States offices to be scrapped to create Jersey “Whitehall”

Friday 11 September 2015

Ministers are planning to create one huge States building to move all civil servants under one roof – and they want to extend Cyril Le Marquand House or the Social Security building to do it.

The move would see existing buildings owned by the Education, Planning, TTS and Home Affairs departments vacated, and possibly sold off or reused.

States Chief Executive John Richardson confirmed that an extension to either the main States offices in Union Street or the Social Security building in La Motte Street could enable them to move all administrative and back-office staff into one building.

He says that the new slimmed-down public sector could then work closer together and be more efficient, and that the plans would speed up “Cultural Change” within the organisation.

Mr Richardson said: “If we left the functional departments like Health, Education obviously, in hospitals and schools, we could accommodate all of the staff in those two buildings.

“So all of the smaller buildings, smaller office blocks, we could then lose completely. Taking a more streamlined approach and allowing for further headcount reduction and staff reductions and bringing services together, it is very early days yet but we think it might be possible to get all the administration into one of those two buildings.

“The benefits we get through that will be enormous to us because we then get effectively all the administrative staff in one building, which would be huge.”

His comments came during a hearing with the Public Accounts Committee.

The idea was first put forward a few years ago, but did not progress.

When Mr Richardson first raised the proposals in April, they won the backing of Treasury Minister Alan Maclean, who said that while some one-off investment would be needed to make it happen, it would be quickly paid back in efficiency savings from having everyone together under one roof.