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WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE CHIEF MINISTER BY DEPUTY J.A. MARTIN OF ST. HELIER
ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON TUESDAY 14th July 2015
Question
Can the Chief Minister -
1 outline the portfolio of each Minister and how this is supported by Assistant Ministers.
2 itemise the annual cost of each Ministerial Department, including support of the Assistant
Minister(s) to take into account the cost of:
- office space (rental)
- secretarial/administrative support
- direct officer support (giving the number and grades of the officers involved)
- IT support
- telephone costs
- travel costs
3 provide the whole budget for supporting Ministerial Government expressed in the same way as
the allocation to Scrutiny is shown in the States Assembly accounts and indicate whether this budget can be identified in the States accounts and, if so, how?
- Advise when, and how, this budget was agreed and whether it is inflated in accordance with the cost of living each year and whether there have been any over or under-spends to date;
- provide the budgets and manpower figures specifically relating to supporting Ministers from December 2011 until the election of the new Council of Ministers in November 2014 to give a full 3-year account of the cost of supporting ministerial government?
Answer
- In accordance with Article 30A of the States of Jersey Law 2005, the Chief Minister is required to establish, maintain and publish a list of Ministers and Assistant Ministers and the functions exercisable by each of them and by the Chief Minister personally.' The most recent published list is contained in R.19/2014.
- Estimated costs for each Minister for 2014 are shown in the table below. These figures have been calculated by Departments solely for the purpose of answering this question and are approximate.
2014 | Home Affairs | Social Security | Treasury & Resources | Education, Sport & Culture | Transport & Technical Services | Environment | Chief Minister, Housing & External Relations Ministers | Economic Development | Health & Social Services |
Office space (rental) | £10,950 | £3,000 | £6,574 | £5,100 | £4,500 | £6,000 | £8,858 | £9,000 | £5,400 |
I.T support | £900 | £599 | £900 | £450 | £827 | £450 | £2,700 | £900 | £900 |
Telephone costs | £223 | £84 | £135 | £488 | £628 | £22 | £2,937 | £306 | £232 |
Travel costs | £0 | £0 | £17,029 | £2,111 | £0 | £2,367 | £41,418 | £10,108 | £300 |
2013 | Home Affairs | Social Security | Treasury & Resources | Education, Sport & Culture | Transport & Technical Services | Environment | Chief Minister, Housing & External Relations Ministers | Economic Development | Health & Social Services |
Office space (rental) | £5,820 | £3,000 | £6,414 | £5,100 | £4,500 | £6,000 | £8,404 | £9,000 | £5,400 |
I.T support | £900 | £427 | £900 | £450 | £827 | £450 | £1,350 | £900 | £900 |
Telephone costs | £345 | £84 | £199 | £488 | £628 | £324 | £1,684 | £306 | £232 |
Travel costs | £0 | £0 | £17,132 | £2,111 | £0 | £2,367 | £20,383 | £10,108 | £300 |
2012 | Home Affairs | Social Security | Treasury & Resources | Education, Sport & Culture | Transport & Technical Services | Environment | Chief Minister & External Relations Minister | Economic Development | Health & Social Services |
Office space (rental) | £5,820 | £3,000 | £6,257 | £5,100 | £4,500 | £6,000 | £8,200 | £9,000 | £5,400 |
I.T support | £900 | £1,097 | £900 | £450 | £827 | £450 | £1,350 | £900 | £900 |
Telephone costs | £292 | £84 | £1,255 | £488 | £628 | £315 | £1,819 | £306 | £232 |
Travel costs | £66 | £0 | £15,646 | £1,620 | £0 | £2,292 | £8,644 | £10,230 | £3,566 |
Notes
- Secretarial/administrative support and direct officer support: Departments vary in how Ministers are supported and their PAs perform a range of tasks. PAs/secretaries often manage the administration of the Minister, Assistant Minister and Chief Officer, and also perform other work for the department, as required. Likewise, officers undertake a range of functions and provide a varying level of specific support for individual Ministers and Assistant Ministers as the work demands. However, I can confirm that the Treasury and Resources Minister and Chief Minister both have dedicated PAs (who also work for the relevant Assistant Minister and Assistant Chief Ministers) and their costs amount to an average of £67,000 per year for the Treasury Minister and c. £90,000 for the Chief Minister. As the organisation become more flexible and departments work more closely together, these kinds of estimations will become even more difficult. For instance, the new Community and Constitutional Affairs department is made up of a variety of officers and administration staff who support a number of ministers and assistant ministers (Chief Minister, Housing Minister, Home Affairs Minister and Assistant Minister, the chair of the Legislation Advisory Panel, and an Assistant Chief Minister) and discharge a range of policy and operational functions. This makes it difficult to separate out the percentage of support provided by specific staff members to individual Ministers and Assistant Ministers, compared with their departmental work.
- Travel cost: Data for 2014 has not yet been published. Where updated information is not available 2013 data from R.158/2014 is used as an indication of cost and/or taken from reports published to the States Assembly.
- Office space costs: Shown as notional rental values. Most departments do not rent office space.
3 The budget for supporting Ministerial Government is not separately identifiable within the States' Financial Report and Accounts, and as noted above, it is not readily possible to separate work undertaken on behalf of a Minster and work undertaken on behalf of a Department, and indeed, they are ultimately one and the same thing, i.e. the cost of ministerial government is the cost of government.
4 This cost is not managed by departments as a separately identifiable budget. As such it is not subject to specific over or underspends. Pay and non-pay inflation will have been allocated in accordance with arrangements across all departmental expenditure.
5 As outlined above, budgets and manpower figures are not specifically identified for supporting Ministers so it is not possible to give a meaningful answer to this question. As an example, where the costs of secretarial and administrative support have been given these relate in most cases to a fraction of an employee's time. The table shown in the answer to question 1 is also shown below for 2013 and 2012 to allow the Deputy to approximate a cost.