Isle of Man Guide

The budget target for DHA in 2012/13 is £30,927,600 which is an overall reduction of £691,900 (2.2%) from the 2011/12 budget.

However, given existing issues with the current budget, pay awards, increments and increased loan charges, cost savings of around £1.3m (4%) need to be found.

Between its peak in 2007/8 and 2011/12 the Departmental budget reduced by £6.5m (17.1%). The DHA has the highest percentage of staff costs of all Government Departments (74%) so finding additional savings for 2012/13 and beyond has been extremely challenging.

A fundamental and strategic review of the criminal justice system has already begun, with proposals for change due to be delivered to the Chief Minister within six months. We are hopeful that in future years this review will deliver some of the necessary savings by reforming the criminal justice system into one that is much more streamlined and efficient.

However, savings must still be found in the short term for 2012/13 and this has been difficult. In the past 12 months headcount reductions of 34 staff have been made, largely through non-replacement of vacant roles, transfers to vacant posts in other Government Departments and early retirements. Our policy to date has been to minimise the impact to any front-line services.

Unfortunately however, as discretionary spend has already been minimised, the additional cuts required will mean a reduction to front-line services and headcount.

Consultation on how to achieve the cuts has already begun with staff and Trade Unions and will continue in the coming weeks.

Where front-line services are to be reduced, each case will be assessed to mitigate risk both to the public and to the remaining staff.

The Constabulary has been very successful in reducing crime in recent years and has reviewed its current scale and methods of operation with the outcome that it may no longer be possible to keep all of the current stations open.

The Fire and Rescue Service may not be able to provide the same proactive approach to community fire safety initiatives in the future. However, we will work with colleagues in other Departments to try to mitigate the impact to the public.

In the Island’s Prison and Probation Service, we are in the process of undertaking a function review in order to analyse all essential and non-essential work to see how we can work differently to meet our budgetary cuts and minimise the impact of any job losses.

The current prison population is such that the closure of individual wings cannot be considered but it may be necessary for us to undertake a further function review in the future if the review of the criminal justice system brings an emphasis on community penalties rather than custody in appropriate cases.

In our Communications Service, we are looking at proposals to change the structure of the service following a series of planned retirements over the next two years.

The Minister for Home Affairs, Juan Watterson MHK, outlined the Department’s thinking on the 2012/13 Budget as follows:

‘The DHA has found meeting the challenges of the 2012/13 budget to be particularly challenging. DHA is at the front line of public safety, and by any measure has been successful in terms of the safety outcomes it has achieved even with declining budgets. It is not easy to provide a full policing, fire, prison, probation and communications infrastructure for only £1 per person per day, and I would like to think that the public get excellent value for money for this.’

He added:

‘The nature of the Department’s services means that any reduction at the front line must be carefully evaluated to minimise the impact on public and staff safety. I firmly believe that, in planning our services for the next 12 months, we have been able to strike the difficult balance between the protection of the public and the need to live within reduced means. I will of course monitor carefully the quality of provision across the breadth of the Department’s services to ensure that our high standards are maintained.’

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