I noted this report in the Jersey Evening Post today:
A decision to authorise the largest-ever States grant to Jersey Finance will help ensure the Island remains internationally competitive, according to the organisation's chief executive Geoff Cook. Economic Development Minister Alan Maclean signed off the grant of over £4 million last week.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
I don’t believe that Jersey Finance should be subsidised by public money, but it’s a bit of a long-shot to say the bankers cannot survive without this subsidy.
Hard to get worked up over 4m. More along the lines of, meh…….
Stafeno,
£4m from a Jersey population of 100,000 would equate to £2.4 billion from the UK population of 60m. Not such small beer then, is it?
Finance in Jersey continues to shed jobs and unemployment mounts without any prospect of diversification producing alternatives. Administrators, clerks and even Lawyers are being offered retraining in hopitality as waiters and waitresses. Times are tough. The question is when will working people in Jersey realise it is their government that is to blame for policies favouring Finance alone.
Is this £4 million grant inclusive of, or on top of, the near on £1m being paid out to McKinsey (iirc) to chart a way forward for Finance in Jersey? Which no States members, that I am aware of, have queried as being rather close on the heels of a similar study carried out by the London Business School – in 2008 or 2009 , I believe.
The total subsidy is far bigger. I worked it out, in 2010 I think it was, with figures that have never been refuted, as £11 million a year – top-paid civil servants,law drafting time, and most costly of all the police and court work which the Finance Industry necessitates.
Many of Jersey’s bankers could probably find a couple million in loose change done the back of their sofas. Makes me sick when capitalists preach the virtues of a ‘free market’ but then run to the taxpayer to protect themselves from it.