Brexit workstreams funding: Transfer from Office of the Chief Executive to Growth, Housing and Environment

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A decision made on 30 July 2020

Decision Reference: MD-TR-2020-0092
Decision Summary Title:	Transfer from Office of the Chief Executive (OCE) to Growth, Housing and Environment (GHE) regarding funding for Brexit workstreams		Date of Decision Summary:	28th July 2020
Decision Summary Author:	Finance Business Partner, GHE		Decision Summary: Public or Exempt?	Public
Type of Report: Oral or Written?	Written		Person Giving Oral Report:	N/A
Written Report Title:	Transfer from Office of the Chief Executive (OCE) to Growth, Housing and Environment (GHE) regarding funding for Brexit workstreams		Date of Written Report:	28th July 2020
Written Report Author:	Finance Business Partner, GHE		Written Report : Public or Exempt?	Public
Subject: One off budget transfer in 2020 of £131,500 from the OCE Head of Expenditure to the GHE Head of Expenditure regarding funding for Brexit related workstreams.
Decision(s): The Minister approved the one off budget transfer of £131,500 from the OCE Head of Expenditure to the GHE Head of Expenditure regarding funding for Brexit workstreams which were originally funded to the Economy and Partnerships directorate of GHE, which has since moved into the OCE department.
Reason(s) for Decision: Article 18(1)(a) of the Public Finances (Jersey) Law 2019 states that a specified amount appropriated for one head of expenditure may, with the approval of the Minister for Treasury and Resources, be used for the purposes of another head of expenditure that is set out in the government plan. Article 18(5) of the Public Finances (Jersey) Law 2019 states that if a direction under this Article would affect a head of expenditure that relates to the responsibilities of any Minister, that Minister must be consulted before the direction is made. The Ministers have been consulted and agree the transfer. P.28/2020 Draft Public Finances (Amendment of Law) (Jersey) Regulations 202-, approved by the States Assembly on 24th March 2020, temporarily removed the requirement for the Minister to give the States at least 4 weeks’ notice of the day on which the Minister proposes to give a direction under Article 18.
Resource Implications: The OCE head of expenditure will decrease by £131,500 in 2020 and the GHE head of expenditure will increase by the same amount. This decision does not change the total amount of expenditure approved by the States in the Government Plan for 2020-23.
Action required: The Head of Financial Governance to notify the Head of Finance Business Partnering for GHE once the decision has been signed.
Signature:		Position: Deputy S J Pinel, Minister for Treasury and Resources
Date Signed:		Date of Decision:

Brexit workstreams funding: Transfer from Office of the Chief Executive to Growth, Housing and Environment

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Ministerial Decision Report

Transfer from Office of the Chief Executive (OCE) to Growth, Housing and Environment (GHE) regarding funding for Brexit workstreams

Purpose of Report

To enable the Minister to approve the one off transfer in 2020 of £131,500 from the OCE Head of Expenditure to the GHE Head of Expenditure. The funding was originally allocated to the Economic Development directorate as part of the £450,000 Goods and Borders Cluster Government Plan funding to support the Environment and Regulation functions within GHE.

Economy and Partnership has since moved from the GHE department to the OCE department and this transfer is now required to ensure the allocated funding is in the right place to allow for the continued delivery of GHE relevant roles and responsibilities during the post Brexit transition period.

Background

There is a requirement for the Government of Jersey to engage with the UK and the EU to negotiate appropriate arrangements within the UK/EU Future Economic Partnership (FEP). The FEP will be negotiated following the UK’s exit from the European Union, regardless of whether this is an agreed withdrawal or a No Deal Brexit, albeit that the negotiations will be within different structures and timescales according to whether they take place in a deal or in a no-deal scenario. To this end, the UK is currently preparing its negotiating positions, and Jersey must do the same and should be appropriately resourced to do so.

External Relations proposed three negotiating clusters, these being ‘Goods and Borders’, ‘Services and Digital’ and ‘Security’ and 2019 departments were asked to consider the necessary resource.

After a bid from GHE, the Government Plan allocated £450k to Economy to manage the Goods and Borders Cluster. At a broad, cross-departmental level, the work involves analysis of the structures and architecture within free trade agreements and the UK-EU future relationship, to better understand how these might bind Government’s options or present opportunities; and it includes identifying and articulating the overarching priorities for the Government of Jersey within Jersey-UK negotiations.

To achieve the required complement of expertise the Goods and Borders designed a team of technical experts. The team was developed to provide a blended team comprising economy, environment and regulatory officers to give a cross GHE response.

However, now that Economy has been transferred into the OCE the funding needs to be re-allocated to ensure correct resourcing within both OCE and GHE and to provide GHE with its ‘share’ of the Government Plan funding pro-rata for 2020.

It has been calculated that the GHE share for 2020 is a total of £131,500 to deliver the required coordination and project management functions to ensure requests by the UK Government are dealt with and considered appropriately – see below. Many of the negotiation positions require insight from a technical policy position but also in respect of trade and the domestic economy. It is therefore vital that that this coordination continues to ensure all responses are in line with the Government of Jersey policy positions.

Goods and Borders Cluster funds to transfer from the £450,000 allocation:

Contractor – May to Dec 20 – 171 days (taking away Bank Holidays but not including any leave) @£500 per day = £85,500. The contractor transferred to GHE 1st May.

Marbral – Transferred to GHE 15th May to Dec 20 - (approx. 141 days @£325 per day ) £46,000.

3. Recommendation

The Minister is recommended to approve a one off budget transfer in 2020 of £131,500 from the OCE Head of Expenditure to the GHE Head of Expenditure regarding funding for Brexit related workstreams.

4. Reason for Decision

Article 18(1)(a) of the Public Finances (Jersey) Law 2019 states that a specified amount appropriated for one head of expenditure may, with the approval of the Minister for Treasury and Resources, be used for the purposes of another head of expenditure that is set out in the government plan.

Article 18(5) of the Public Finances (Jersey) Law 2019 states that if a direction under this Article would affect a head of expenditure that relates to the responsibilities of any Minister, that Minister must be consulted before the direction is made. The Ministers have been consulted and agree the transfer.

P.28/2020 Draft Public Finances (Amendment of Law) (Jersey) Regulations 202-, approved by the States Assembly on 24th March 2020, temporarily removed the requirement for the Minister to give the States at least 4 weeks’ notice of the day on which the Minister proposes to give a direction under Article 18.

5. Resource Implications

The OCE head of expenditure will decrease by £131,500 in 2020 and the GHE head of expenditure will increase by the same amount.

This decision does not change the total amount of expenditure approved by the States in the Government Plan for 2020-23.

Report author : Finance Business Partner, GHE	Document date : 28th July 2020
Quality Assurance / Review : Head of Financial Governance	File name: L:\Treasury\Sections\Corporate Finance\Ministerial Decisions\DS, WR and SD\2020-0092 - Budget transfer from OCE to GHE regarding funding for Brexit workstreams
MD Sponsor : Treasurer of the States