Airport.

[Roger Mexico]

8 hours ago, madmanxpilot said:

Those that did apply were told that they didn't have relevant 'Board Experience'. 

And this is one of the many problems with NEDs.  The main people you appoint are the sort of people who sit on lots of other Boards.  And they are often the sort of people who sit on the committees that appoint people to Boards.  So you end up with lots of people who are very good at fulfilling the criteria for sitting on Boards as NEDS (some people appear to do little else).  

So you get people who all look at things in the same way and share the same assumptions.  Rather than bringing in wide experience of the outside world, hopefully relevant to the organisation they are supposed to help supervise, they are looking for uniformity and following conventional wisdom.

This has always been the problem with NEDs  in British business, they are mainly there to look good and even if they make suggestions or try to get things fixed they are usually ignored and eventually replaced.  Once upon a time the Boards would be filled with retired military men and members of the House of Lords and it's not really much different nowadays, though the line-up may be superficially a bit more diverse.  

[Roger Mexico]

8 hours ago, slinkydevil said:

LinkedIn is a recruitment tool. Plenty of successful businesses and people use it exclusively for that purpose.

The trouble with Linkedin as a recruitment tool is that it's mainly useful for recruiting tools.

2 hours ago, slinkydevil said:

That doesn't make sense, you would just treat them with the same safeguards as a person applying through traditional methods. Anyway, I'll take the word of multi-million-pound entrepreneurs obtaining 90% of their workforce from LinkedIn applicants over yours.

But are they really "multi-million-pound entrepreneurs" or is that just what they say on Linkedin.

It's actually a set of real dilemmas for people in the job market.  They need to be on Linkedin because it is suspicious if you're not or without sufficient information (eg Spake) and a lot of people will look there first.  But the question is how much you follow the general Linkedin mood of self-promotion and mindless enthusiasm.  Some potential employers may be put off; others expect it as a minimum.  And many employers may be using HR departments or agencies to filter or headhunt that will not even consider people who don't play the Linkedin game in the expected manner.

[slinkydevil]

2 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

But are they really "multi-million-pound entrepreneurs" or is that just what they say on Linkedin.

Well, it was Stephen Bartlett, so what do you think? Yeah, he's probably lying. Stop being such a boomer Roger, it's well known LinkedIn Recruiter is a well-used employment tool as part of the recruitment process. Corporates don't pay $1080/month for LinkedIn Recruiter because it doesn't produce results.

ETA: Personally I hate the thing and have a limited profile, but you can't discount that it is used as a popular recruitment tool by major corps and successful professional individuals. That's just a stupid take.

Edited December 2, 2023 by slinkydevil

[Anyone]

NED’s are like bidets. Nice to have but no one knows what they are actually for. 

[Ringy Rose]

10 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

They need to be on Linkedin because it is suspicious if you're not or without sufficient information (eg Spake) and a lot of people will look there first.  But the question is how much you follow the general Linkedin mood of self-promotion and mindless enthusiasm.  Some potential employers may be put off; others expect it as a minimum. 

I think it’s sector-specific, sectors like tech or e-gaming seem to discount anyone who doesn’t have a LinkedIn profile full of banal hot takes. In the gambling sector it’s full of people proudly announcing they’re at MoronFest in Valletta and that their company is running a cocktail evening at Bland Corporate Hotel By The Ring Road.

I’m on LinkedIn because I’ve been repeatedly advised by recruiters that it’s a bit weird if I’m not.

[Banker]

7 hours ago, Anyone said:

NED’s are like bidets. Nice to have but no one knows what they are actually for. 

You’ve got to have extensive relevant experience, good communication skills & very intelligent. I should know as a NED with all above 😀

[code99]

On 11/30/2023 at 8:17 PM, Dirty Buggane said:

If you think they are the bee's knee's and will save us from the mediocre shit show and you have every faith in them, What happens if they are just bullshit artists. You going to resign after that sweeping praise you have heaped on them

This is what he wrote in another thread:

"When you buy a car with faults, it’s more important you fix them than concentrate on the previous owner’s lack of maintenance. It might be rewarding to provide heads on stakes, but their owners are mostly long gone and could probably justify their decisions over the years anyway. My focus, and that of the new Board, is to improve the customer experience, comply with evolving mandates and reduce the cost to the Treasury. That will take some short-term pain for long term gain".

I infer from his comments that for some politicians, ideally, every day is a ‘tabula rasa dies’ - a blank slate day. They wake up each morning as if Dr Ranson’s case, and the MEA’s unauthorised loans and the Liverpool Dock fiasco etc., never happened. They want the public to forget about past mistakes, to never be responsible for anything, and for everyone to keep on focusing on a future of ‘sunny-uplands’. They want the political circus ‘merry-go-round’ in Tynwald to continue without any inconvenient accountabilities, truths and questions.

The new Board wants to find a way to “improve the customer experience” and at the same time to “reduce the cost to the Treasury”. This new ‘slate’ (on which they can write their ideas) makes the erstwhile DOI Minister’s cost estimate of “up to £300m” to address all of the Airport’s issues as if it was never said. But just in case they are wrong about their laudable aspirations, I am confident that they have another slate tucked away that says: “Lessons will and have been learnt”.   

IMHO, if we go on like this, we will surely ‘reap what we sow” – no wonder the IOMG’s finances are in the state they are.

Edited December 5, 2023 by code99
typo

[Ringy Rose]

11 minutes ago, code99 said:

I infer from his comments that for some politicians, ideally, every day is a ‘tabula rasa dies’ - a blank slate day. They wake up each morning as if Dr Ranson’s case, and the MEA’s unauthorised loans and the Liverpool Dock fiasco etc., never happened

That’s not what is being said at all.

He’s right. Heads on stakes don’t fix anything.  And it’s normally pretty difficult to get a head on a stake anyway-nobody acts alone and it’s rarely just one person’s failure. 

I know it’s popular on here to talk about “civil servants running /ruining everything”, but it’s not really true. Civil servants enact what politicians tell them to do. Sometimes it’s because the civil servants convince the politicians to tell them to do something, but it’s also more often that the politicians get genius ideas all by themselves and demand their enactment.

Untangling that is tough. It suits politicians to blame civil servants because civil servants can’t answer back. It can also suit civil servants to sit in the back and let politicians get the flack. But either way, if you start trying to put heads on spikes then you’re in for a battle- the people are either long gone or, if they’re not, will be more than happy to construe it as bullying and fight back accordingly.

It’s much better to identify what’s wrong and actually fix the problems, rather than waste money on a pissing contest of blame.

[Andy Onchan]

47 minutes ago, Ringy Rose said:

That’s not what is being said at all.

He’s right. Heads on stakes don’t fix anything.  And it’s normally pretty difficult to get a head on a stake anyway-nobody acts alone and it’s rarely just one person’s failure. 

I know it’s popular on here to talk about “civil servants running /ruining everything”, but it’s not really true. Civil servants enact what politicians tell them to do. Sometimes it’s because the civil servants convince the politicians to tell them to do something, but it’s also more often that the politicians get genius ideas all by themselves and demand their enactment.

Untangling that is tough. It suits politicians to blame civil servants because civil servants can’t answer back. It can also suit civil servants to sit in the back and let politicians get the flack. But either way, if you start trying to put heads on spikes then you’re in for a battle- the people are either long gone or, if they’re not, will be more than happy to construe it as bullying and fight back accordingly.

It’s much better to identify what’s wrong and actually fix the problems, rather than waste money on a pissing contest of blame.

Most policy is dreamt up by the CS and is executed by the same people. You only have to see how many directors of this and that policies there are in the Cabinet Office to understand that.

The politicians merely rubber stamp it all and of course because they're the face of the department take the stick for when things inevitably go tits up. So the CS do run/ruin everything. 

[Ringy Rose]

45 minutes ago, Andy Onchan said:

Most policy is dreamt up by the CS and is executed by the same people. You only have to see how many directors of this and that policies there are in the Cabinet Office to understand that.

It really isn’t. Policy and strategy comes from the political leaders. Enactment of that policy and strategy rests with the Civil Service.

Now of course Civil Servants will advise the political leaders whilst policy is being developed. But generally what happens is the politicians want to achieve something and the CS will provide options as to how it can be done. Of course politicians and CS will often be mostly aligned. CS who disagree with a minister too often get bumped out of a job.

Look at the airport. The politicians wanted to dick-wave with a bigger/better/busier airport. Happily (lol) that aligned with what the airport management wanted. But if the management had disagreed it’d have still happened.

Point is it’s great for politicians to blame the CS. “It wasn’t my idiotic idea that was the problem, it was the way The Blob enacted it”. It’s equally handy for civil servants to point out they were just following orders when a project goes completely tits up.

[code99]

1 hour ago, Ringy Rose said:

That’s not what is being said at all.

He’s right. Heads on stakes don’t fix anything.  And it’s normally pretty difficult to get a head on a stake anyway-nobody acts alone and it’s rarely just one person’s failure. 

I know it’s popular on here to talk about “civil servants running /ruining everything”, but it’s not really true. Civil servants enact what politicians tell them to do. Sometimes it’s because the civil servants convince the politicians to tell them to do something, but it’s also more often that the politicians get genius ideas all by themselves and demand their enactment.

Untangling that is tough. It suits politicians to blame civil servants because civil servants can’t answer back. It can also suit civil servants to sit in the back and let politicians get the flack. But either way, if you start trying to put heads on spikes then you’re in for a battle- the people are either long gone or, if they’re not, will be more than happy to construe it as bullying and fight back accordingly.

It’s much better to identify what’s wrong and actually fix the problems, rather than waste money on a pissing contest of blame.

Even Dr Allinson's promise to "name names" around the Liverpool Dock fiasco (aka 'put heads on stakes') was a political hyperbole and a red herring – singling out people in public should not happen and does not happen here.

You are missing the point. The point is a dearth of any accountability by our elected representatives and senior CS/PS whenever something goes wrong. For our democracy to function properly, our establishment figures must be held to account/ must be made responsible for major screw-ups. But they never are, e.g:

• Dr Ranson says her boss was trying to break her. Our politicians failed to adequately deal with this issue and this scandal is now coasting this Island. I expect it will cast a dark shadow over the Island for many more years;
• The people behind the hundreds of millions in unauthorised MEA loans got away, but the financial costs are falling to future generations to pay. Today’s Government is saddled with massive debts as a result of that unprecedented episode of fiscal irresponsibility;
• Over the last decade (or more) the Airport has been poorly managed. The possible future costs of fixing that incompetence could run into hundreds of millions of pounds. What makes this worse, is that no one is accountable.

The screw ups after screw ups cannot carry on. If they do, the IOMG will surely go broke.

[Numbnuts]

All this talk of new NED’s and wanted 2 but settled for 3 !! Why who’s afraid of picking 2 out 3 ! But my real point is what’s lacking at airport is people to actually do the maintenance and the likes of looking after the trolleys which only took 14 months from when I emailed the minster and am sure I wasn’t the first. Do I think having 3 more on management level will help to get it done. I mean they couldn’t even identify the issues down there that were tbh obvious. 

[Ringy Rose]

26 minutes ago, code99 said:

You are missing the point. The point is a dearth of any accountability by our elected representatives and senior CS/PS whenever something goes wrong. For our democracy to function properly, our establishment figures must be held to account/ must be made responsible for major screw-ups.

Politicians are accountable at the ballot box. You can argue whether our electoral system is strong enough to bring real accountability, and I’d probably agree. I’ve long thought the CM should be directly elected.

Civil servants are accountable in line with the terms of their employment contract. Yes the airport has been badly managed, although it hasn’t improved since new management, so perhaps the problems are more complex than “[insert Civil Servant] is a shit manager”.

[asitis]

1 minute ago, Ringy Rose said:

Politicians are accountable at the ballot box. You can argue whether our electoral system is strong enough to bring real accountability, and I’d probably agree. I’ve long thought the CM should be directly elected.

Civil servants are accountable in line with the terms of their employment contract. Yes the airport has been badly managed, although it hasn’t improved since new management, so perhaps the problems are more complex than “[insert Civil Servant] is a shit manager”.

The next accountable person will be the first !

[Andy Onchan]

51 minutes ago, Ringy Rose said:

It really isn’t. Policy and strategy comes from the political leaders. Enactment of that policy and strategy rests with the Civil Service.

Now of course Civil Servants will advise the political leaders whilst policy is being developed. But generally what happens is the politicians want to achieve something and the CS will provide options as to how it can be done. Of course politicians and CS will often be mostly aligned. CS who disagree with a minister too often get bumped out of a job.

Look at the airport. The politicians wanted to dick-wave with a bigger/better/busier airport. Happily (lol) that aligned with what the airport management wanted. But if the management had disagreed it’d have still happened.

Point is it’s great for politicians to blame the CS. “It wasn’t my idiotic idea that was the problem, it was the way The Blob enacted it”. It’s equally handy for civil servants to point out they were just following orders when a project goes completely tits up.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this.