Don't Take Away Our Holidays!

Commentary by J. Brock (FINN)

During the presentation of the alternative budget during the last public meeting, it was proposed that Government close the Holiday Credit scheme. It would be a detriment to the Islands if it were cut. I would like you to think again about that.

SL: Obviously we realise that a lot of people do feel that way. Perhaps the problem we face is that if you are in a position where you are having to make some people redundant, it’s very difficult to justify to those people why they are getting the chop from what might have been considered an essential post and yet you are still giving people money to go on holiday. Obviously there are all sorts of arguments for and against it. There has been a fair bit of discussion on his – the pros and cons of doing it.

Comment: During the Alternative Budget presentation, it was mentioned that there was not going to be much of an impact on the number of redundancies and only two or three jobs would be phased out.

SL: In that process we tried to minimise the impact on full time local resident employees. That is because it is something we have been actively aiming for while making cut-backs in other areas.

Q1-P1: You are saying that there are not going to be any redundancies?

SL: Not in the first stage but we don’t know whether the second or third stages will bring.

MS: There are a number of assumptions about moving people around in jobs because one of the principle affects of cutting the capital programme is that a lot of people who worked on capital works no longer have jobs. You have to find them other employment. Some of the first people affected would be the road gang and the road programme work would come (to a halt). And also other people working for other contractors so in the overall scenario the Chief Executive presented there are actually a number of assumptions about people losing jobs and being re-employed elsewhere. And, there is not as much certainty in that if you are one of those people who are being re-employed, as it were.

Comment: I would argue that those people who are moved or made redundant, you are also taking away one privilege. You call it a privilege. I would suggest it is a little more fundamental than that. You are saying that when a person is moved, he is going to lose his entitlement to go overseas for moving into Camp or whatever.

JB: At this point in time, there have been no decisions made as yet. What’s happened is that Council has been up front about this entire situation and this is what may be if something happens. Nothing is decided yet. We are just trying to be as up front as possible.

Comment: Yes but even though you are saying you are up front, you still have considered this.

SL: Somebody made the point…

Q2-P1: Would Government carry on paying the pension. Would they lose their pension?

JB: No. You wouldn’t lose your pension. Whatever is paid in, is paid in.

Comment: But if you lose your job, you can’t pay in to your pension.

JB: We are not some Victorian mill owner here. If tough decisions have got to be made for the good of the Falklands, then we will make those decisions. And, some of them may well be unpopular. We might not have to make any unpopular decisions.

Comment: But nobody wants that to happen.

JB: We are well aware of how unpopular that decision will be if it was made. Oddly enough, I disagree with the editorial about it not affecting the majority of the people making the decision. It would. It would affect a lot of people. It certainly will affect me but, as I say, we are elected to do the best we can for the Islands but nothing has been decided yet.

JC: I would be unhappy to see it because, to me, it would be like a return to the ‘70s where we had a huge differential then in salaries as well. I know that it is no longer a part of the package for Government employees. It would be a great shame but it would only be done in dire circumstances. We already know that we are taking a cut in revenue because a reduction in fees as an incentive to bring the Illex fisheries back in. So, we already know there is going to be a significant cut. It would be unrealistic of us not to look at every possibility to save us. And, I would be deeply regretful if that had to go but we have to face reality. If revenue is many millions down, as it could be, then that is something, which the Islands can’t afford.

Q3-P1: What if all the licences are taken up?

JC: There is still a reduction in revenue.

Q4-P1: What would the reduction in revenue be?

JC: I don’t have the precise figures in front of me. Michael Blanch (does).

MS: It would be about £5 Million on Illex but there would also be a reduction on Loligo because we have already agreed that for the first season next year the Loligo season has to be halved so there will be a substantial hit on Loligo licence fees in the first season next year, which actually falls into this year’s budget.

JC: Clearly, I have an interest. People must understand that but the cut is more than half. Normally it’s a four-month season. It’s being cut to six weeks.

Q5-P1: From When?

JC: Six weeks from mid to late February. So, although the cut in revenue isn’t the same as the cut in fishing time, it is a serious cut.

SL: We are anticipating somewhere between £7 and £8 Million short-fall. That’s if all the licences are taken up. It could potentially be worse than that.

MS: If catches are decent this year then we could anticipate that the following year we could push fees up a little bit but we are not going to be able to shove them straight back up again to what they were before so almost whatever happens we’re £5, £7, £8 Million short in this year’s revenue, perhaps a a couple of million better off in the following year because there’s still quite a gap to be met. And, whether that’s met by continuing to reduce capital expenditure on projects that are designed to benefit the whole community or you look at effectively what we have done with the Holiday Credit Scheme is to look at those areas that are effectively distribution – distribution of part of the wealth to the people – those are judgements to be made. It is just that. It is a distribution scheme. It’s a bit like wages for everybody. It’s a relatively small level. I appreciate that. If you ever got to the position we were talking about last month where you were freezing wages, you find it philosophically difficult to justify paying out money for people to go on holiday when you are freezing people’s wages.

Comment: I would argue that it is more than a holiday scheme. As the previous Chief Executive put it, it is cultural ventilation. You do programme that in as part of your lifestyle. That could be an asset for education for our children. It would be a good excuse for that scheme so we could go and vet colleges. It’s got a wider use than just for holiday.

SL: We appreciate that a lot of people feel strongly about it and we do take that on board but, at the end of the day, if you’ve got to cut back, something has got to go and this is one of the things. It won’t be the end of it by any matter of means. We are looking at other things in different areas. The whole process takes the view that nothing is sacred. We have to look at all the possibilities. We may decide that some of them are unpalatable and don’t want to do them but, at the end of the day, it is something we’ve got to look at if we want to make the figures balance.

RE: We haven’t looked at all the bits just yet. When we know next year better to know exactly where we are going to make a much informed decisions, important decisions on where we are going and how we do it. For instance, it cost twice as much today to run Government than it did in 1995, if you look at the estimates. So, the increase is made up of a huge number of posts since ’95 to the present day. If we didn’t have them in ’95, why have we got them today? Why are they so urgent today? There are many, many things that we seem to forget.

Comment: I quite agree with you but it takes three men today the same amount of time it took one man a couple of years ago.

RE: This is an open-ended thing. There is a million and one ways to do the same thing.

JB: I know. The easiest thing this Council could do is to pretend that nothing’s wrong. As a former Councillor put in a letter, this should have been put in a manifesto. Those sitting around here a year ago had no idea that 12 months on we would be in this situation. For the next three years, we could have pretended that nothing was wrong. We could go out and decide to retire. And, the next lot that come in will be in the brown and smelly. And then you get the blame. And they would get the blame.

Comment: I think some clever person would pick it all out.

JB: So we are trying to be up front about it and tell it the way it is.

SL: The point is we have only got a certain amount of money in the consolidated fund. OK, at the moment, it’s quite a lot but there may come a point in future years when we’ve got to rely on that very heavily. If we start burning a hole now, just for two or three years of keeping up the good times, we might come to regret that a few years down the line. I think it’s a case of planning for the future and looking at everything and trying to make the whole thing and trying to make the whole thing work out as best we can.

Q6-P1: How much a year is this thing costing?

JC: £600,000.00

JC: We have only got some information here but we are trying to find out – we had a tourism meeting yesterday – how much is spent within the Islands, to see how much of that holiday credit stays within. Unfortunately (because of holiday in the Secretariat) people have worked hard this afternoon to find out. Since July. Out of £298,000.00 spent since July, only £9,000.00 was spent here. We are trying to find out ways and means of not doing away with that. Nobody’s happy with it. It comes back around that it is a tough decision.

Comment: You could cut down on Government spending by cutting down on the amount of paper used. If you look at the public meeting, the last public meeting we had, there was a hand-out with that. The one before that was the one on the possible town plan. Now because of this, it will be another 10 years before we can look at that again. The point I am making is that leaflets were put in all the boxes. It was a nice coloured brochure. I am just asking the question, how much did that cost, to put on that presentation? It was far reaching but now we are getting nothing. And, now, the Police Charter has been distributed to all the boxes.

SL: The town plan is an on-going thing that takes a long-term view. This might have blown over in two years’ time and we will be back to normal again. You can’t just suspend everything in life just because you might be in a blip.

MS: You don’t need extra money to plan the shape of the town.

Comment: You employ somebody to do it and that costs money.

MS: It’s part of his job.

RE: You’ve got to have some plan as a basis for change.

Comment: I can see where you are going. The point is the amount of paper produced to produce that end product. There is also the police charter. The whole comment is about the Government wasting money on the paper that is being pushed around. I was using it as two examples.

SL: I take your point but the other side of the coin is if things weren’t sent around, people would say the Government was a closed shop, wasn’t open and nobody was told what was going on. You are right but there is an issue to keep people informed.

MS: But there is a cost to information and if you think back to the good old days, the way things were before when not so much money was spent providing information to people, people didn’t know so much about what was going on. You hear how marvellous things were in the old days but by God, you didn’t know much about what was going on.

JB: or how good it was without the information.

Comment: There were a lot more nosy people then.

(100X Transcription Service)