‘Defuse population time bomb now’
Friday 28th May 2010, 2:29PM BST.
GUERNSEY must begin tackling its population and demographic issues as soon as possible, a business audience was told yesterday.
The Chamber of Commerce seminar, presented by Dr Elaine Monkhouse (pictured) of Monkhouse & Associates and Greg Yeoman of Yeoman Consulting, explored the ‘ticking time bomb’ that is the island’s population.
The two speakers told the audience that local demographics meant that without careful monitoring and intervention, the island would struggle to maintain its place as a vibrant business centre and competitive offshore jurisdiction because it would not have the workers to occupy the positions.
Guernsey would also be in a perilous state in terms of being able to support its retired workforce.
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Thankyou Dr Monkhouse, your thoughts are much the same as I have been stating in this blog for a number of years now, a population cap, urgently needed lest Guernsey deteriorate into meaningless bankrupt anarchy.
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I havent read the full article
Can somebody let me know what she is actually proposing because the text above is extremely vague, and somewhat contradictory.
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To paraphrase a certain well known expression…
the more I hear from ‘experts,’ the more I listen to my cat.
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Our politicians just dont want to know. Its hard to believe they can continue to ignore the ELEPHANT in the room!
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Giving the locals coloured beads to play with and condoms may help.
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Hi Steve-O
My interpretation of the issue, as follows:
Without inward migration, by 2030 population numbers in Guernsey will be dropping in response to falling birth rates. Great, you might think, more room for everyone.
BUT over the next 50 years the age balance will shift significantly. The number of 64-84 year olds will double by 2040 (all those “baby boomers”) and the number of 16-64 year olds will fall from 68% to 56% of the population. That means fewer working islanders somehow trying to generate the tax revenue to support many more retirees.
The point of the seminar was to raise business people’s awareness of this impending ‘bigger crisis than the financial collapse’ and its implications for their employment strategies.
Guernsey needs to start taking action now to ensure we are in a fit state to compete for a dwindling future labour force.
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Simon,
The States may not be moving as fast as you would like, but nonetheless action is being taken to address the ‘demographic time bomb’.
One example is the policy decisions that were taken last year to ensure the long-term sustainability of the island’s pension pot, where the pension age and contribution rates were raised very modestly to ensure that the scheme will be able to meet its obligations throughout the period of the next few decades.
Demographics are also uppermost in the minds of the Policy Council’s Population Policy Group, which is due later this term to publish proposals about managing our population policies better in the years ahead.
I don’t doubt that more could be done, and that some things will be done which will prove controversial and unpopular with some, but Guernsey is actually tackling this problem head-on more quickly than many other jurisdictions.
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I assume all this will be introduced alongside compulsory euthensia or a policy of only importing workers with illnesses guaranteed to terminate them before 65 or a massive building scheme.
Otherwise it just time shifts everything until we run out of jobs or land.
Thats financial planners for you.
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Matt.
Rather than just focussing on raising average Joe’s pension contributions and making him work longer, how about cutting costs by reducing the legion of civil servants the States employ to ru(i)n the island, and placing some restrictions on their gold plated pensions?
The other day, a friend of mine decided to freeze his private pension and cash it in (before it goes the way of the west, as many have) and to invest the monies elsewhere. Having carefully explained the whys and wherefores of his plan to the gold plated pension-ees at Income Tax, his request was denied, on the basis he would need it to support him in his old age.
He has calculated that should there be anything left, he will receive under £2000 p.a. – hardly enough to keep body and soul together – whilst his potential investment was far safer and almost guaranteed to make a good and continuous return for many years to come.
Several kicks in the teeth there. 1. that the civil servants concerned are all the the pension gravy train 2. that it’s HIS money they won’t let him have 3. that they are insisting he leaves his hard earned cash in an area that has proved to be increasingly unsafe 4. that if he had never put money away for his future (and instead p*ssed it all up the proverbial wall and not bothered) the State would be obliged to take care of him ANYWAY and 5. that he is now being essentially being penalised for acting responsibly.
I know several people who have/are planning to freeze their pensions for similar reasons, that is, times have changed and they no longer provide guaranteed (or any) returns…with the exception of civil service pensions (or so it seems), that is.
I look forward to hearing your thought on this.
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Population has been growing everywhere in the world… but nobody is calling this a “time bomb”. It wasn’t a very interesting subject of seminar. The more population – the harder to survive. This is what Mr. Charles Darwin has called ‘natural selection’.
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Agree with Toni B’s comments – although i would be more inclined to suggest sterilisation for all those girls who have already had one child and no job and no partner to support them and who we are paying for …. and chemical castration for all those men who cannot be arsed to put something on the end of their “man bits”.
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Matt Fallaize
Forgive my sceptic perspective but you lot seem all over the place right now!
I think you lot need some bonding, maybe a series of compulsory activity days or some other interactive activities.
I have no faith in any decisions you lot currently make or in your collective ability to make a decission!
You appear to be an incoherant crowd of misfits.
Collectively your making a laughing stock of this Island and you want me to think you are sorting population issues!
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Scarlett
I think you’ll find that your friend’s request may well have been denied because it was simply not possible under the rules. Also you should bear in mind that pensions are supposed to be long term investments and the worst thing you can do is get rid of it when the value of the underlying investments is down, as long term the market will recover. As for your comments regarding the “gold plated…pensions gravy train”, I think you have rather fallen for the hype of the Gsy Press Comment column. The pension scheme covers all public sector workers, not just Civil Servants, and many of these are paid pretty poorly for the level of ability/ qualifications that they have (eg nurses). Do you really think that the higher calibre staff in the public sector will remain if the pension is removed without additional pay to cover the required contributons to a private scheme? The island would suffer a rapid drain of teachers, nurses, etc (& yes civil servants to the private sector) without very careful thought regarding the pension scheme.
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I’m afraid any proposals to forcibly sterilize single mums or chemically castrate naughty men are just going to make the problem worse.
The problem we are going to face is too few young people in relation to the number of old people, not too many young people. So having fewer babies is not the answer.
If you want to propose an extreme solution, I think the answer is more along the lines of replacing the old age pension with a cyanide pill…
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Scarlett,
Cutting government expenditure would not alleviate the long-term pressure on the island’s contributory Social Security schemes. Painful and unpopular though such measures are, a small increase in contribution rates and a modest nudge upwards of the pension age, approved in July 2009, were inevitable to ensure the sustainability of the island’s pension pot.
However, I appreciate your views in respect of the final salary scheme for States employees. And I would freely acknowledge that many, many people feel the same way as you. Equally, the points made by FYI are not without merit.
It all points, in my view, to the need for a major examination of the final salary scheme. I am open minded about whether it should be reformed, and I cannot reach a sensible conclusion until both sides of the argument are explored thoroughly. A knee-jerk, populist decision either way is the last thing the island needs.
I have written to the Public Sector Remuneration Committee asking when they will undertake a review. They have not committed to a specific date, but they did assure me that it was a priority. I very much hope they act soon.
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From the limited information in the above article it sounds like Dr Monkhouse is arguing for a growth in population not a reduction.
It is probably true that, without sustained population growth, we will struggle to have an adequate wokrforce to keep the economy going. Also true that a smaller work force means less taxes to support a growing number of pensioners.
On the other hand, we don’t really have the infrastructure to cope with many more people – just look at the number of cars on our roads for example.
We have to decide soon – do we prioritise economic growth and kiss goodbye to our beautiful island and our quality of life. Or do we accept a lower standard of living with less money spent on schools and healthcare etc, but protect what we have.
Its a tough call but my gut feeling is to try to preserve our island.
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Why not take away the pension scheme in a few years?
.
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The reason that Guernsey will end up with a top heavy elderly population is that young people cannot afford the cost of accommodation or living on the island. This will continue as long as you have an undemocratic and inflexible Housing policy which ultimately discourages Guernsey’s own young from trying to stay on their island.
The second problem which will need addressing, if immigration control is to be achieved, is a re-think on who is going to do the lower paid and/or more menial jobs. Maybe some incentives needed so that Guernsey bred people will do them; but since all Guernsey folk want to power dress and work in the finance industry this could be crying for the moon.
What does need to end is the inhumane banning of foreign workers’ families from the Island. So, Guerns must either do the jobs themselves or stop being medieval about who can and can’t live on Guernsey.
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Does anyone know how many births there are in a year and how many deaths. This way we would know exactly how serious the population increase is.Do we also know how these figures are changing, say over the last 50 years. When that has been established we could then look at how many outsiders take up permanent residence in Guernsey, and of course how many leave. I see in the press recently we are encouraging wealthy people to the island. Bit of a contradiction don’t you think. There is a definite problem that needs addressing, just get the right people dealing with it, its not unsolvable. We need some accurate statistics to work on first.
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Thanks for an informed and balanced response – as always – Matt.
Interestingly, Jersey are making some cuts on public spending at the moment –
http://www.thisisjersey.com/2010/06/03/axe-falls-on-public-spending/
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this as well.
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I’m moving back to the island in nine weeks and bringing my family with me. I’m not sure if I’m going to be helping or making it all worse, but at least I won’t have to pay council tax anymore. :-)
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Scarlett,
Thanks for the JEP link you provided.
It should be noted that public spending in Jersey is starting from a considerably higher base than in Guernsey. Government expenditure per head of population is much higher in Jersey, and in the Isle of Man, than in Guernsey.
However, few organisations as large as the States could claim always to be operating as efficiently as possible. Therefore, I fully support Tribal’s Fundamental Spending Review, or Transformation Programme or whatever it’s being called now, as it works its way through the ‘back office’ and administrative functions of the States, hopefully realising several millions of pounds in efficiency savings over the next five years or so.
The committees on which I sit, and notably Education, have worked hard in recent years to restrain expenditure growth and live within budgets set annually by the States. I can claim little credit for this – the process was started before I was in the States. I am eager to see it continue, though, not because I necessarily agree with the current policy of restraining spending increases to RPIX or less, but because that is the policy of the States and until I and others are able to argue successfully that it should be changed it is incumbent upon all in the public sector to see that it is delivered. I have, therefore, put proposals to my colleagues on Education which would establish a process to identify additional savings in real terms.
A note of caution, though: given that public spending in Guernsey is lower than in almost every other comparable jurisdiction in the developed world, cuts in the order of those seemingly promoted daily in the pages of the Press and by a handful of ministers and business leaders, would likely cause structural and potentially irreparable damage to front-line services, which to the best of my knowledge few of the electorate have ever voted for.
For a long time Guernsey was able to maintain very low rates of personal taxation alongside perennial expansion of services because of the enormous growth in company tax receipts generated by the finance industry. These days are over, for now at least, and we cannot continue to expect ultra-low rates of personal taxation while providing the sort of services which in other jurisdictions require personal taxes of double or treble the rates in Guernsey.
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