Monday, June 28, 2010

Geoff's Written Questions for 6th July

1.To Chief Minister:
Will the Chief Minister state what formal consultation, if any, has taken place with representatives of States employees over the potential job losses contained in the proposals put forward by ministers in the Comprehensive Spending Review, and if none will he state when he expects consultation to start?

Will the Chief Minister indicate the timescale over which he envisages any redundancies will take place and the extent to which these will be covered by Voluntary Redundancy or Voluntary Early Retirement schemes already in place or will need compulsory redundancies?

Will he further detail for members any proposals he has for changes to the Voluntary Redundancy scheme to be applied from 2011, and state when he expects to consult with employee representatives over any changes, or whether he intends to impose it unilaterally as he did with the pay freeze?

What estimates does he have for the cost in redundancy or other payments of the 67.6 job losses already proposed?



2.To Treasury & Resources Minister:
Will the minister inform members why in his FSR consultation documents on personal and business taxation he has proposed a figure £30m for additional personal tax but has set no such figure for any additional contribution from the business sector to fund essential public services?

Can he further explain why over the period 2004 to 2008 Income tax receipts from salary and wage earners has increased by 66% (from £136m to £225m) whist Company tax has only risen by 23% over the same period (from £189m to £233m)?

Will the minister also give members his estimates of what the overall tax take (including GST, the 0/10 regime and income tax) between these two revenue generating sectors will be for the current tax year?


3.To Economic Development Minister
The minister promised last month to initiate a wide-ranging public consultation over the potential impact of the introduction of further competition into the postal market on the finances of Jersey Post and the maintenance of the USO; where is it and when can we expect the public and other stakeholders to be consulted?

Does the minister accept that proper regulation and not competition may be the way forward in the delivery of efficient postal services for all postal users?

4.To Treasury & Resources Minister:
Does the minister consider his description of GST as “mildly regressive” as a fair and balanced statement to use in his consultation on personal taxation when his own figures show that it has more than twice the impact on the income of the lowest earners than it does on the highest?

Will he also explain to members why in the consultation on personal tax, almost half of the questions concern business but he describes the Business tax review as a “technical exercise” aimed solely at business and taxation experts? Why has he not consulted the public on what they believe to be the correct balance to be struck between Business and Personal taxation?

Will the minister state why he has chosen to cap social security contributions at £115,000? Is it simply to be competitive with Guernsey’s £117,468? What would the effect be of removing the ceiling altogether

5.To Health Minister:
Will the minister inform members of the decision-making process relating to her CSR proposals, to include the timeline of meetings at which these decisions were made and who was making these decisions?

Where services are to be reduced will the department produce any risk or cost/benefit analysis carried out on the change?

Will the department state which, if any, any services are to be outsourced along with the estimated costs of such moves?

Where there are to be job losses, will the department give details of the terms and conditions being offered to staff under any VR or VER scheme which is in place, and state what timescale is envisioned for any such processes given that these proposals will not receive sanction from the States until September?

Will the department also give details of what consultation, if any, with employee representatives has taken place or will take place?

16 comments:

  1. What...just questions? No hate campaign? I feel cheated.

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  2. I agree with Stu, you progressives should not be asking questions but be in the States with all guns blazing accusing them of cover-ups, framing Stu, bullying Stu, losing him the election and killing his pet cat 'oligarchy'.

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  3. They've already done that....!

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  4. Deputy Trevor PitmanJune 29, 2010 at 10:54 AM

    Anonymous

    I think humour is great and that a good deal of recent goings on certainly deserve to be laughed at by members of the public. But I have to say joking about the death of a pet cat, which I believe was sadly run over, is in very bad taste and wholly un-called for. In fact I would also question why it was allowed to slip through on to the site.

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  5. Trevor:
    I let it through because I thought the joke was not at the expense of the poor cat, and I keep cats myself, but on the theory that there are dark forces in the island murdering the pets of political dissidents as punishment or intimidation. Which is risible.
    The comment can be deleted at the click of a mouse if you insist, though. Dave

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  6. Stu said on his blog that the cat was murdered and come on Trevor stop being a pussy!

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  7. Trevor wasn't being a pussy and I am not being catty but a joke like this is in bad taste - it will also only fuel some people's delusions and help them peddle the myth of a hate campaign. So that said I am with Trev on this one.

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  8. Trev

    Are you ever coming back to this blog - I'm getting worried? There are loads of rumours that you have left. It seems to me that progressive politics is in a mess. I don't think it could survive another body blow.

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  9. I never read that about Stuart's pet cat being murdered. This is obviously another cover-up so who is protecting the Establishment's Serial Cat Killer now?

    These are the questions that should be raised in the States with Home Affairs.

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  10. Forgetting the cat jokes for a minute (which did give me a chuckle) these are not bad questions from Geoff on tax. It is questions like these that Stuart would have never bothered asking even if he was in.

    This tax issue is the next big thing and people need to wake up to that fact.

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  11. Has anyone seen the hatchet job done by the JEP on Shona Pitman's proposition in support of the market sub-post office - the one asking for a full socio-economic review to inform the final decision? I know for a fact that the traders are not all against this and it actually has a lot of support. I'm going to make some more inquiries because from what I have heard today how this highly misleading story came about really needs to be made public. Watch this space. To think, they slag off citizens media!

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  12. Question that should be from Southern.
    "Will the Chief Minister kindly accept my resignation"

    17 Months to the end of the JDA.

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  13. Just when you think normal - if sometimes heated - political debate is returning to the political blogs what do we get but anonymous at number 17's comment.

    So long as Deputies Trevor and Shona Pitman are still committed to the cause and willing to tighten Southern's choke chain so that he starts to think about the bigger picture instead of his own ambitions the JDA will survive.

    I will certainly still vote for them. I would still vote for Syvret too if only he can sort his head out and make a few long overdue apologies.

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  14. Almost 17 days since the end of Syvret...

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  15. "Jaime said...

    Almost 17 days since the end of Syvret... "

    And, in the interests of balance, let us not forget that had Geoff Southern shown the integrity to stand by his initial promise not to enter the election, it would now be 17 days since his end too.

    And unlike Syvret, Southern's would not have been a willing retirement from politics.

    Just keeping it fair with the perspective...

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  16. Blimey mate. calling Syvret's exit from politics a voluntary retirement you should be careful you don't get done under the Trades Descriptions Act. He went because he was rejected by people like me who have given up on him and he cried, accussed, threatened and tried to bully all the way out of the polling station. Good rid.

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