The publications, costing almost £8,000, come at a time when the committee is clamping down on spending.Rents have risen over the last six months, and the department is starting 2004 with a negative budget – it will have to spend £238,000 less than it receives from tenants in income.Deputy Le Main said that the revamped Tenant Handbook and the new Community News magazine had been produced at a low cost, and that the handbook had been designed so that tenants could keep it and refer to it from time to time.Community News is the first edition of a newsletter put out by the estates section of the Housing Department, aimed at keeping tenants informed about what is going on.
All 4,500 States tenants have received copies of both publications at a total cost of almost £8,000.
The handbooks cost £1.29 each to produce, and the newsletter has cost 18p per copy.
Both were distributed by Jersey Post for a final cost of £7,915.’We have a duty to make sure that tenants understand the issues, and we do this sort of thing on a regular basis,’ said Deputy Le Main.
