Extra funding for Home Affairs rejected

The president of Home Affairs has said he was "bitterly disappointed" after three requests for further funding were rejected.

The committee had put forward three amendments to maintain frontline services, protect vulnerable groups and safeguard the economy in the alternative budgets proposed by Policy & Resources (P&R), totalling nearly an additional £4m under option A budget and nearly £2.3m under option B.

Deputy Marc Leadbeater said as a consequence his committee will have to make cuts to keep essential services running.

P&R Vice-President Yvonne Burford said the additional funding requested had already been incorporated in Option B budget.

Option A includes 1% savings in real terms.

Option B includes spending cuts alongside about £15.7m of additional expenditure suggested by committees.

Burford said: "[Option B] has gone through the normal and rigorous budget process.

"We have spoken to Home Affairs and gone through their very detailed application and made the judgements that the committee and treasury make every year on every submission."

Burford told deputies if they still sought a one percent cut in real terms they should support option A, which is called proposition 16 in the official budget paperwork.

"However to start amending option 16 ad hoc means we really are in the Wild West of budget territory."

Deputies should reach a decision on which budget is adopted by the end of this week.

Before the budget, Leadbeater told the BBC that even if the amendments were rejected, the Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) would still run in 2027 despite being unfunded as it was an "essential service".

He said he was not sure where the cuts will come from.

"We'll go away and we'll put our heads together with the service chiefs.

"We'll do everything we can to maintain the services to whatever level we can.

"Obviously we're looking at plan B. We've always got to look at plan B - it's not something we've nailed down at this point," he said.

The Home Affairs president said that response times could increase and some incidents may not be responded to.

When asked if the decisions would make people less safe, Leadbeater said not funding frontline services would have "consequences".

Follow BBC Guernsey on X, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to channel.islands@bbc.co.uk.