The committee is the last and by far the biggest spender among all States committees to respond to official questions posed by Deputy Chris Le Tissier over the cost of its travel. It has told the deputy that it was not happy with the time spent on the exercise.
‘The Policy & Resources Committee agrees that the transparency of taxpayer’s money is desirable, but the level of detail needs to be proportionate to the aim,’ said president Lyndon Trott in his answer.
One member of staff in external relations spent a full week on the exercise and others had to work unpaid overtime to deal with issues including the UK election.
‘The committee is of the view that publishing this level of detail on a regular basis is not a good use of staff resources or taxpayers’ money given the relatively small expenditure in respect of the overall Policy & Resources budget and specifically the external relations budget,’ said Deputy Trott.
P&R suggested that future reports should be limited to long haul flights or trips which cost more than £1,500 per person, ‘where demonstrating value for money would have the greatest benefit in terms of transparency compared to the administrative burden of collating the data’.
The committee’s travel costs have come to an average of £26,000 per annum over the period. It produced 21 sheets of data to total up travel costs of £70,981.42, and a further 13 sheets to include another £21,278 in expenses.
The most expensive trip by far was that to the COP28 climate conference in Dubai in December 2023, attended by Deputies Jonathan Le Tocq and Lindsay de Saumarez, plus staff, which came in at more than £12,000. There was also some £2,000 spent for Deputy Le Tocq to sign a tax agreement in Doha, and party conferences in the UK were often quite costly, with the Labour Conference in Liverpool in October 2023 the most expensive, with hotels topping £400 per person per night for four people over a three-night stay.