Recruitment freeze and redundancies
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WQ.398/2025
WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE CHAIR OF THE STATES EMPLOYMENT BOARD
BY DEPUTY M.B. ANDREWS OF ST HELIER NORTH
QUESTION SUBMITTED ON MONDAY 27th OCTOBER 2025
ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON MONDAY 3rd NOVEMBER 2025
Question
"Will the Chair explain the rationale for the current Civil Service recruitment freeze, in particular why it was extended to include roles at Civil Service Grade 9 rather than redundancies being implemented, and will he state the number of redundancies that have been made since the States Employment Board was reconstituted?"
Answer
The rationale for the civil service recruitment freeze was the urgent need to tackle the unsustainable growth, cost and the size of Jersey's public sector. The recruitment freeze was the first step, but as the Fiscal Policy Panel report, published on 3 November, illustrates, further action is needed.
The public sector has grown significantly since 2018 with more than 2,000 posts added by 2025, an increase of a third. The Council of Ministers agreed a recruitment freeze within the public sector senior staff and on the use of external consultants to curb the growth. Frontline services, particularly in health and education, were protected.
The recruitment freeze was extended to include Civil Service Grade 9 in order to improve the effectiveness of this measure. It is estimated that growth in the public sector workforce would have added a further 325 FTE higher by May 2025 and an additional £23m in payroll costs.
There have been 37 redundancies since February 2024, which have been focussed on senior and middle management roles and non-frontline services. This includes 7 senior roles at Tier 1 and Tier 2 level, resulting in an annual saving of almost £1.2m.