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Sarah Ferguson

St Brelade's Deputy Sarah Ferguson is a former engineer who joined the States after a number of years as an honorary police officer, a system she supports.Ìý She's the only woman standing for Senator in this election.

Deputy Ferguson is the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee for three years and wants better financial management of States funding, and would like to see the income support system reviewed.

She also believes there are still people falling through the education system and would like to see more emphasis placed on teaching basic skills.

Manifesto

My name is Sarah Ferguson and I am the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
My website (www.sarahferguson.net) will tell you about my activities, and will explain my stance on GST.

The PAC has been working for the past three years to get behind the figures in the accounts and to assess the state of financial management in the States.

Improving financial management and controls is not newsworthy; it is behind the scenes work, it is technical and it takes time. But we have identified the problems and reported publically on them, a great step forward.

The recent spending review came up with savings of at least £30 million pounds a year, not immediately but eventually.

So why aren’t we working on it already? We are.

In the Business Plan my amendments mean that the Council of Ministers must produce an action plan to implement these efficiencies. And I want the public, you, it’s your money, to be involved in the debate,

The PAC intends to bring amendments to the public finance law, this will mean that there is legislation in place to make sure the improved financial control and financial management of States expenditure is achieved.

Why is this important?

We have a system where maintenance and infrastructure have been ignored in favour of new projects.

What householder ignores painting the windows until they get rotten and fall out? What householder spends carefully assessing where the money will come from? How they must prioritise what is nice to have and what is essential.

We are all struggling with balancing our own expenditure budgets, but at least we acknowledge what our budgets are, currently budgeting is a game to the States.

You will hear many promises in these elections, I merely ask you to ask ‘How much will it cost? And where will that money come from?’.

I want to give the Public Accounts Committee a louder voice for commonsense and prudence when addressing spending. An all-island mandate will give me that loud voice.

During my apprenticeship as a Deputy, I have shown with a bit of commonsense and cooperation, not to mention persistence, we can get things done.

Please give me your mandate to continue.