Tuesday 29 October 2013
Media enquiry from Damian Wrigley, Guernsey Press:
In regards to the news the department is considering ending the contract with Jersey met office, can you please arrange answers to the following questions:
- What exactly do the Jersey Met office provide for the department?
- What is this information used for?
- Why is the Guernsey Met office not used?
- Is the contract switching to another provider or has the department decided it can do without data from a Met office? If so, why can it do without the information?
- What is the cost of the contract?
- Is the department ending the contract on purely cost terms or is the information simply no longer required?
- What does the department believe are the benefits of ending the contract?
- Does it believe islanders will be negatively impacted by the Environment department not having information from the Jersey Met office?
Environment Department's response:
Channel Island met services are essentially targeted at 4 service areas: Guernsey community forecasts; Guernsey airport/aviation forecasts; Jersey Community forecasts; and Jersey airport/aviation forecasts. The Environment Department holds the budget for the Guernsey Community forecast element only. This forecast includes shipping but not aviation.
Forecasting requires data (temperature, humidity, wind speed, pressure etc) to be collected. This data is collected both in Guernsey and Jersey. The combined data along with data from other jurisdictions is used to develop the forecasts. Guernsey met services based at the airport monitor Guernsey data and share that with Jersey. Jersey monitors Jersey data which it shares with Guernsey but Jersey also develops the forecasts. Specifically the Guernsey met office does not have the resources to generate the Guernsey (or Jersey) community met forecast.
The Guernsey Community forecast is available through the media (including the internet) to give the weather outlook and is hence used by the general population but also by fishing and other vessels. The Department has not made any decision in respect of the community met forecast other than to consult other Departments to establish the importance of the forecasts to those departments.
The total cost of the service to the Environment Department is around £330k which is split roughly 1/3 and 2/3 and paid respectively to Guernsey met for data collection and to Jersey met for forecasting.
The annual met costs are increasing whilst the overall budget of the department is decreasing. To date it has not been possible to reduce the met costs. As a consequence other service areas are currently being reduced to meet the increasing met costs and this is not sustainable. The cost basis of all the Department's service areas has been examined and the met service cannot be excluded from that process.
ENDS
