07 March 2011
3 new clerical posts at Customs and Immigration have been created as part of a restructuring programme which has cut costs, freed up skilled officers for investigation work and employed a trainee from the Advance to Work scheme.
The changes were introduced after the retirement of 2 customs officers. This gave the Head of Customs and Immigration, Mike Robinson, the opportunity to take a fresh look at the way the Revenue and Goods Control section was organised.
“This section is responsible for calculating the duty owed and bringing the money in, which is important work. We decided to reorganise the team into a manager and 3 clerical posts. This frees up the Customs officers to do what they are trained for – investigation and auditing work – while the office assistants take care of the clerical work.
“This reorganisation has saved the department £29,000 per year, but that’s not all. We’ve also employed 2 people from the States skills register - the list of staff across the organisation whose jobs have been removed as part of the restructuring process. And we’ve employed one young person who came to us on the Advance to Work scheme.
“We now have a small team to deal with phone calls and administrative tasks, leaving officers to do the work they are trained for.”
The Treasury Minister, Senator Philip Ozouf, said “This is just the kind of lateral thinking that I hope is going on across all States departments. As part of our efforts to control spending, I want to see a modern, efficient public sector that provides essential services effectively while ensuring value for money for taxpayers.
“To achieve this we need staff and their managers to think about how we can do things differently. This example at Customs not only shows us how we can achieve the same results for less, it has also employed 2 staff from within the States and, more importantly, one member of staff has come from the work training scheme we set up to help young people to get a foothold on the world of employment.”
gov.je