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A review of how much the States’ top earners in the judiciary should be paid for the next three years needs more time.
An independent panel has completed an initial investigation to decide what the baseline pay should be for these individuals, but they are yet to be considered by the Policy & Resources Committee, which has oversight of public sector remuneration.
“Consequently, there has been no change to anyone’s baseline pay at this time,” Deputy Lyndon Trott, P&R President, said in response to formal written questions from Deputy Gavin St Pier.
Policy & Resources had committed to reviewing the pay of judges and senior law officers, who are among the highest paid group in the public sector, because of previous P&R work on altering public sector pension arrangements.
The 2022 States accounts show there were eight people within that bracket throughout that year.
It decided an independent group should do this every three years, consulting with the Bailiff and others. That group includes a former Bailiff, Sir Geoffrey Rowland KC, a formal Deputy Chief Minister Allister Langlois, also joined by John Steele.
Any change in pay would be based on several factors including inflation, retention, attractiveness, and the health of the public purse, then P&R President Deputy Peter Ferbrache said last year.
Deputy Gavin St Pier called for transparency about future pay settlements, predicting that the recommendation would be to increase pay for these roles. He also accepted that delays were encountered despite repeated efforts from successive committees to carry out the review.
“However, notwithstanding any discomfort in doing so, it is essential that P&R are open and transparent about the pay settlement that results, as they would be with every other publicly funded pay group,” he said.
Pictured: Deputy Gavin St Pier was at the helm when the review was planned to start in 2019, but the pandemic response diverted resources.
Separately, Deputy St Pier also queried the amount of remuneration received by jurats – lay people who act as judges of fact in lieu of public juries in local court proceedings.
Jurats are not paid a salary for their work in the judiciary, but the group of 16 do split a pot of fees collected throughout property contract court at the end of the year.
It was revealed that between 2019 and 2022 the total amount collected for distribution was somewhere between £200,000 and £228,000 each year.
That amounts approximately to between £12,500 and £14,250 per jurat over the four-year period.
Deputy St Pier said having jurats oversee contracts “was more obvious when most of the population was illiterate”, and that if any changes are proposed to conveyancing processes then the effect on jurats should be considered.
“Because these fees effectively come in and go out in the year, they do not really form a part of the Royal Court’s budget or accounts, but these are public funds nevertheless and an additional cost in respect of certain contracts,” he added.
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