Top ten things you need to know about the financial plan

Tuesday 14 July 2015

There’s 175 pages in the States’ financial plan for the next few years – Bailiwick Express has been through it and pulled out the bits that you really need to know.

Here’s your top ten numbers from the Medium Term Financial Plan:

£145 million – that’s the size of the deficit in public finances estimated by 2019. It’s partly because taxes haven’t kept up with spending, but also because ministers say that we need to invest £62 million in services, mainly health and education.

£70 million will be cut from the States’ pay bill – at the moment, the States pay £364 million per year on staff costs, and they’re planning to cut almost 20% from that figure.

£45 million will be raised in ‘charges’ (which appears to be the new word for ‘taxes’) – although we don’t know how the health and waste taxes will work, if its spread evenly across the Island that works out at £1,000 per household, per year.

£13 million – the amount that disappeared from expected company tax receipts since the deficit was first revealed less than three months ago. Ministers say that’s partly down to a change with one big finance company and that corporate tax receipts tend to fluctuate.

£1.8 million – the amount that the States will raise by cutting the Christmas bonus for pensioners and phasing out the free TV licences for the over 75’s. Expect a fight over this.

£55 million to be spent on schools – this is bricks and mortar investment, on top of the £9 million that will be added to Education’s budget. The big cost is going to be the new Les Quennevais School, but there will also be work on the primary schools in Grouville and St Mary.

£20 million – the amount that’s being put aside to cover the cost of redundancy pay-offs. So far just 300 people have applied – making it likely that the scheme will be extended, and the States will move to make compulsory redundancies for the first time in years.

£20 million – it’s also the amount that the States have put in a fund to pay for economic growth, productivity, skills and job opportunities. We don’t know anything about how that’s going to work yet.

£4 million – that’s the amount that department spending is going to rise by from 2015 to 2019. That’s a significant cut in real terms when you factor in inflation, and it shows that this is the first time that ministers have made a real effort to reduce the size of the public sector,

£10 million – the saving to be made next year by freezing benefit spending at current levels – although rent and childcare benefits will go up, there will be cuts, particularly for jobseekers under 25.