Letter - CEHA to MCF, MELL and MJHA - Proposed Budget 2025 – 2028 Review -11 December 2024

States Greffe

Connétable Richard Vibert Minister for Children and Families

Deputy Rob Ward

Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning

Deputy Mary Le Hegarat

Minister for Justice and Home Affairs

BY EMAIL

11th December 2024 Dear Ministers,

Scrutiny Review: Proposed Budget 2025 -2028

As you will be aware the Children, Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel has published its comments paper on 22nd November 2024 regarding the proposed Budget (Government Plan) 2025–2028 [P.51/2024] to highlight the Panel's findings and recommendations based on our review. We appreciate the cooperation of all Ministers and departments that engaged with our evidence-gathering process.

Below, we summarise key findings and recommendations from our comments paper, for your attention and would be grateful if Ministers could provide a written response to acknowledge, or respond to these by 15th January 2025:

Key Findings

1. Funding previously transferred from the Criminal Offences Confiscation Fund for various capital projects, e.g. the Firearms Range, Prison Improvement works and Dewberry House, will be carried forward to progress these projects in 2025 and no further transfers of funding for them will be made from the COCF in 2025.
2. The Miniter for Justice and Home Affairs advised that funding from the Criminal Offences Confiscation Fund may be used to fund laptops for Honorary Police forces, but this transfer request has not been included in the Budget.
3. Island youth projects have been reprioritised and reprofiled, to develop a centre at the former Ann Street Brewery site in St Helier earlier, but this has had the consequence of delaying the improvements to the youth centre at Le Squez and Samarès School.
4. The major project at Mont à Labbé Secondary has been extended, with an increased total estimated expenditure of £41 million (previous approval was for £23 million).
5. The major project for a joint Ambulance, Fire and Rescue Headquarters may be changed to provide for separate headquarter facilities for each of the services, however, the timescale has been extended to 2028 which will mean that there are increased maintenance costs for the existing buildings. The MJHA has also advised that there is a possibility that both services and the school could remain situated in the Rouge Bouillion area.

6. The split of the Heads of Expenditure for CYPES was done in a "hurry" and the Council of Minsters has subsequently lodged an amendment to the Budget to move approximately £5.8 million from Children and Families budget to Education and Lifelong Learning.
7. The proposed Budget does not clearly identify areas or show support to the third sector or not for profit industry, for example where grants are provided by departments to charities to provide services.
8. Savings targets within the Departments for JHA, SoJP and CYPES are lower for 2025 than for 2024. In 2024 departments had been given equal percentage savings targets, but these had been varied for 2025.
9. States of Jersey Police are facing significant cost pressures, some examples provided to the Panel was a cost to access a Home Office database rising by 102% since 2021 and software costs for the Digital Forensics Unit.
10. There have been changes and cancellations of some projects that were being progressed under CYPES grouped Heads of Expenditure for Upgrades to CYPES Estates', for example the cancellation for the Music Development project.
11. The Government is providing £700,000 of funding to create a housing provision for 16–19-year-olds in a property that is already in Government ownership.
12. New School and Educational Developments' is the grouped Head of Expenditure that will see the projects of the new town school (Gas Place) and the new St Helier youth centre (Ann Street site) be developed however no specific breakdown of the proposed funding between the projects has been provided as part of this Budget review.
13. There continue to be delays to capital projects that have been ongoing for years, for example the Army and Sea Cadet Headquarters and Ambulance, Fire and Rescue Headquarters. These projects are waiting on other assessments and reviews to complete and decisions to be made in order to make progress, however, the Panel is concerned about the costs incurred form the uncertainty and feasibility work being unused.
14. As part of the Common Strategic Policy focus, the Government is prioritising additional revenue expenditure for Early Years pilots in order to test how the Early Years nursery and childcare provision could be extended, and three pilot schemes were running from September 2024 and would continue into 2025. There have been a number of concerns raised by external stakeholders about the Ministers plans and how they will impact the wider Early Years sector.
15. The Panel will seek further clarification about the breakdown of funding related to the additional revenue expenditure to fund school meals. Annual staff costs appear to make up £588,000 of the proposed Budget and the cost of providing primary schools with fresh fruit will be £163,000 per year.
16. £500,000 of the additional funding for lifelong learning and skills for 2025 is to support apprenticeships. Further detail is required on the remaining breakdown of the funding for the Budget period.

Key Recommendations

1. The Minister for Justice and Home Affairs should publish all costs of feasibility work that has been undertaken for the Ambulance Fire and Rescue Headquarters major project to date.
2. The Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning and the Minister for Children and Families should share details with Scrutiny about the utilisation of funding in the Office of the Chief Officer for CYPES, including how this is split between the remits of Education and Lifelong Learning and Children and Families.

3. In future years, the Budget could provide further detail about how Government grant funding will be used to support the third sector, particularly any funding provided for the provision of essential services to show the importance of this sector to the community and show a connection with Government provided funding.
4. The Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning should revise the engagement with key stakeholders in the Early Years sector and share outcomes and updates about the pilots and future plans with Scrutiny.
5. The Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning should publish details of the contingency plans in place related to the capacity issues at Mont à Labbé School to provide assurance that all children will receive the opportunity of education in a school for the academic year 2025-6 and beyond.
6. The Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning should review the accessibility of all post-16 courses (to include consideration of the flexibility of delivery) and, also, the financial support and grants provided for higher education.
7. Further details should be published by the Minister for Children and Families and the Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning about how the delays to the major project at Le Squez will impact the Youth Service and Samarès School, including any mitigating measures that have been put in place in the interim.

Thank you in advance for your assistance. Please direct any queries that you may have to the Panel through our Committee and Panel Officer, Katherine de Carteret by email at k.decarteret@gov.je.

Yours sincerely,

Deputy Catherine Curtis

Chair

Children, Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel