Guernsey Social Housing Committee Seeks Increased Maintenance Funding

The body overseeing social housing in Guernsey has sought £670,000 for the upkeep of its managed properties. Peter Roffey, President of Employment and Social Security (ESS), has put forward a budget amendment for 2025, requesting this additional sum. Policy and Resources (P&R) had previously proposed an allocation of slightly less than £7m for ESS’s social housing maintenance in 2025. P&R’s response is anticipated at a subsequent time. Roffey stated in the explanatory note accompanying the budget amendment that “all responsible landlords should, as a minimum, reinvest sufficient sums in their property portfolios to maintain those properties to a decent standard”. He further added, “With the allocation suggested, coupled with the higher costs being experienced for this work, the committee will simply be unable to meet this core duty.” While ESS requested an additional £1m for the budget, P&R has advised a £370,000 rise in the committee’s financial ceiling for social housing building upkeep. In addition to these suggestions for increased social housing maintenance funds, 18 other budget alteration proposals have been introduced. These encompass Roffey’s initiatives for a 5% GST, reduced income tax rates, and social security reforms; Deputy Charles Parkinson’s proposals for an elevated corporate tax; and Deputy Mark Helyar’s proposals for a moratorium on States expenditure. Yvonne Burford, President of the Scrutiny Management Committee, has put forth a suggestion to advance the deadline for releasing plans to overhaul the island’s tax system to March 2026. The current deadline is September 2026. The president and vice-president of Education, Sport and Culture have presented proposals for a £151,000 increment to the grant designated for St James. They have also recommended raising the tax on certain alcoholic beverages by 0.9% to finance this increase. Conversely, P&R has proposed maintaining the current alcohol tax rates, a decision that received approval from the Guernsey Hospitality Association. Despite a request from the States last year, P&R has not introduced any new transport taxes in this budget. Lindsay de Sausmarez, President of Environment and Infrastructure, has submitted a motion to “progress without delay the work to reduce the States’ over-reliance on fuel duty” in anticipation of the 2026 tax review. Deputies Sam Haskins and Dave Mahoney have presented plans for additional tax concessions for landlords. Meanwhile, two other deputies are advocating for increased revenue generation from local businesses via the registry. Deputies Sasha Kazantseva-Miller and John Dyke have put forward proposals to ask the Registrar of Companies to consider boosting the revenue produced by Guernsey Registry by up to 20% starting from 2026. These proposals are scheduled for deliberation at the States meeting commencing on 5 November. For updates, follow BBC Guernsey on X and Facebook. Story ideas can be submitted to channel.islands@bbc.co.uk. Copyright 2024 BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC bears no responsibility for the content of external sites. Information regarding our approach to external linking is available.