Update: No disciplinary action after review of civil servants' flights

Friday 10 June 2016

No disciplinary action will be taken against two senior civil servants over their taxpayer-funded £14,784 trip to South Africa, after a major review of States’ travel policy found that no rules had been broken.

A wider review of all travel over the last two years has published all travel and hospitality expenditure over £500, and has also found no “clear evidence” of the rules having been broken or abused by civil servants.

But States Chief Executive John Richardson says that rules on civil servants’ travel expenses are being tightened up in a way that will mean less business class flights are taken, and all travel or entertainment bills over £500 will be published every six months.

The reviews do not cover expenses by ministers or assistant ministers, who last year spent £78,468 on travel. Ministers will now be asked to consider to set their own rules on travel expenses.

Around £3m per year is spent on travel by the States, but just £150,000 goes on international flights, according to the reports released today.

Mr Richardson said: “We did not find any clear evidence of people breaking the rules.

“What we found was that there is areas where – and it is not the individual’s fault – the rules were not clear or tight enough, or some departments had developed their own policies or procedures that were slightly different.

“There was a spread of how it was interpreted.

“We did not uncover anything which across the board identified any serious occurrences which would warrant disciplinary proceedings against any individual.”

In April, figures show that senior States employees have spent almost £400,000 on expensive trips away in the last five years. The figures showed that civil servants have taken 120 flights worth more than £1,000 in the last five years, at a total cost to the taxpayer of £389,553.

The most expensive flight on a new list was a £6,852 trip to Hong Kong in 2011 by Colin Powell, the “Adviser – International Affairs” from the Chief Minister’s department.

That flight was one of four that cost more than the business class tickets to Cape Town by two Economic Development department staff that sparked three separate internal inquiries.

The inquiries were set up after it emerged that Economic Development Chief Officer Mike King and Locate Jersey Director Wayne Gallichan spent £6,442 each on Business Class flights to a mining conference in Cape Town.

The pair confirmed that they played golf on their arrival in Cape Town, and subsequently apologised for their “error of judgment”.