Chief minister says AI brings Jersey opportunities

Artificial intelligence (AI) could help to improve public services without putting existing jobs at risk and Jersey should seek to benefit from technological advances, the island's chief minister has said.

In his first major pitch to business leaders since his re-election as chief minister, Senator Lyndon Farnham said ministers would support local firms to adopt AI, and islanders to develop skills needed in modern workplaces.

Although AI had to be used "responsibly", he added, it could also support continuing efforts to curb growth in the public sector.

A recent series of warnings about the potential dangers of AI have led to calls for co-ordinated action to slow the technology's development.

"I think AI can bring a lot of opportunities," he said at a Chamber of Commerce lunch entitled A New Term, New Priorities.

"We're hearing from global news at the moment there are potential challenges and we have to be, I think, mindful of how we allow AI to develop and the control we give it.

"But there is certainly scope for it to bring greater productivity and improve services in the public sector and we're focusing on that and our digital team have started to roll that out already."

Farnham said he hoped increasing reliance on AI would not put existing public sector jobs at risk.

"What it will mean is we'll be able to do more with the resources we have," he said.

"In the past, we would just take on more resources to do more.

"I think becoming more productive, embracing the use of AI will allow us to do more work, but with the resources we have."

In addition to the role AI might play, Farnham said that a recruitment freeze introduced in August 2024 after the public sector workforce grew to its highest level since records began had already prevented "in the region of 500 new positions occurring, saving tens of millions of pounds".

He said his government had subsequently taken "1,000 job vacancies out of the system", and introduced restrictions on the use of consultancy and agency staff.

"So although the cost of government has increased, mainly in line, now, with inflation, we have certainly curbed the growth," he added.

Farnham told the audience of business leaders ministers could not ask businesses to become more efficient while allowing the public sector to grow.

"We will therefore maintain firm control over the size and the cost of government," he said.

"The recruitment restrictions introduced in the last term have helped control expenditure and refocus the workforce.

"We will maintain that momentum."

But Michael Van Neste, the former head of the Jersey Homes Trust, said the chief minister's speech could "easily" have been made decades earlier.

"When Frank Walker was the chief minister, he had an objective of reducing red tape and reducing the cost of the civil service," he told the BBC.

"Things have just got worse and worse and worse - and the cost of the civil service has to be sustainable.

"At the moment, there's a crude cap on recruitment to level-off the cost of the civil service."

He continued: "The very fact they've had to put a cap on recruitment is an indication that things are not really in control."

He said it was evident that Farnham wanted to curb public sector growth, but added: "I just wonder whether anyone in the current Council of Ministers has the leadership to achieve those objectives."

Speaking after she had listened to Farnham's speech, recruitment consultant Shelley Kendrick said that the "evolution of AI" had already led to changes in the ways private sector organisations worked.

"We see people on a weekly basis who are being made redundant," she said.

"There isn't jobs for them to go to, so what are we going to do about that?"

She said the government needed to do more to address skills shortages, which she claimed were affecting half of Jersey businesses.

In response, Farnham said there was a need for "even stronger links" between schools and Highlands College and employers, "so that we are developing the skills Jersey will need into the future".

He continued: "Artificial intelligence is already beginning to transform the way we work and do business.

"Jersey should not simply respond to that change - we should position ourselves to benefit from it.

"That means helping businesses adopt AI, developing the skills our workforce will need and using it responsibly within government to improve performance, efficiency and public services."

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