Islanders weigh in on how States should save money

Terry Holder said the States should ditch the contract with Agilisys

Islanders have suggested cutting spending on consultants, scrapping the States IT contract and reducing deputies pay as ways the States could save money in the future.

The States of Guernsey has launched a survey asking for ideas from the public.

In February, Guernsey’s politicians failed to agree a package of reforms to the island’s tax system, but it did agree to reduce spending across the States.

It plans to save between £10m and £16m every year for five years.

Terry Holder said the States should ditch the contract with Agilisys - it was signed in 2019 as part of efforts to change the way the States uses IT, to save money.

The contract runs for 10 years and is worth about £20m a year.

“It’s a lot of money isn’t it,” said Mr Holden.

He said: “I think they ought to end their contract with Agilisys.

“They have made huge errors in certain areas. Particularly in the taxation, it is very difficult to fill your form in.”

Agilisys were asked for comment, but did not provide one.

Valorie Loaring remembered when deputies were not paid

Valorie Loaring said she would like to see deputies go back to being unpaid.

In 2021, Guernsey’s politicians were paid £1,752,615, with the highest earner Deputy Peter Ferbrache, President of the Policy and Resources Committee taking home £68,245.

Ordinary deputies were paid £40,521.

Mrs Loaring said: “They used to do everything for the benefit of the island, we should stop paying all the deputies all the money we pay them.”

Paul Buckle said the States "need to make some decisions" about tax

Ian Powell said politicians had to find other ways to make revenue.

"We're missing such a trick... we should be taxing the corporations more," he said.

Guernsey’s States has already committed to looking at how it can change its corporate tax regime.

Paul Buckle said: “They need to make some decisions don't they about the tax.

"That would raise some money, we need less pointless projects as well."

Wendy Anthony and Linda Priaulx wanted less money spent on consultants

Linda Priaulx said she wanted to see more decisiveness from politicians when it came to big projects, and less money spent on consultants.

She said: “They seem to waste a lot of money, and they push things down the road instead of making decisions.

“Make a decision and don’t change your mind, we may not agree, but be decisive, we realise there is a need to bring more money in, we live in a beautiful island and we need to pay for it somehow.”

Wendy Anthony said: "We spend too much on consultants when we have local people here who can give just as good advice."

Recently Guernsey’s Environment and Infrastructure Committee has spent £431,000 on reports from PWC and Siemens to help inform its new electricity strategy, while Policy and Resources spent £90,000 on an independent review of November 2022’s IT outage.