The Reducing the Cost of Public Services Sub-Committee is moving to the next phase of its work to develop proposals for reducing costs by £10m to £16m per year.  This week it is asking all States Committees to review the hundreds of ideas submitted by the community earlier this year. 

An initial high-level scoring has been carried out on all of the ideas submitted through surveys which were carried out in the summer.  This will provide Committees with a guide as to which ideas should be considered for inclusion on the final shortlist.

The ideas have been grouped in line with each Committees’ areas of responsibility and sent to the Committees to undertake a more in-depth assessment.

As well as being asked to review all ideas, Committees are being asked to complete a return on the highest scoring 25%, which amounts to nearly 400 individual ideas.

Committees have been asked to report back by no later than the 12^th January with additional detail which will allow the Sub-Committee to prepare final recommendations for the Policy & Resources Committee, who in turn would present proposals to the States Assembly.

In the coming weeks, the Sub-Committee is also intending to publish some more information on the suggestions submitted to give Islanders more insight into what was put forward.

Deputy Dave Mahoney, chair of the Sub-Committee, said

“We’ve carried out an initial assessment of every idea, and we’ve done that as impartially as possible, through a structured but high-level scoring process.  But we know Committees will be closer to the full cost implications and impacts of ideas that relate to their areas, so we have distributed the full list across Committees, asking them to apply a particular focus to the top scoring 400 suggestions, to help reach a realistic and workable shortlist.

Once again we’d like to thank everyone who took time out to respond to our surveys and provide suggestions.  I’m sorry we can’t come back to everyone individually but please be assured all of them are being reviewed.  We’re stressing to Committees the community’s expectation that we succeed in meeting the target for reducing costs, which is an essential part of addressing the significant problems we have in our public finances right now.  So we are asking them all to do as much as possible to help identify suggestions that really will make a difference.”