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19-21 Broad Street | St Helier Jersey | JE2 4WE
Senator Kristina Moore
Chair, Government Plan Review Panel States Greffe: Scrutiny
Morier House
St Helier
JE1 1DD
23 Aug 2019 Dear Kristina
Scrutiny of the draft Government Plan
I am writing to outline an approach to the provision of information to assist scrutiny of the draft Government Plan. I hope that this will assist the Panels, and Ministers and officials, to achieve maximum benefit from the scrutiny process in minimum time without overlap or omissions.
Specifically, Ministers have received letters from a number of the permanent standing panels. Whilst these letters differ in some ways, there are common elements, for example, provision of supporting documentation for projects, initiatives and actions, and provision of papers supplied to the Council of Ministers.
I will now, briefly, set out what I am proposing for each of the pieces of information, which our officials have also discussed. I hope this will provide a faster turnaround as well as ensuring that scrutiny has a single, complete record of evidence of data to draw on.
Supporting documents for expressions of interest
These are referred to in the letters from the Panels as "full business plans/cases". Firstly I should point out that, depending on the complexity of the proposal, there will not be full "green book" business cases for all additional expenditure. There will, however, be some supporting information over and above what is included in the published draft Plan. Secondly, some of the amounts requested will have been modified as part of the political process by which the Council of Ministers arrived at a balanced, coherent and affordable draft Plan. For example, amounts could be affected by decisions around commencement dates avoiding a full year cost. For this reason, some of the supporting papers will need to be refreshed. We will do this by way of a covering note explaining the updates, rather than amendments to the actual documentation. Thirdly, there will be some information within the additional documents that may be commercially or politically sensitive. For this reason I propose to provide information in confidence and ask that you seek specific permission for anything to be used in the public domain, in line with the engagement code.
I propose to provide supporting information for additional expenditure (both capital and revenue), initially at least on a confidential basis, by Friday 6th September, or before, where possible, being mindful of when individual Panels made their requests and the scheduling of hearings.
Council of Ministers papers
You will already have access to those papers which form part of the official records of those meetings. However, there may be other supporting information used at those meetings, perhaps in the form of presentations, and a number of workshops were held during the development of the draft plan. Some of these may contain requests for additional funding that, following collective consideration, were not included in the published draft Plan. For this reason I would again propose that information is provided in confidence and ask that you seek specific permission for anything to be used in the public domain in line with the engagement code.
I propose to provide supporting information for Council of Ministers' meetings, initially at least, on a confidential basis, by close of business on Wednesday 4th September.
Details of any external stakeholders and internal groups or boards who may have been involved in the development of these projects and projects or actions the Minister(s) were involved in
Preparation of the draft Plan followed a process of working groups that sought to involve a broad range of these views. Additionally, the supporting information I have agreed to provide above will include, for the more full business cases, details of stakeholder involvement. It is the case, however, that some of the projects and actions in the Government Plan are more advanced, as they are the result of a long policy development process, and some will be much less so, and will be developed in advance of the release of monies. It is also the case that some actions in a budget, as a matter of normal practise, are subject to limited consultation. For example, in relation to Impot changes. Indeed, scrutiny can add a consultative element to the Government Plan, and we have provided a longer lodging period than required to enable interested parties to examine and comment on the Plan.
Finally, as you would expect, approval in the Government Plan is not the end of the process for Government, and standard project governance and policy development will continue.
I propose to provide full details of the process, including working group membership, undertaken to prepare the draft Government Plan by close of business on Friday 6th September. Individual Ministers may also comment further in their own responses.
The underlying policy for projects
The draft Government Plan clearly sets out the linkage of the proposals within it to the Common Strategic Policy (P.110/2018) decided by the Assembly, and you will find a range of information in the supporting documentation (R.91/2019), explaining why funding is proposed. Individual Ministers may also comment further in their own responses, and of course, scrutiny will ask specific questions on policy intent throughout the review process.
Identification of links between actions and projects
Whilst we will endeavour to provide, this will not always be possible. Some actions will relate to "business as usual" and resource allocations decided through previous decisions of the Assembly, rather than new projects or additional expenditure. However, I have asked officers to prepare this analysis and will provide it by close of business on Friday 6th September.
I hope that my proposals will allow both the executive and scrutiny to deal quickly and efficiently with the administration around the process and so allow us to concentrate on matters of most interest. Unless I hear otherwise, I will instruct officers to work to the process and deadlines proposed.
Yours sincerely
Senator John Le Fondré Chief Minister
D +44 (0)1534 440636 E j.lef@gov.je