The impact of RPI(Y) on public sector pay award

1240/5(3778)

WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND RESOURCES BY DEPUTY G.P. SOUTHERN OF ST. HELIER

ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON TUESDAY 11th MARCH 2008

Question

"(i) F ollowing his reply to a written question on 26th February 2008 (3737) that "RPI(Y) should be the

basis for pay awards in 2009 and thereafter" will the minister inform members what his estimates are for RPI, RPI (X) and RPI (Y) for the first quarter 2009, on which public sector pay awards will be negotiated?

Answer

1. T he Minister forTreasury and Resources does not undertake forecasts for thevarious measures of inflation outlined in the question.  To do so would be a massivetask that would involveforecasting trends in all the various components of the indices from food and clothing prices to those for householdand electronic goods as well aschanges in indirect taxesandmortgage interest payments. The department does not have the resources toundertake such a taskand, even if it did, forecasting such trends a year in advancewouldbe subject to significant marginsof error.

Question

2. W ill he further illustrate what the impact would beon weekly take-home pay ofawards negotiated at the estimated RPI(Y)rateabove for the ten groups used by the Statistics department to discuss average earningsby sector in the Jersey EconomicDigest2007 (p.24) andcompare it with the full impact of RPI on the cost of living in each of the quintiles given in the Jersey Household Expenditure Survey2004/5 updated to June2007?"

Answer

(ii)  G iven the answer to question 1 above it is not possible to undertake the calculations requested in this question. As Minister, I would also point out that it is not my normal role or that of my department to undertake calculations at the request of States members on data published by the Statistics Unit.