Charges, but no service promise
Thursday 7th May 2009, 1:00PM BST.
ALTHOUGH charges for housing licence applications come into force on 1 June, it will be next year before any guarantee of the service employers will receive.
Fees will apply to all employment-related licence applications and those for right to work documents for staff living in open market hotel or care home accommodation.
Based on average 2006 and 2007 figures, the charges applied to business would bring in £725,250 a year, although the economic downturn could have an impact on that estimate.
This has been taken into account when Treasury recommended the Housing budget.
States departments will not have to pay, but statistics on the applications they make will be kept to show industry they are not cross-subsiding the application costs.
When asked why service standards were not being introduced at the same time as the new charges, chief officer Stephen Langford (pictured) said: ‘We don’t want to be foolish and promise things we can’t deliver. We’re part-way through the process and we will be explaining to employers and employee groups what the issues are.’
- To read Guernsey Press stories in full click here for subscription details. Individual editions are now available online.
Campaigns
Voice For Victims
Voice for Victims is a campaign aimed at promoting the rights of those affected by child sexual abuse.
This is Guernsey
Guernsey Press
So will charges result in a professional service where their appointed officials resist the temptation to suggest finding a local to marry to solve their licence problems!
I wonder?
Report abuse
‘We don’t want to be foolish and promise things we can’t deliver” – we do however wish to be greedy enough to immediately apply the charges for no change to the current service whatsoever!
“We’re part-way through the process and we will be explaining to employers and employee groups what the issues are” – We haven’t even worked out what we are going to do for this cash but we are so clever we have been able to decide how much it’s going to cost!
It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious. Can you imagine the private sector getting away with this, perhaps they should be honest and call it a private sector recruitment tax (it doesn’t apply to them)…and then they wonder why we have no faith in the civil service.
Report abuse