends was on IT and cybersecurity-related projects.
More than £7m went to the ITS project - the successor to the controversial eGov programme to overhaul the government’s finance, payroll and procurement computer systems.
£1.7m was spent on cybersecurity-related projects, while more than £1.5m was spent on MS Foundations-related work.
Around £236,000 was also spent on Digital Health in the final six months of John Le Fondré’s government.
Around £120,000 was spent on the project to create a new government headquarters at the site of the former Cyril Le Marquand House.
That spend was split between a project management contract with Green Park, and cost consultancy work from locally-based HLG Associates. Exact spends were not provided - but each contract was valued as being worth between £50,000 £75,000.
Of the main government schemes, around £22 million was spent on consultants for the previous £800m Our Hospital project to build a 'health campus' at Overdale.
That project has since been scrapped, after a review led by Infrastructure Minister Tom Binet concluded that it was unaffordable and that the island's health services should instead be built across multiple sites.
The reports also revealed that £62,950 was spent on the project to regenerate Fort Regent between July and December 2021 - split between the aesthetic advisers the Design Council and Jersey-based HR solutions firm Kojima Limited, which was tasked with advising on an ‘operating model’ for sport.
More than £700,000 went towards the ‘Team Jersey’ - a project to change the culture of government launched under the watch of previous CEO Charlie Parker, coinciding with the OneGov reforms.
Changes in “economic circumstances” and the impact of the pandemic were cited in the reports as factors causing specialist skills shortages and recruitment issues that continued into last year.
Pictured: The reports said that the government sometimes needs to rely on external labour to avoid service failures in key areas like Health.
The reports also explained that contingent labour was relied upon to “where speed of appointment is important to avoid the failure of services or care, for instance in teaching, nursing and social care.”
The requirement for the government to produce six-monthly spending reports on consultancy is the result of a proposition from the now-Deputy Chief Minister Kirsten Morel, which was passed by the States Assembly in 2019 following strong criticism of previous high levels of spending on consultants and external labour.
Pictured: The government produces six-monthly reports on its consultancy spending as a result of a proposition by Deputy Kirsten Morel in the last States Assembly's term.
Government officials told Express that a report on the first six months of Kristina Moore’s government would be published by the end of March.
Read the reports in full here.
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