Transcript - Government Plan - Public hearing with Minister for Social Security 26th September 2019

Health and Social Security Scrutiny Panel Government Plan Review Hearing

Witness: The Minister for Social Security

Thursday, 26th September 2019

Panel:

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat of St. Helier (Chairman) Deputy C.S. Alves of St. Helier

Deputy T. Pointon of St. John

Witnesses:

Deputy J.A. Martin of St. Helier , The Minister for Social Security

Deputy S.M. Wickenden of St. Helier , The Assistant Minister for Social Security Mr. I. Burns, Director General, Customer and Local Services

Ms. S. Duhamel, Director, Central Policy Unit

Mr. N. Collins, Corporate Group Finance Director

[13:59]

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat of St. Helier (Chairman):

Perfect, are we ready to go? Perfect. Good afternoon, this is the Health and Social Security Scrutiny Panel public hearing in relation to the Government Plan and today we are going to be speaking to the Minister for Social Security. I am Deputy Mary Le Hegarat , Chair of this panel.

Deputy C.S. Alves of St. Helier :

I am Deputy Carina Alves , member of the panel.

Deputy T. Pointon of St. John :

I am the Deputy of St. John , Trevor Pointon and I am a member of the panel.

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat :

I would ask that the Minister, Assistant Minister and members of staff from Social Security that are here today also introduce themselves, thank you.

The Minister for Social Security:

Absolutely. I am Deputy Judy Martin for St. Helier No. 1 and I am the Minister for Social Security. I have to offer apologies for our Assistant Minister, Deputy Macon, he had about 3 clashes and one he could not get out of, interviews, so he cannot be here.

[14:00]

The Assistant Minister for Social Security:

I am Deputy Scott Wickenden, I am Deputy of St. Helier, District 1, and I am the Assistant Minister for Social Security.

Director, Central Policy Unit: Sue Duhamel, Central Policy Unit.

Director General, Customer and Local Services:

Good afternoon, Ian Burns, Director General for Customer and Local Services.

Corporate Group Finance Director:

Nick Collins, Head of Finance and business partner in supporting C.L.S (Customer and Local Services).

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat : Perfect, thank you. We will start.

Deputy C.S. Alves :

On page 138 of the Government Plan, we see that your ministerial budget for 2020 is the second largest of all Ministers at £184,531,000, is that right?

The Minister for Social Security: Yes.

Deputy C.S. Alves :

How is your budget made up?

The Minister for Social Security:

Well, obviously the biggest thing is benefits and that is £70-odd million that is literally just income support, then there are all other benefits and that takes us up as you say, it is one of the biggest but that is including Social Security and then there is Customer and Local Services. I think I would have to ask you to do the other bits, the other £85 million.

Director General, Customer and Local Services:

Those figures include the £65 million States grant and also the Government contributions to the long-term care fund, which is roughly about £30 million.

Deputy C.S. Alves :

In the summary table, which is attached to the proposition, I think it is appendix 2, which is 3(i), there is £33 million of efficiencies to be allocated. What contribution of that has been allocated to your department?

The Minister for Social Security:

Obviously we have just put benefits up, we had the debate, 6.7 million and there is nothing across benefits or anything, the majority, again, it comes under but it is much wider now, it is the Customer and Local Services T.O.M. (Target Operating Model). Not allocated, they were asked to see what efficiencies were made once we are training staff who were all in different parts and we have done the T.O.M. in different areas so if you are working on income support, if you are pensioner on income support, you have another you know, people across that and Ian's managed in our first saving it was was it £1 million?

Director General, Customer and Local Services:

So I think this Government Plan as published as in it £19.7 million of efficiencies as a central health figure that has been allocated so far. Of that, from Customer and Local Services, there is £1 million and that is made up of £700,000 from 2 phases of target operating model changes and a further £300,000 from savings we have identified in non-starter costs.

Deputy C.S. Alves :

What kind of effect is that going to have on things like staff numbers, for example?

Director General, Customer and Local Services:

Through the 2 target operating model changes, I think both of which we have discussed in previous scrutiny panel hearings, there is an overall staff reduction of the 2 combined phase 1 about 9.4 F.T.E.s (Full-Time Equivalents) and the second phase is under consultation at the moment but that will result in a net reduction of about 3 F.T.E.s.

Deputy C.S. Alves : Okay, thank you.

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat :

What I forgot to say at the beginning was apologies from Deputy Pamplin, who is out of the Island on business, who would normally be with us today. We are now going to move on to the long-term care plan, which is on page 174 of P.71. What evidence do you have that supports increasing the contribution rate to the long-term care scheme by 1 per cent rather than the original 0.5 per cent? F.P.P. (Fiscal Policy Panel) only said that consideration should be given to whether a larger increase would be appropriate.

The Minister for Social Security:

Absolutely, and around the table we were not particularly split one way or the other and then we looked at everything else. F.P.P. said you should be putting money away now, you are booming, and we definitely need to do the 0.5, if you can do the 1 per cent earlier and so we had a real good discussion around the Council of the Ministers and in the end we said: "We are in the hands of the Assembly, 1 per cent it makes the fund secure for many years in the future, people know." The 1 per cent is not going to be paid by many people. It is people who the majority who hardly pay any tax or they have got different reductions because of allowances, they will pay 1 per cent. Once we saw all those figures we said it is what it is. I am passionate about this fund, right from when it was introduced, me and Alan Breckon done the first scrutiny on it to introduce it and I want it to prosper and make sure there is money in there so that we can make sure we are giving the right benefits to the people, people are not selling their homes and they are getting the care that they need.

The Assistant Minister for Social Security:

Can I add to that? So one of the things that long-term care was about, we were very determined to make sure that we were not going to push this off trying to make sure that it was a sustainable fund to the next Council of Ministers. We wanted to deal with that now and make the decision now. The reason to bring it early was also that the people that are paying in it now, the people that are going to take it early now, so the people that are going to need it the soonest, will have also contributed into the fund as well.

The Minister for Social Security:

Intergenerational fairness is the word that has been used, and it is. People literally you put in 0.5 percent now and it is mainly elderly but obviously long-term illnesses and terrible accidents happen to people. They are now paying in very little amounts and taking out lots. You want to make it fair for everybody so that is the other determining factor of the 1 per cent.

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat :

Is that why you propose that the increase begins in 2020 and not 2021, 2022 or 2023?

The Minister for Social Security: Yes, absolutely.

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat :

Okay. Was consideration given to staggering the increase in the contribution rate over a few years? So effectively increasing it over the period of the 4 years?

The Minister for Social Security:

There was consideration and, as I said, at the end of the day the proposals had to be voted on all around the C.O.M. (Council of Ministers) and it went from this to that and then in the end, when we looked at what we were increasing this year and what is sort of in the pipeline, not a lot. So, as I said, thinking about intergenerational fairness and money, I want to know that one is out the way. I think if we do this now it is about 20-odd years we do not need to look it. It does not have to go up again. People know your wages will go up, your 1 per cent is still stable. This is not just us, Mary, obviously we had a great turnout from States Members next door that when we had the actuaries over and they said: "It has got to be done, it can be this" and then we had the financial advice from the F.P.P.

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat :

Okay, we will move on to the Social Security Fund. In March of this year during a public hearing with the Corporate Services Panel the Chief Minister said: "In the current Medium-Term Financial Plan the grant that is paid into the Social Security Fund was frozen for the period of this plan. That will be unfrozen at the end of this year and therefore the liability on that will go up to 15 million a year to approximately 80 million. There is always one solution which is to kick the can further down the road and freeze it again. That is not my preferred option because I do not think it is a long-term solution and that would therefore mean you would just have a look and see what can be done to resolve that." Please explain, despite this comment, why the grant has been frozen for another 2 years?

The Minister for Social Security:

Again, this has been much discussed from the Council of Ministers, some having different opinions. The Chief Minister wants the whole thing looked at. There is a line we will look at. I wanted to know, and my officers needed to reassure me, that this will at the end of the 3 or 4 year term we will end up exactly where we were. It has given us a lot of things to do is it 93 million that we are contributing to all the things we want to do? Because we know that we had the actuaries as well. Before we went to any figures we had the actuaries on that to see how sustainable the Social Security Fund was for how long into the future. We can do that. It is in there. At the end of this term if nothing changes, my fund will go back up to exactly what it would have been if I had got a bit this year, a bit next year, a bit next year. It goes up very steeply but the money is there. The Treasurer has told me the money is there, it will happen. Sorry, Sue, are you going to give a caveat for that?

Director, Central Policy Unit:

What will be passed in the Government Plan this year is a number of law changes. You talked about long-term care, so there will be a law change that will put the rate up in law and at the same time there will also be law changes around the grant. The grant will be written into law that is a fixed amount of money for next year and the year after, then it will go up by 4 million, which is halfway to where it should be and then in the last year of this term it will hit its full formula rate, so that is in the law. The can has kicked down the road only for one or 2 years and there is a very specific legal requirement that it will be the full amount of money in 2023. It is not saying we have just got the money, we are also going to agree the law changes to put it back to where it should have been. There has been a small number of years where it has been a bit lower than it was normally but it will go back in this year, legally back to where it should be. That maintains its sustainability going forward.

The Assistant Minister for Social Security:

What I would like to add is obviously we have had lots of underfunded area, mental health, children's services. The idea also was we could put the £50 million back into the Social Security Fund or we could use it now to try and build up to fund some of the services that we know have been horribly underfunded in the past that are about benefiting the Island and our most vulnerable people.

The Minister for Social Security:

But Sue is right, none of the Council would have persuaded us to do that unless it is going to be in law that the formula works and the money will be there by the end of this term. It will be exactly as it should be. That is from the Treasurer, Richard Bell, as well.

Deputy C.S. Alves :

Moving on to financial independence in old age. We understand the proposed funding in 2020 is for expert help to identify options, approach and actions to increase retirement savings. Have you already identified an expert adviser to assist with this work.

The Minister for Social Security: I do not think we have.

Director, Central Policy Unit:

We are at tender at the minute for somebody to help with the initial parts of it, which will probably be a short piece of work, a piece of skeleton work on basically international options that would make sense in Jersey. That will be coming through hopefully at the end of this year to set up the much bigger piece of work for next year, which is what we are planning in the Government Plan.

The Assistant Minister for Social Security:

We have to make sure we get the money in the Government Plan before we try and spend it, so it has to be agreed first through the Assembly to make sure we have got the money before we go and try and identify somebody.

Director, Central Policy Unit:

We have got some money for this year.

The Assistant Minister for Social Security: Yes, we have got a little bit.

Deputy C.S. Alves :

Is that the complete timeline for the development of an outline scheme or what is your

Director, Central Policy Unit:

No, all that is going to happen this year is a small piece of work using existing funding and it will be done by the end of year. That will just scope out the type of options that the Minister might want to look at and then the Minister will need to decide early next year which one she wants to go forward and we will take the work from there. This is very much a very open area where there are a variety of separate ways that you could tackle the problem. We do not know yet know we do not want to assume that because Guernsey do something we should do the same thing because the U.K. (United Kingdom) social security is not the right thing. We should choose the right option for Jersey. That is where we are at the minute. When we know that then we will have a better we will be write out our timetable more clearly.

Deputy C.S. Alves :

How is it envisioned that temporary and zero hour employees participate in the workplace or private pension scheme?

The Minister for Social Security:

We had a similar written question to that. Under our employment law zero hour people have the same rights but we will have to look at everything like that definitely. The U.K. have a different determination of zero hours, they have a worker and they have an employee, workers I do not think are entitled, which I would not like a scheme like that. We are out to consultation, we will consult with you and the rest of the Assembly, and the people we have to take with us are the people probably who are going to be paying, the employer, the employee. We do not know if Government will pay. Again, Government money is always someone else's money. It is as wide as that. It is one of those that is going to take politically we sat down - it was not Scott , it myself, Geoff and Jeremy - where do you think your priorities are and that sort of came out when we scored them it was different for each one but when we scored them this workplace pension or security in older age - and it might not be that - was all of our top. It is not going to happen overnight. It would be lovely to get the legislation through and it might start at the beginning of the next Assembly. That seems a long way off but starting from nothing to there it does take a long time. It does take a long time.

Deputy C.S. Alves :

You are not entirely sure how it is going to be funded or whether that will be additional contributions that will be paid, that is all to be discussed

The Minister for Social Security:

That is all in the mix, we will have an expert looking at a small island, the impact on different businesses, different types of people. As you say, part-time work everything has to go in and I am not the expert and that is why we have to employ someone. People have got ideas but we want them to compare places. We hear of U.K. and Guernsey, the rest of the world might have a fantastic thing that we could take little bits of.

Deputy C.S. Alves :

Are you working with the Community Savings Bank in respect of this work?

[14:15]

The Minister for Social Security:

We are not particularly working with them now but we have met with them over their different issues. It has nothing to do with this, we have met with them. If we are consulting they would be somebody that we would definitely consult.

Deputy C.S. Alves :

One of the areas that you state you would like to investigate is encouraging older workers to remain in the labour market, which employees would you be targeting here?

The Minister for Social Security:

I would not want to target it anybody. I have been speaking to people I am nearly at that age group now, who have literally I think it is more talking to employers and employees. Some people do not want to stay full time but they love their job and they want to train the next generation. I have people I go home on the bus with sometimes, they are literally now down to one day a week but they are in their 70s. I would not target anybody and I do not want to restrict we do not have a retirement age now because of age discrimination, and some people want to go at 50. If you can afford to go at 50, you go. Other people want to work and people work until they cannot and it keeps everything moving for them.

The Assistant Minister for Social Security:

My stepfather tells me he works more now than when he retired.

The Minister for Social Security:

I was reading the figures for the U.K. and in the workforce a lot of re-entry is over 70 and they are loving it. They are only doing one day or a few hours a week. I am not targeting anybody, it is just what you hear and keeping the population down. Why are you finished at 60, if you are women - in some laws - 65 if you are a man? If you can do it, and only if you want to do it it is being more flexible, I think. No, no targets.

The Deputy of St. John :

We will move on yet again to single parents and the single parent component.

The Minister for Social Security: Absolutely, yes.

The Deputy of St. John :

We are thinking about P.113/2017 and the changes there and also P.28/2018. You have allocated £2,531,000 in 2020 to the single parent component. If you do the maths and you work out on the basis of about 1,000 recipients all receiving £40.39 per week, it works out at about £2.1 million, not £2.5 million, where is the other £400,000 going to be used?

The Minister for Social Security:

This was a States decision, it was taken away when the income support was introduced in 2008 a household with one adult was slightly going to be less so there was a single parent allowance. From memory we had a States debate, we were hard up

The Deputy of St. John : Minister, I appreciate this.

The Minister for Social Security:

But you are querying the actual figure. What I think what the officers are going to say, if we have 1,000 people on it, they are all going to receive £42. Nobody is going to be losing out on it. They will all receive the

The Deputy of St. John :

No, we are not suggesting anybody is going to be losing out but if you do the calculations of 1,000 single parents

The Minister for Social Security: We said average, it is an average.

Director General, Customer and Local Services:

I think there is more than 1,000. I think that is the difference. I do not have the figure to hand of the current level but that figure would have been forecast on the current number of households.

The Minister for Social Security:

As I say, it might be 999 last year, 1,100 this year. We take an average or whatever but everyone will get, if you are single parent, that component that is in the proposition. It was reintroduced and it was funded from underspends and everybody got it.

The Deputy of St. John :

If you are able to save it, you are going to be spending £2.5 million, your calculations surely should be based upon a real number.

The Minister for Social Security: Well, the real number, Trevor

The Deputy of St. John :

If you calculate on the basis of the average you come out at £2.1million which will not be sufficient to fund the

The Minister for Social Security:

But what I am assuring you is if there is 1,000 or 1,050 they all get that amount of money and these are not the same people. Single parents remarry, single parents go back to work, single parents work their way out so then you lose some single parents. Somebody's marriage breaks down, you get another single parent. It is an average but they will get the money. Ian might want to add to that.

Director General, Customer and Local Services:

Yes, if I can just interject and clarify, we often talk about 1,000 single parents, for example, it does go up and down as the Minister quite rightly suggests. We would have worked out based on the current number of single parents claiming income support earlier this year and, as we do with our benefits, we forecast ahead and we would have calculated basically on that number how much it would cost. Just flicking back to P.113/2017 we were talking about 1,300 single parent households. So that gives you an indication. Whatever the number was, and I can clarify the number for the panel if you would like, what number that was based upon, but we would use the real number, forecast ahead, to calculate what the 2020 amount would be.

The Deputy of St. John :

I think it would be worthwhile us knowing how many bodies were counted.

Director General, Customer and Local Services: Yes.

The Minister for Social Security: Absolutely, we will get you that figure, yes.

Director General, Customer and Local Services:

We have not squeezed any extra money in there and we have not taken any money out.

The Deputy of St. John :

That was my next question. What are you going to do with it? Okay, moving forward. We will move to support for homecare and carers. What research is driving the proposals? There is £150,000 in 2020.

The Minister for Social Security: Was there a question? Sorry, Trevor.

The Deputy of St. John :

Yes, what research is driving these proposals is the first question?

The Minister for Social Security:

As it says in the paperwork, obviously there is again, this is not all elderly people but some elderly and some youngsters who were born with or get a long-term illness and a disability and they are staying at home so we are finding we had reports that their carers are it is still slightly more expensive to keep them at home. We have known this for a while. We have put some money in to do some work. The policy lead is not here today but Sue knows. There is a history and we are doing to some more work to find out how to help them best. We meet with some of these people who represent other people quite regularly. Then we are going to do a pilot so that is why there is not so much money in the first year.

Director, Central Policy Unit:

Yes, the 2020 budget is just a reasonable amount of money to support a pilot scheme. Because it is a pilot scheme we cannot give you chapter and verse as to how the money is going to be spent because that is what we will do during 2020. We will see where the need lies and work out to assess people in a fair way. We put a large amount of money in from 2021 onwards on the assumption that during 2020 we will get enough evidence to fully support what the big scheme will be. So the 2021 figure is an estimate at this point. That will not be the right amount of money when we come to it but it is a reasonable place to start from.

The Assistant Minister for Social Security:

When we debate the next Government Plan we will have a better figure.

Director, Central Policy Unit:

Yes, there will be legislation around that. In 2020 it is going to be smallish grants to individual people on a case-by-case basis. We will not have a law for that, we will just have a budget which we can dip into to try and see what is best. It is giving us budget to do that work.

The Deputy of St. John :

How do your proposals link with the carers' law?

Director, Central Policy Unit:

Not so much that one but the disability strategy is very closely linked to the carers' law. The development of the carers' law is something we could think about in maybe 2020, maybe 2021, that will be judged alongside other things. The Health and Community Services Department are also doing a lot of work around adult social care at the minute, so we work very closely with them and we need to be doing joint projects. I cannot tell you exactly where that work will lie now other than on the it is within our ambition to look at it and see, again, what would be appropriate for Jersey. Carers' laws do a variety of things. We have already support for carers through our benefit legislation and through our employment legislation, and it might be that what we need is more publicity and more education, information about it. It might be that more statutory recognition would be useful. Those are questions we need to ask ourselves and find out what would be the best for Jersey.

The Deputy of St. John :

Do you anticipate that there will be a threshold applied for eligibility for the homecare support benefit?

Director, Central Policy Unit: The pilot scheme

The Deputy of St. John :

Will it mirror the threshold for long-term care allowance?

Director, Central Policy Unit:

The long-term care allowance is very different because obviously the costs associated with long- term care are so extreme that even somebody with quite a good income might struggle to pay the costs of the long-term care fees. This pilot project is aimed at domiciliary care, so care provided in a household by family members, and we are looking principally at the extra domestic cost. So the costs that are not due directly to care, so your care pay should be fully funded through the long-term care scheme and your basic living costs should be funded through income support if you need that help. We are looking at the extra costs that might accrue because of your disability, which are not about caring. So that could be energy costs, that could be dietary needs, that could be using things up more quickly, clothing being worn out more quickly because of your disability. It is those kind of extra things which are not catered for anywhere else. That is what this pilot is about mainly.

The Deputy of St. John :

That is very helpful. When will you be in a position to update the panel on the specific actions that will take place in respect of this project.

Director, Central Policy Unit:

This is the Government Plan for 2020 so we have not started this yet but, yes, as soon as possible.

The Assistant Minister for Social Security:

We are definitely happy to come in and update at a reasonable time once we have started the pilot, of course.

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat :

Of course there will be our quarterly meetings anyway.

The Minister for Social Security: Absolutely, yes.

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat :

This meeting is just to do with the Government Plan and that is probably why there is less topics to what there ordinarily would be.

Director General, Customer and Local Services:

It does obviously need States approval. This part of the Government Plan needs to be approved for us to be able to introduce the pilot scheme in 2020.

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat :

Yes, of course. Moving to disability strategy and community support. The business case, which is page 83 of R.91, states that: "Part of the budget allocation will support the provision of additional staff to support and co-ordinate services and develop further policies." How many additional staff are you looking to employ?

Director, Central Policy Unit:

In 2020 the proposal is there should be 2 staff members who would be based at C.L.S. who would provide overall co-ordination support to the disability sector. They will sit under the Local Services Director and obviously he is doing a lot of work with community groups at the minute so, again, that will be to be determined exactly how those people will work. The first year it is 2 people at C.L.S.

Deputy C.S. Alves :

Apart from the Close to Home project, what are the other specific projects that you wish to roll out?

The Minister for Social Security:

So far with Closer to Home and the need on that they have now made me the Minister for Disability or with responsibility for disability. I meet locally with all the there are many in it and we are trying to get more people in it if they are doing a similar charity or voluntary sector, so bringing those together. We are trying to roll that out into different is it in the right place? The next one that is going to be starting is Good Companions, so it is that side of the Island. I am not sure where we need it. Literally I have had one full meeting with the sector, I have had one invite to the last week I met the sector again and there were some really good it was really nice, I have been invited by the lady who does the care strategy to speak with them. I had some really nice reports from Diabetics Jersey, the work that officers have been doing with them from a year ago when we met and the petition. I remember you speaking on the radio on what is being rolled out. Wherever we can but especially with the diabetic people not just having to go to Overdale. Where should it be? Can you get this? If you have to go there for your bits why not do the rest in the pharmacy. They are very pleased we even got an email, myself and Richard and officers who followed that up on Monday or Tuesday this week. It is really waiting the disability strategy was worked on with Government, with voluntary sector, with charities, with businesses out there so we got to take everyone forward. In the business plan as well, there is a small amount of money in our budget but G.H.E. (Growth, Housing and Environment) from memory are looking at all States building. We are doing first. So there is another pot of money and I think that could be quite a bit of money at the end of the day. You have to get our buildings accessible. We have to do it first. You see some of these buildings are not but they doing a they probably have done the audit, now we are going to get there is a budget for it but there will not be enough for next year. It is definitely bigger, I think, than my budget.

[14:30]

I am taking our lead through the man who is leading and working really closely - and has only been in post just yes, last week was just under a year, but he has brought so many groups together. We listen. What they want we will try and do basically.

The Deputy of St. John :

In cases where these projects are to be provided by charitable or community groups, what are the funding arrangements for these groups?

The Minister for Social Security:

I think everyone is different. Some are completely independent, some we give grants to, some are do you mean how we arrange

The Deputy of St. John :

What is the relationship between Government and these groups in relation to funding?

The Minister for Social Security: They are all different, are they not?

Director, Central Policy Unit:

I think obviously the Director of Local Services at C.L.S. and also there is a new community lead within Health and Community Services, so those 2 senior posts will work well together to create a clear community framework within how Government relates to charitable third party sectors. That is work in progress. C.L.S. does not hold very many direct contracts with third parties, that is something that might come up as a disability strategy starts to have money in it, which goes from the beginning of 2020, and you will start to see some of those things perhaps be delivered through third parties and then that contractual relationship will be built at that time.

Director General, Customer and Local Services:

Some of the actions from the disability strategy were around helping create perhaps services or facilitating services like volunteer driving, for example, and things like that. That is again is what some of the money in 2020 is earmarked towards helping. Again, it does take time and effort to marshal potentially a lot of good will and volunteers together to help deliver something that maybe they are delivering on their own at the moment but bringing them together is much more powerful, and that is the sort of thing that the disability strategy will have in it and that is perhaps what the co- ordination and facilitation of money will be used to do next year.

The Deputy of St. John :

Are you involved in the commissioning of the work or is this down to Health and other departments?

Director General, Customer and Local Services:

I think it depends on exactly what the issue is. Clearly, Health will be commissioning work with the clusters that we are helping set up in terms of charitable groups. This is slightly different but it may also involve bringing community groups into that commissioning framework to acquire certain money for additional services. It is hard to say that is exactly what

The Deputy of St. John :

You do not have any examples of commissioning contracts that have happened?

Director General, Customer and Local Services: Under these funds, no.

Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat :

We seem to have gone through that rather swiftly. Thank you very much, it must be a first. Normally we are struggling and we are over time, not under time. Thank you very much.

The Assistant Minister for Social Security: Good questions.

The Minister for Social Security:

No, thank you, very straight to the point and precise. Thank you, Mary, thank you.

[14:33]