Expenditure on communications

WQ.160/2019

WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE CHIEF MINISTER

BY DEPUTY K.G. PAMPLIN OF ST. SAVIOUR ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON TUESDAY 26th MARCH 2019

Question

Will the Chief Minister provide the Government's budget for, and expenditure on, communications for each of the last three years; and will he also provide the anticipated budget going forward for the next three years, broken down by department and ministerial portfolio?

Answer

There is no central record of expenditure on communications over the past three years, since costs were fragmented across different government departments, and not separately recorded.

Communications directorate costs

Following  an  audit  and  review  of  communications  in  the  States  of  Jersey  in  2017 https://www.gov.je/SiteCollectionDocuments/Government%20and%20administration/171121%20SoJ%2 0comms%20audit%20and%20review%20report%20FINAL.pdf a business case was established in 2018 for a new Communications directorate. It consolidated a full-year budget of £2.74 million a year in steady state, to cover payroll for 36 FTE (a mix of existing posts across government and new posts) and a small number  of  non-payroll  expenditures.  This  is  a  central  team  and  budget,  serving  the  whole  of  the Government of Jersey, and is not therefore accounted for by departmental or Ministerial portfolio.

A central record of Communications directorate expenditure was only possible from July 2018, when the new  Communications  directorate  began  to  be  populated.  Between  1  July  and  31  December  2018, expenditure on the new Communications directorate was £608,233.

The first full-year budget and expenditure will be accounted for in 2019. The forecast expenditure for the Communications  directorate  is  £1.9  million  for  2019. A  full-year  budget  for  a  fully-staffed Communications directorate will therefore be approximately £2 million – which is £740,000 lower than the 2018 business case budget of £2.74 million, due to:

1. the rescoping of the directorate to reduce the maximum number of roles from 36 to 32
2. a reduction in the seniority of some roles
3. the appointment of part-time staff to some roles (further reducing the team size to 28.5 FTE)
4. a reduction in non-payroll expenditure
5. the phased approach to filling team roles.

Communications external expenditure

Communications expenditure on external suppliers was also not previously centrally collated. However, an audit of Supply Jersey payment records carried out by the new Communications directorate shows that there was a substantial increase in expenditure on communications activities from 2015 (see table 1).

Table 1: Expenditure on external communications suppliers – 2015-2018

The new Communications directorate has begun to record external expenditure from January 2019 and compare it with the year to date in the previous year (see Table 2 report for February 2019). It shows that the cost of external graphic design has almost halved so far this year, and the cost of paid-for advertising has more than halved, although this latter reduction will be partly as a result of some campaigns not running and partly as a result of our using more cost-effective advertising channels (eg digital).

Table 2: Expenditure on external communications suppliers – Jan-Feb 2019 v 2018

As the year progresses, actual savings on external communications expenditure will be captured.