Letter to the Editor: Actual savings or accounting trick?
I READ with interest the Treasury Minister’s plan for £23 million of public expenditure savings (JEP, 18 July), however having taken the trouble to review the report of the Fiscal Policy Panel released this month, there are a few issues which the Minister has failed to address. Firstly, the report clearly states that government expenditure is actually due to increase over the next two years. Therefore I would ask the Minister to clarify whether these are actual savings or just an accounting trick in that they are savings on the budgeted expenditure which is due to increase by £30 million pounds, meaning that expenditure will actually only increase by £7 million. Secondly, I am concerned about some of the projections upon which the report, and one would assume decisions, are made. The report calls for prudence, something one would expect from a Treasury function, and yet makes forecasts of gross value added to the Jersey economy at a rate 6% higher than that achieved in 2010. With a str...