Growth bids submitted by PPC re legislative drafting

WQ.409/2023

WRITTEN QUESTION TO

THE CHAIR OF THE PRIVILEGES AND PROCEDURES COMMI8TTEE

BY DEPUTY M.R. SCOTT OF ST. BRELADE

QUESTION SUBMITTED ON MONDAY 23rd OCTOBER 2023 ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON MONDAY 30th OCTOBER 2023

Question

“Will the Chair provide details of the following –

1. a breakdown of the growth bid of £179,000 for 2024, and for subsequent periods, for additional resources for the Legislative Drafting Office, including the number of additional staff to be recruited for such purposes (as referenced in the Minutes of Privileges and Procedures Committee meeting dated 17th July 2023) as well as any benchmarking or key performance indicators regarding the output of the Legislative Drafting Office used to support the growth bid and to measure improvement in productivity; and
2. whether any additional resources will be provided to States Assembly Scrutiny Panels over the period 2024-2027 to conduct reviews and to strengthen officer support, including through the recruitment of staff or engagement of consultants with specialised knowledge to assist Panels in scrutinising Government work, given that no growth bids in this respect are mentioned in the aforementioned Minutes?”

Answer

(a)

A breakdown of the growth bid for 2024-2027

The breakdown of the growth bid of £179,000 for 2024, and for subsequent periods, for additional resources for the Legislative Drafting Office (LDO) is shown in the following table:

Description | Year 2024 2025 2026 2027 Total

Relocation package for newly recruited drafter 9,000 9,000

Laptop 1,000 1,000

Salary minus £50,000 already awarded 76,400 78,400 78,400 78,400 311,600

Pension on full salary @ 16% 20,300 20,500 20,500 20,500 81,800

Social security on full salary @ 6.5% 8,200 8,300 8,300 8,300 33,100

Removal of recharge income no longer to be received from 2024 65,000 65,000 65,000 65,000 260,000

Investment total 179,900172,200172,200172,200696,500

Number of additional staff to be recruited:

1 experienced full-time permanent legislative drafter.

Benchmarking/KPIs regarding output that were used to support the growth bid: The growth bid is designed to:

1. Ensure that the Government Legislative Programme can be delivered as required by the Council of Ministers;
2. Deliver legislation from within Jersey with a full complement of staff;
3. Meet the requirements of the Government Legislative Programme from within the LDO budget rather than having to ask other departments to fund drafting projects as in the past when internal resources have been saturated and there were insufficient funds within the LDO to outsource work to consultant drafters;
4. Complement LDO’s organisational structure to represent a balance of senior, mid-level and junior experience;
5. Support all staff in their professional development and wellbeing;
6. Reduce reliance on consultant drafters, ideally to zero.

By way of additional information, the resources for 2023 included a bid for £50,000 to fund consultant drafters because the estimated work increase did not justify an additional post at that stage. However, due to the Roads Project from Infrastructure and Environment predicted to require an extra 3 days a week for a drafter, an additional 0.6 FTE of a drafter is needed from 2024 onwards. Because this made up the need to a full drafter post, a new drafter is being recruited instead of additional spending on consultants.

In assessing the resources required to meet the needs of Government and States Members the LDO takes account of trends in the volume of work requested by each Department and estimates the likely need for drafting based on the forthcoming Government Legislative Programme. The LDO is a demand-led service and there is a need for resources to match demand.

(b)

Additional resources to Scrutiny Panels 2024 – 2027

In terms of the Government Plan 2024 – 2027, no additional growth bids have been submitted specifically for the Scrutiny section of the States Greffe. The main reason for this is that in previous years, additional resources have been provided to assist the work of Scrutiny Panels, Review Panels and the Public Accounts Committee – the team now comprises 2 x Principal Committee and Panel Officers, 6 x Committee and Panel Officers and 5 x Research and Project Officers.

Scrutiny is also supported by x 3 Communications Officers from the Digital and Public Engagement Team within the States Greffe.

In terms of engaging consultants with specialised knowledge to assist Panels in scrutinising Government work, Panels are able to call on the expertise of others through its Proceedings Code. If the topic is of a technical nature, Panels are able to commission expert advice (subject to approval from the Scrutiny Liaison Committee) to assist with the compilation and interpretation of specialist and technical information. Panels are also able to obtain evidence from a vast range of stakeholders including organisations, academics, industries and other institutions relevant to a review.

It is worth noting that in the previous Government Plan 2023 – 2026, the following growth bid was made as part of Digital and Public Engagement for Scrutiny research and communications:

2023 2024 2025 2026 Total

Scrutiny research budget & 1.0 FTE Comms officer (CS8) 148,000148,000148,000148,000592,000

This bid was made (£100,000 for scrutiny research and £48,000 for 1 x Communications Officer) as the budget for research and publicising reviews and calls for evidence had previously come from underspends within Scrutiny and staffing underspends within Digital and Public Engagement. In addition, communication support for Scrutiny, including Review Panels, had previously been under pressure with only 2 Communications Officers supporting all Committees, Panels and Review Panels within the section alongside other responsibilities for States Assembly communications.

As the Scrutiny section has benefited from additional funding previously, it was not considered necessary to submit any more additional growth bids in this area for this Government Plan.