This year’s iteration of the Government Work Plan (GWP) is billed as a ‘reset’, coming as it does after the States rejected all of the options in the Tax Review debate in February.
It is also a Green Paper (rule 17(9)). That is, it’s a discussion paper only, with no amendments allowed. The true debate has been pushed back to September. That’s when funding for the GWP will be agreed, together with the plan for Capital Prioritisation.
At this preliminary stage, the States is being asked to agree a new structure for the GWP, centred around three strategic portfolios:
– Public service resilience, security and governance
– Plan for sustainable healthcare services
– Grow economic competitiveness
A good starting point is the GWP summary on the Our Future (gov.gg) Government Work Plan page. Plus the analysis of major funding requirements from the policy paper, reproduced below (click to enlarge):
The full GWP policy paper is HERE.
Unlike 2021 and 2022, there is no Monitoring Report setting out progress on the Plan so far. That will come in 2024.
Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be an easy way of comparing this GWP with the last one. The 2022 policy paper, amendments etc are here.
If it would help to have a reminder of what happened with the Tax Review in February and the projects that emerged from it, there’s a good Our Future (gov.gg) Tax Review summary here.
P&R have submitted an additional policy paper covering existing propositions that they would now like to rescind because they are no longer necessary, and setting out the priorities for legislation in this States term.
The States accounts for 2022 show a loss of £135m. That sounds terrible but it needs deconstructing. The operating loss (what the States received in income minus what it paid out in salaries and other expenditure) was £3m. Still not good, much better to be in profit, but not £135m negative.
There are several reasons for the £135m figure:
– Guernsey’s investments made a 11.6% loss in a difficult year for the markets (-£89m).
– P&R are going through a gradual transition process to make the island’s accounts meet international accounting standards (IPSAS). That means they’ve included depreciation for the first time this year (-£29m).
– Social Security funds have been included for the first time (-£13m).
The accounts for the States Trading Assets are separate to the main accounts. All the relevant links are here:
States Accounts 2022
Ports Accounts 2022
Guernsey Water Accounts 2022
Guernsey Dairy Accounts 2022
States Works Accounts 2022
Guernsey Waste Accounts 2022
The equivalent set for 2021 are listed here.
Media
Editor: A plan for spending – or raising even more money (13 Jun, Guernsey Press)
Digard: Future Guernsey: the tax and spenders have won it (23 Jun, Guernsey Press)
Black hole now £135m. after investments take big hit (27 Jun, Guernsey Press)
Sloan: Just how bad is it anyway? (29 Jun, Guernsey Press)
Camp: In search of the black hole (30 Jun, Guernsey Press)
Digard: Black hole star-gazing (7 Jul, Guernsey Press)
Letter from Nicolas Moss: States financial situation is nowhere near as dire as some might say (11 Jul, Guernsey Press)
Hemans: Underlining “the difficulty of evaluating the States’ financial position” (19 Jul, Bailiwick Express)
