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States Greffe
Deputy Ian Gorst
Minister for Treasury and Resources 19-21 Broad Street
St Helier
Jersey
JE2 3RR
BY EMAIL 4th May 2023
Dear Minister,
Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel Quarterly Hearing - Residual Questions
The Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel would like to thank you for your participation in our public hearing on 28th April 2023. As you will appreciate, the Panel had a number of questions of public interest that it was, unfortunately, unable to pose due to time constraints.
The Panel would be grateful if you could please consider the following residual questions and provide a written response by no later than Monday 15th May 2023. Please be aware that it is the Panel's intention to publish the response it receives on the States Assembly Website.
Ministerial Priorities
- Regarding your priority to review the Governments insurance strategy'. Can you please update us on the progress made to date?
- Can you outline the insurance options that are being investigated?
- When can we expect to have sight of the associated action plan linked to Government's risk appetite?
- Can you update us on your position in respect of your response to our Recommendation 18 of S.R.20/2022 regarding the Fiscal Policy Panel's recommendation and the Government's alignment or otherwise to it regarding the inclusion of speculative savings within Government Plans?
Commercial Services
- Can you update us on the functioning of Commercial Services, the resourcing of the department and whether any challenges have been identified regarding the delivery of its services and on how these identified challenges are being addressed?
Revenue Jersey
- Can you update us on the progress of the Revenue Jersey Transformation Programme?
- Can you update us on the customer service levels for Revenue Jersey and any current concerns that have been identified?
- Are you aware of the strengths and weaknesses in respect of service administration in order to better target how to improve processes and customer service?
- Has an independent audit process been undertaken recently, or is this something that is being considered?
- Is Revenue Jersey appropriately resourced currently, particularly considering that personal tax return assessments are now well underway?
- Can you update us on the 2022 year of assessment tax returns so far?
- How many returns have been received and assessed to date?
- How does this progress compare to previous years, or is it too early to make a comparison?
- Do you anticipate an increase in the uptake of online returns this year?
Fiscal Policy and Borrowing
- In the Fiscal Policy Panel's Economic Assumptions report from March 2023, the Panel notes the likelihood of tax receipts being higher than previously forecast with the fiscal position aiming to generate significant surpluses. A recommendation of the FPP was to use these surpluses to pay down any outstanding short-term debt and to add funds to the stabilisation fund and in the longer-term to the Strategic Reserve. Is this a strategy that is being actively considered?
- Considering the current economic position and the widening growth in inequality, are any taxation related measures being considered to account for this going forward?
- Considering the concerns raised by the Minister for Economic Development, Tourism, Sport and Culture that financial growth needs to be increased substantially to meet the needs of the Island's ageing population, have any discussions commenced amongst the Council of Ministers regarding targeting fiscal stimulus to ensure sustainable financial growth and, if so, can you update us?
- What are your views regarding the use of tax breaks and other financial and non- financial incentives to keep over-50s in work for longer?
- Can you update us on any borrowing proposals within the pipeline and how any borrowing will be assessed under the current conditions?
- Is any additional draw down of the Revolving Credit Facility currently planned to take place over the next year or beyond?
Major Capital Projects - Financing
- Can you update us on the funding of the Integrated Technology Solutions and whether this is running to budget?
- Can you update us on the funding for the Office Modernisation project and whether this is running to budget.
Yours Sincerely,
Deputy Sam Mézec
Chair
Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel