Ministers asking for a £3 billion “blank cheque” on spending – Scrutiny

Friday 02 October 2015

Days ahead of a major debate on spending, politicians have been warned not to give ministers a “blank cheque” for spending from 2017 to 2019.

The Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel say that politicians should not agree to spending plans without any detail or evidence for three years. Although ministers have put forward detailed plans for next year, they won’t be able to put together the detail for the following three years until next June.

The plans put forward by ministers are designed to fill a £145 million black hole in public finances that is expected to open up by 2019 – they want to invest more in health and education, but need to cut the public sector pay bill by £70 million, and cut spending on benefits including the Christmas Bonus and Free TV Licence scheme for pensioners.

The concerns of the Scrutiny Panel – led by Deputy John Le Fondré – are that if the plans go through:

- Politicians will have approved spending of £3.1 billion without any breakdown of how it will be spent.

- The principle of a £35 million health charge and a £10 million sewage tax will be approved without any idea of how it will work.

- Those charges could be worth £1,000 per household.

- Politicians will have committed to “optimistic” tax forecasts to justify spending plans.

The panel say that the politicians should just sign up for the 2016 plans, and leave the rest to next year when the figures come back.

Deputy Le Fondré said: 
“Our biggest concern, amongst a number of others, is that the States Assembly is being asked by the Council of Ministers to approve over £3 billion of total spending, but without any detail being provided for the years 2017, 2018 and 2019.

“In such circumstances, we believe that it would be prudent of the States Assembly to only approve expenditure for 2016 at this time.”