A WARNING that the States cannot continue cutting back on spending has come from a man who spent years inside the system. Deputy Chris Brock was a senior civil servant for many years, ending his career as the chief officer of the then Tourist Board.
He said that spending restraint could go only so far only before it started hurting public services and islanders.
‘I am advocating that public expenditure should be restrained as far as possible, but if we’re going for growth, the public’s expectation of the public sector and the services will grow too,’ said Deputy Brock, vice-chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
‘If you’ve got economic growth, you’ve got demands placed on the services too.’
Deputy Brock said that he was already concerned about the future for the public sector, with staff leaving for private firms.
‘With my experience, I have seen restraint policies in the public sector in the past.
‘It is a very good thing for a year or so and will root out some inefficiencies, but then strain starts to appear, pressures build up in resources and services start to decline.
‘I have real concerns already about the pressure and damage in key areas.’
But his concerns have been rebutted by the man leading the move to a zero-10 tax regime.
‘To suggest that financial restraint had gone as far as it can is utter nonsense,’ said Treasury and Resources minister Lyndon Trott.
‘States financial restraint must continue for the next few years at least, as directed by the Government Business Plan.’
He said that the States had supported revenue expenditure for 2007 increasing by less than RPI and the business plan contained targets to continue to contain public sector spending to RPI or less.
Deputy Trott said that while the targets were challenging, it did not mean that cuts in services would automatically follow.
But Deputy Brock, who denied that he was a ‘tax and spend’ politician, said that the restraint was not a sustainable policy, though he said he was not advocating ‘an open cheque book’ for departments.
‘If we hold spending under inflation, in the medium term these problems manifest themselves in having to put things right at a later date. It costs more, a lot more than addressing it at the source.’
Deputy Brock has an amendment to today’s zero-10 tax update debate pushing for an early debate on the implications of a goods and services tax.
Article posted on 30th May, 2007 - 12.00am
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