'Home Affairs will have to live with cuts'

Guernsey's Home Affairs Committee will "just have to live" with making cuts, the island's treasury lead has said.

The committee warned that, without an extra £2.2m to £3.9m, it would not be able to maintain front line services, such as police and fire services, at the current level.

Policy and Resources Committee member Deputy Charles Parkinson said the government could only invest "what they can afford".

Deputies approved the 2027 Budget earlier in November, which included a spending package of more than £716m.

Policy & Resources (P&R) offered politicians two alternative budgets, one with 1% real terms spending cuts, known as option A; and the other with an extra £15m, or option B. Option B was approved.

Home Affairs leaders are due to meet on Tuesday for the first time since the budget debate to discuss they will fund services next year.

Committee member Deputy Munazza Malik said it was disappointing that the States did not approve its request for extra money.

She said: "Our service chiefs have been telling us how underfunded their services are and how they would like to bring about change and obviously keep the services running to a safe level.

"We were hoping to get at least one or two of those amendments passed but, unfortunately, we are where we are."

Parkinson said the public was likely to see the impacts of cuts "fairly quickly in some cases".

He said: "Home Affairs have been given an uplift, just like other committees under option B. There's basically a 1.3% increase in the States' budget.

"They came to us saying that their services were really under a great strain and that we met with the head of the police and head of the fire service telling us how much more they needed.

"But the truth is we can only put, invest in these services what we can afford. So they've got more money than they had before, and they'll just have to live with it."

Deputy Rob Curgenven, who voted for option A, which had £15m less to spend, said he made a commitment to savings.

He said: "I wanted to keep that commitment to the taxpayer.

"I gave an analogy of, if you're a business and you're losing money, or your expenses are growing too much, or both, then something's got to happen.

"Sometimes, when you stop giving money to the business, it is forced to look for efficiencies, it's forced to look at savings, it's forced to look at doing things better with what you already have.

"I think that the States has never been put in that position."

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