Promotion of Jèrriais

2025.12.08

2.6   Deputy M. Tadier of St. Brelade of the Minister for Sustainable Economic Development regarding the total amount spent by Jersey Heritage on the promotion of Jèrriais per year (OQ.270/2025):

Will the Minister advise the total amount spent by Jersey Heritage on the promotion of Jèrriais per year, and detail how many staff are involved directly in this provision?

Deputy K.F. Morel of St. John, St. Lawrence and Trinity (The Minister for Sustainable

Economic Development):

The total forecast spend for 2025 is £153,812. This cost contributes to the cost of 2 permanent staff, both of which are less than full-time, plus 80 per cent of the salary for a Jèrriais teacher of adults.

1. Deputy M. Tadier :

I thank the Minister for that answer, which is remarkably useful. Could he advise about the relationship between the 2 permanent staff and the staff member who is employed at 80 per cent, clarify whether they are all employed on-Island, and what the overlap is, he thinks, between the Jèrriais teaching service, which is not in his department, and the Jèrriais work that is performed by these staff?

Deputy K.F. Morel :

There is a lot in there, so I doubt I will be able to cover all of it because I will not have all the information to hand. But the 2 full-time staff who I have referenced, do not teach. One focuses on the corpus in the language of the Jèrriais strategy, and does, alongside the corpus work, translations, and dictionary grammar, and linguistic research, and so on. The other post is focused primarily around use, and both of them cover the element of language which we refer to as status, and the status of the language. Language acquisition, in the main, is left to the Jèrriais teachers, for the Jèrriais Teaching Service. However, one adult teacher does work via Jersey Heritage, but is classed as a consultant, which means that £12,250 of their salary is paid by C.Y.P.E.S. (Children, Young People, Education and Skills Department), but because of consultancy rulings at the department, not all of it.

2. Deputy J. Renouf :

I think this is picking up slightly on one of Deputy Tadier 's points, could the Minister explain the co- ordination that may or may not occur between the staff employed by Jersey Heritage and the staff who have recently been assigned to the function of Arts, Culture and Heritage in the Education Department as a teaching Jèrriais function, which now falls under the A.C.H. (arts, culture and heritage) definition? Could you explain if there is any actual co-ordination between those 2 functions?

Deputy K.F. Morel :

That is a very operational question and as these operations actually occur outside of my department and they occur in the Children, Young Persons, Education and Skills Department, it is difficult for me to comment. What I would say is that we are working with the Education Department to look at the potential for more clearly ring-fencing, not in financial terms but in operational terms, the teaching of Jèrriais as being part of the Education Department's work and the work outside of that around the strategy, around the corpus, perhaps moving more formally into the Economy Department where we can focus on developing the strategy.

3. Deputy J. Renouf :

I think the relevance of this question is because potentially of a Budget amendment that is coming up where we will be discussing about the definition of arts, culture, and heritage. The reason why it would be interesting to know if there is co-ordination between the 2 is because the Government has assigned the teaching of Jèrriais in the Education Department as part of the arts, culture, and heritage budget. But I think if I understood the Minister's answer correctly, there is not actually much oversight from him in that. Can he confirm if that is the case and say whether he thinks that is a desirable state of affair?

Deputy K.F. Morel :

There is, from an operational perspective, not enormous amounts of oversight for me because it is work taking part in another department. The Jèrriais budget has always remained in the Education Department. However, myself, as Minister for Sustainable Economic Development, I have championed Jèrriais clearly over the last 3½ years. I was delighted to promote the Jèrriais strategy, 2022-2025, and to encourage its work, and effectively to sign off on that strategy. Again, this brings that split between the departments down to the strategic work about the status of the language and the understanding of the language, research into the language, perhaps would be a better fit in the department for which I administer, whereas the pure teaching side of it, resting in the education. Because the teachers do engage in the curriculum and they will teach geography in Jèrriais for instance in particular classes and things like this. There potentially can be seen that there is a need for them to be linked directly to the Education Department.

4. Deputy M. Tadier :

I did ask it in my other question but I appreciate there were multiple questions. Could the Minister confirm whether the language acquisition part-time member of staff at Jersey Heritage who is classified as a consultant lives on the Island?

Deputy K.F. Morel :

No, it is my understanding that the teacher that Deputy Tadier is referring to does not live on the Island and teaches online. I myself have actually engaged in lessons from this teacher and can testify to just how good this teacher is, and their understanding of Jèrriais and Norman languages is extensive.

[10:30]

I think it is right that in this day and age that when someone with such expertise leaves the Island for their own reasons that we are able to still tap into that expertise because there are not many people with the experience in Jèrriais that this teacher has. To say we are not using them because they live off-Island would, in my view, be inappropriate.