Chair’s Statement Chair of the Board, Phil Austin MBE, heads a highly experienced team of Executive and independent nonExecutive directors in providing strategic leadership of Jersey Electricity, within a framework of robust corporate governance and internal controls, to promote the long-term success of the Company. The COVID-19 pandemic has again brought continued challenges for our Island community and Jersey Electricity. Though we avoided another total lockdown, public health restrictions imposed by the Government of Jersey as part of its COVID-19 Winter Strategy continued to disrupt life and business. As cases escalated from the start of October 2020, working from home was reintroduced, and non-essential retail and social venues were closed.
The Company and its employees again responded well and, indeed, benefited from lessons learned earlier in 2020 when the pandemic first took hold. We maintained rigorous standards to keep our people and the community safe, while ensuring the continuity of electricity supplies for homes, businesses, Government, and other essential services. New technologies, rapidly deployed among the workforce in the first lockdown, are now mainstream and ensured a seamless switch to home working, where practicable, and continuity of all our other business functions. The result is that we maintained high levels of flexibility, productivity and performance throughout.
Performance
Revenue for the year to 30 September 2021 at £118.6m was 6% higher than in the previous financial year. Profit before tax for the year to 30 September 2021, was a strong £19.1m against £14.8m in 2020. However, if the non-cash upside from the revaluation of investment properties is excluded in both years, along with the non-cash cost of £1.8m for the exgratia award for pensions in service in 2021, the underlying year-on-year profit before tax is £14.8m in 2021 against £14.3m in 2020, an increase of 3%. The Board has therefore recommended a final dividend for the year of 10.20p, a 5% increase on the previous year, payable on 24 March 2022. We also continued to achieve high levels of non-financial performance, including our annual Customer Minutes Lost (CMLs) figure, which is unchanged at a low level of five CMLs, and our independently assessed Customer Service score, increased to 78.4 in 2021 from 77 last year.
French fishing dispute
During the year, we have also seen an escalation of political issues between the EU and the UK on fishing rights between France and Jersey, raising questions about energy sovereignty and the security of supply of imported electricity between Europe and the Channel Islands. We have taken such matters very seriously and have liaised closely with senior civil servants and politicians in Jersey and the UK. Whilst we view these matters as being political, we have taken the
2
JERSEY ELECTRICITY
Annual Report and Accounts 2021
2
