Treasury and Resources
Ministerial Decision Report
Allocation from the Restructuring Provision to the Chief Minister’s Department for funding of four interim communications officers
- Purpose of Report
To approve a non-recurring allocation of up to £120,000 during 2018 from the Restructuring Provision to the Chief Minister’s Department (CMD) revenue head of expenditure to fund four interim communications officers for up to 6 months.
- Background
The States of Jersey is transforming, and the pace of change has accelerated following the arrival of a new Chief Executive. A fundamental review of its current functions and operating model has been carried out by an interim transition team, working with the business, and this review has identified some areas for urgent action.
One area of identified weakness is communications, and a new States-wide communications strategy, plan and operating model has been developed, and approved in principle by the Executive Management Team.
The detailed organisational development implementation will be completed by June 2018. In the meantime, there is an urgent need to recruit four temporary communications officers to support the implementation of the strategy and plan, to support the communication of transformation internally and externally.
These four temporary posts – two for the internal communications team and two for the press office – are needed to strengthen the existing communications team, which is not sufficiently resourced to support transformation as the pace of change accelerates. These teams are planned to grow with permanent additional resource under the formal Communications Division restructure, but the urgent need for communications support for transformation cannot wait for the restructure to be carried out. The temporary resource will therefore enable the current team to widen and deepen its activities in support of reform without waiting for the restructuring process to complete over the next six months.
3. Recommendation
The Minister is recommended to approve an allocation of up to £120,000 during 2018 from the Restructuring Provision to the Chief Minister’s Department revenue head of expenditure to fund four interim communications officers for up to 6 months and an increase of 4.0 FTE for that period.
4. Reason for Decision
Article 17(2) of the Public Finances (Jersey) Law 2005 states that the Minister for Treasury and Resources is authorised to approve the transfer from contingency expenditure of amounts not exceeding, in total, the amount available for contingency expenditure in a financial year.
The current Contingency Allocation Policy (published as R.110/2017) sets the requirement for all allocations from Contingency over £100,000 to be considered by the Council of Ministers prior to submission to the Minister for approval. For Public Sector Reform (PSR) funding the Council of Ministers has approved the delegation of its role described above to the Minister for Treasury and Resources to consider and, if appropriate, approve restructuring provision funding bids under £500,000 during the MTFP Addition period (2017 – 2019). The Executive Management Team approved the request by email on 25th January 2018.
To comply with P.67/1999 which charges the Minister for Treasury and Resources to regulate the number of persons that may be employed by the States.
5. Resource Implications
The CMD revenue head of expenditure to increase by up to £120,000 during 2018 and the Restructuring Provision within Contingency to decrease by an identical amount. The authorised FTE and headcount of the Chief Minister’s Department will increase by 4.0 for six months.
This decision does not change the total amount of expenditure approved by the States for 2017-2019 in the Medium Term Financial Plan.
Report author : Head of Decision Support | Document date 25th January 2018 |
Quality Assurance / Review : Director of Financial Planning and Performance | File name and path: L:\Treasury\Sections\Corporate Finance\Ministerial Decisions\DS, WR and SD\2018-0015 – C25 PSR funding to CMD for Comms officers |
MD sponsor : Director of Financial Planning and Performance |