Spat between Chief Minister and Dr Glover

[Uhtred]

1 hour ago, Lxxx said:

You will never be able to justify to me the money we pour into our healthcare budget and the results we see for that level of expenditure. No-one will. 

I wasn’t attempting to. I was pointing out that whereas the Island may be run by individuals whose abilities equate to the running of a parish council, the nature of the Island itself bears not the slightest resemblance to a parish council. 

[Roger Mexico]

8 minutes ago, The Dog's Dangly Bits said:

Id be very surprised if Hospice CEO isn't on that.

Quite possibly.  According to the latest accounts, the executive management was made up of 6 key roles with a total remuneration of £485,157 between those 6.  So the highest of those might well be over £100 k.  But it might not be the CEO as most of their key roles (see p 4) are doctors and medical salaries are high.

[Roger Mexico]

1 hour ago, Derek Flint said:

Some jobs carry high degrees of accountability and responsibility, where screwing up can lead to going to jail. The cops are an example. as an inspector, I earned over £50,000 a year.

But let's be honest here.  If such people do screw up professionally (rather than by committing 'ordinary' crimes such as theft) they never get held responsible, never get held to account, never go to jail, rarely to court.  At best early retirement on a full pension is their punishment.  This is true in the Island and in the UK as well - and just as true for those in similar positions of 'responsibility' in the private sector.

[wrighty]

2 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

 But the UK Cabinet Secretary (then Mark Sedwell) was on £210,000.  No one would expect his equivalent, Will Greenhow, to be paid pro-rata (that would be about £275 a year), but he's probably on about £145,000.  In comparison his equivalent in Wales is only on around £130,000.  Presumably that will be because Wales is so much smaller than the Isle of Man.

One way to avoid the ubiquitous Peter Principle that pervades bureaucracies is to pay more than equivalent positions across, not less. And then to deliberately recruit from outside after head-hunting from a successful organisation that is on the up. If as some are suggesting department heads are paid less than equivalents across then it would be impossible to recruit decent people and you’re left with promotion from within or taking on someone fleeing a train wreck. Or possibly both 

[Roger Mexico]

21 minutes ago, wrighty said:

One way to avoid the ubiquitous Peter Principle that pervades bureaucracies is to pay more than equivalent positions across, not less. And then to deliberately recruit from outside after head-hunting from a successful organisation that is on the up. If as some are suggesting department heads are paid less than equivalents across then it would be impossible to recruit decent people and you’re left with promotion from within or taking on someone fleeing a train wreck. Or possibly both 

Well that sounds very good in theory, but the whole idea that to get 'good people' at the top, you must pay them ever more and more[1] has been tested out pretty comprehensively in the Anglosphere over recent decades.  And it hasn't really worked - either in private or public spheres.  Instead UK and US management has become notorious for poor and short-term decision making.

The truth is that if you are attracting people to run organisations who see their main purpose in working as earning vast sums of money, then they will devote their time to doing what earns them most, rather than the good of those organisations or those who they are supposed to serve. 

You can try to moderate this with ever-more elaborate reward plans, but it usually ends up with the management running the company to 'game' those for their benefit rather than the company's.  In public organisations this can lead to defensive management where protecting the bureaucracy and producing the right 'key indicators' becomes the only things that matter.

Certainly the record of paying a lot to attract 'outsiders' hasn't worked.  Many of these: Proffitt, Charters, Longworth and so on have been complete disasters - and evidence of a mindset that sees bullying as being the same as efficiency.  Of course it's nearly always the opposite - a way of covering up incompetence.  And often the low-achieving (if well-connected) locals are the ones who benefit anyway.

 

[1]  Oddly enough the same principle never seems to apply to those lower down the pay scale.

[wrighty]

@Roger Mexico so what’s your solution? How do you incentivise good people to work here and stay here, and put off the sort of chancers and blaggers who look great on LinkedIn and have written their own references?

[BenFairfax]

1 hour ago, wrighty said:

@Roger Mexico so what’s your solution? How do you incentivise good people to work here and stay here, and put off the sort of chancers and blaggers who look great on LinkedIn and have written their own references?

Private sector is controlled by the market, in state section you need to have incentives for system in line with desired outcomes for users. In education on Island this just means management just suck up to DoE/HMKs. However, if all outcomes published (SATS/GCSE/A-Level and destinations), with incentives tied to these outcomes of users. Then though heads would still play the new system, at very least system is aiming at an objective which adds value to the users.   

I have nothing against what people earn, as long as we relate it to performance, where performance is tied to outcomes for the users. Publically funded state departments should focus on benefit for its users.

Edited November 30, 2020 by BenFairfax
typo

[Roger Mexico]

5 minutes ago, wrighty said:

@Roger Mexico so what’s your solution? How do you incentivise good people to work here and stay here, and put off the sort of chancers and blaggers who look great on LinkedIn and have written their own references?

It's not easy, though a good place to start is always to stop doing the stuff that doesn't work.  Throwing money at a problem (which is what this 'paying for the best' often amounts to) has been the preferred solution for too long.

One thing we ought to look at in recruiting people is attracting people who actually want the greater variety and responsibility that working in a small jurisdiction can offer.  Of course the problem is that this goes against the sort of ethos that has developed in the civil service over recent times where siloisation and elaborate hierarchies have become the rule.  But that has to change.

We probably need to look at the recruiting mechanisms as well - centralising HR tends to mean you end up with the blaggers because HR people will look for the comforting bullshit as what they should expect.

[Andy Onchan]

3 hours ago, The Dog's Dangly Bits said:

Well it is really.

It has to run.  You can call it what you like.  It's a huge turnover entity.  Why would you expect people to do it for fuck all?

Seriously, there are people earning FAR more in the private sector for a fraction of the work/responsibilities. 

I don't think anyone is saying that it should be done for fuck all.

As I see it, it's the quality of some of the people that are employed and the untouchability in regard to their actions or inaction.

43 minutes ago, wrighty said:

@Roger Mexico so what’s your solution? How do you incentivise good people to work here and stay here, and put off the sort of chancers and blaggers who look great on LinkedIn and have written their own references?

Bonuses based on targets achieved, there'll be some positions where that won't work but for the general pen-pusher then regular performance reviews by a Tynwald committee.

Fixed terms for Dept CEOs. If they want top money then they'll have to be prepared to work for it.

I think if the Government actually started to get real about performance and started to empty the slackers, incompetents and downright 'blaggers' and started acting like a proper employer then we might start to get the right applicants.

If you read through some of the job adverts it makes it sound as if we're desperate, offering all sorts of promises. Why don't the adverts say "don't bother applying unless you have the relevant experience, capability and drive to work for the taxpayer". Weed out the undesirables at the start of the process.

[Apple]

7 hours ago, TheTeapot said:

It's absolutely mental that the chief exec/clerk of Ramsey commissioners is on more than £100000. Mental. 

If that amount is correct then that is a scandal in my opinion. How can the people of Ramsey accept that. 

[Apple]

4 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

It's not easy, though a good place to start is always to stop doing the stuff that doesn't work.  Throwing money at a problem (which is what this 'paying for the best' often amounts to) has been the preferred solution for too long.

One thing we ought to look at in recruiting people is attracting people who actually want the greater variety and responsibility that working in a small jurisdiction can offer.  Of course the problem is that this goes against the sort of ethos that has developed in the civil service over recent times where siloisation and elaborate hierarchies have become the rule.  But that has to change.

We probably need to look at the recruiting mechanisms as well - centralising HR tends to mean you end up with the blaggers because HR people will look for the comforting bullshit as what they should expect.

Hear,hear, 

For start let's look at why people don't stay, leave before appointment or soon after. And then train Managers to recruit and retain staff with some autonomy on how they do that.  We seriously need to review what has been going wrong. Something is at the heart of the failures of the last 5 years or so, but then erasure of the organisational memory has been an objective during that period in my opinion.

Many people I speak to even now tell me of not feeling valued if you are not in the right "clique".

Most of those in the DHSC know what attitudes have been developed during that time (mostly do as I say and not as I do) and the main exponents of that approach. Some who post on here know it too but are content to just let it go. 

[Apple]

Don't get me wrong - love the hospital, admire and respect a lot of the people who work hard there and have worked there before being unceremoniously 'let go', one way or another. (as part of some sort of cleansing routine I guess)

It used to be said;-

1. If it isn't written down, it didn't happen.

2. Poor record keeping usually mean poor clinical practices.

Digitisation of records and the ongoing development of methodical clinical pathways (cookbook clinical practices) will not replace the need for a certain type of honest relationship between the public and clinical staff. 

 

Edited November 30, 2020 by Apple

[The Voice of Reason]

10 hours ago, Uhtred said:

It’s not though is it? No parish council in the UK runs, for example, an NHS, and has to operate it according to the same clinical and governance standards as the UK.

Well said

[finlo]

1 hour ago, Apple said:

If that amount is correct then that is a scandal in my opinion. How can the people of Ramsey accept that. 

It's not just Ramsey they're all at it!

[Apple]

10 hours ago, Uhtred said:

It’s not though is it? No parish council in the UK runs, for example, an NHS, and has to operate it according to the same clinical and governance standards as the UK.

The NHS here seems to be able to choose to follow what is deemed to be 'best practice' rather than implement everything the UK has done such as NICE guidance. That has been one of the problems.