LoveIOM Gift Card

[NoTailT]

Ahhh I get it now.

Publish that gift cards are the way to support staff and then pedal your own gift card scheme to let the deposits sit in Gov coffers.

Talk about monopolistic behaviours.

[Roger Mexico]

33 minutes ago, NoTailT said:

Ahhh I get it now.

Publish that gift cards are the way to support staff and then pedal your own gift card scheme to let the deposits sit in Gov coffers.

Talk about monopolistic behaviours.

Except that I don't think the deposits (or any financial transactions) benefit the government.  They all go into a private company, IOM Gift Card Limited.  So what we have here is a government agency reminding people that they can pay less tax to the government so as to benefit a private organisation.

I'll just repeat something I said earlier in this topic:

There's actually another topic on this subject with more information in it, but I don't know if anyone expected the whole thing to be quite this unsuccessful.  They've actually spent £192,953.69 so as to have only £66,782 spent in the economy.  Not even the finest Skellynomics  can make that look good.  The only good thing is that they haven't spent the whole £500,000 that was originally proposed.  Though I'm sure Allinson will have plenty assuring him that the only thing to do is throw good money after bad.  

Edited to add: By "£66,782 spent in the economy", I mean spent by the public not including the bonus added on by the DfE.  Though even here the word 'public' is stretching it as many of the cards seem to have been bought by companies as part of their Christmas bonuses for employees and so it is money that would have been spent anyway - just with a government top-up.  As usual the DfE's idea of stimulating the economy doesn't seem to go beyond "giving money to your mates".

At the Conference Allinson was claiming that card had been a great success.  Though he didn't say for whom.

[NoTailT]

34 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

Except that I don't think the deposits (or any financial transactions) benefit the government.  They all go into a private company, IOM Gift Card Limited.  So what we have here is a government agency reminding people that they can pay less tax to the government so as to benefit a private organisation.

I'll just repeat something I said earlier in this topic:

There's actually another topic on this subject with more information in it, but I don't know if anyone expected the whole thing to be quite this unsuccessful.  They've actually spent £192,953.69 so as to have only £66,782 spent in the economy.  Not even the finest Skellynomics  can make that look good.  The only good thing is that they haven't spent the whole £500,000 that was originally proposed.  Though I'm sure Allinson will have plenty assuring him that the only thing to do is throw good money after bad.  

Edited to add: By "£66,782 spent in the economy", I mean spent by the public not including the bonus added on by the DfE.  Though even here the word 'public' is stretching it as many of the cards seem to have been bought by companies as part of their Christmas bonuses for employees and so it is money that would have been spent anyway - just with a government top-up.  As usual the DfE's idea of stimulating the economy doesn't seem to go beyond "giving money to your mates".

At the Conference Allinson was claiming that card had been a great success.  Though he didn't say for whom.

DFE owns the Love IOM brand so who owns IOM Gift Card Limited?

[NoTailT]

30 minutes ago, offshoremanxman said:

They’re so desperate to make this be seen to work but that is a bit below the belt. It’s a shame that Manx Gas don’t take these vouchers so that your staff could be encouraged to keep warm this winter tax free. 

It'd be useful if it could even be spent at Shoprite. Not sure how this potentially helps with cost of living when it can only be used at hotels, and F&B outlets.

[cissolt]

8 hours ago, NoTailT said:

DFE owns the Love IOM brand so who owns IOM Gift Card Limited?

Isn't the love IOM brand owned by the GEF team?

[NoTailT]

4 hours ago, cissolt said:

Isn't the love IOM brand owned by the GEF team?

I thought I saw something in a DFE report about the LoveIOM brand being theirs.

[Newsdesk]

4 hours ago, NoTailT said:

I thought I saw something in a DFE report about the LoveIOM brand being theirs.

I think the Gef connection is as card scheme manager. 

[Twitch]

9 hours ago, cissolt said:

Isn't the love IOM brand owned by the GEF team?

You mean Isle of Man Newspapers then.

[Roger Mexico]

Moorhouse asked an interesting question at last week's Tynwald: How many LoveIOM cards have been sold; what the value of those cards is; and how much has been invested in these cards both financially and in terms of officer time.  The full exchange is below:

It's worth looking at the actual figures from Hooper's reply at the start of his response (link will lapse, but it's page 20 of Hansard):

The Love Isle of Man gift card is an Economic Recovery Group project which the Department for Enterprise was tasked to develop in order to encourage on-Island spend in support of the Manx economy. I have circulated a copy of up-to-date statistics to Tynwald Members that confirms around two and a half thousand individual Love Isle of Man gift cards had been sold to individuals and corporate businesses. The approximate £14,000 of Government-backed incentives has generated over £100,000 of consumer funds on the cards, with over £70,000 spent at local hospitality businesses to date.

From the launch of the project to date, just over £240,000 has been spent on the initiative, which includes front-loaded costs of £200,000 to build the platform itself, ongoing administration services and Government-backed incentives of £14,000. These costs have been further broken down in the statistics that have already been circulated.

Currently, the Department for Enterprise’s marketing team has taken on responsibility for marketing the Love Isle of Man gift card as part of their business as usual work, which has not added to any headcount. As a result, this has reduced the ongoing operational cost with the appointed supplier. A business development manager is also in place to manage this project and the relationship with the appointed external supplier, which accounts for roughly half of their workload.

Firstly you will note the desire to hide as much actual information as possible by circulating it privately to Tynwald (to be fair to Watterson I think he may be trying to do something about this).  But even the figures we have are pretty damning.  Over £240,000 plus staff costs (and half of the costs of a "business development manager" won't be cheap) for £70,000 of spend.

It's also clear that there was no actual demand for it from retail businesses.  Instead the whole thing was driven by a few finance sector companies wanting to give vouchers to their staff at Christmas.  So the £14,000[1] went to subsidise presents given by the well-off.

What is extraordinary is that this is still being treated by DfE and its Minister as some sort of success that must be continued with.

 

[1]  To get figures to add up I reckon this is based on 20% government subsidy of the money already spent in businesses on the cards.  So even if no more cards are sold there may still be further costs.

[BriT]

The bit that I don’t get is. The approximate £14,000 of Government-backed incentives has generated over £100,000 of consumer funds on the cards, with over £70,000 spent at local hospitality businesses to date.

So that suggests that somewhere there is £30K still sitting on the cards unspent despite all these incentives? 

[Sheldon]

3 minutes ago, BriT said:

The bit that I don’t get is. The approximate £14,000 of Government-backed incentives has generated over £100,000 of consumer funds on the cards, with over £70,000 spent at local hospitality businesses to date.

So that suggests that somewhere there is £30K still sitting on the cards unspent despite all these incentives? 

This isn't unusual for gift cards of any type (book tokens, Amazon vouchers, etc.) which often get put "safely" in a drawer and then forgotten about.

[BriT]

7 minutes ago, Sheldon said:

This isn't unusual for gift cards of any type (book tokens, Amazon vouchers, etc.) which often get put "safely" in a drawer and then forgotten about.

Yes I understand that. But if the range of places you can spend money at are so exciting why is 30% of all the money loaded into cards still unspent? 

[Roger Mexico]

13 minutes ago, BriT said:

The bit that I don’t get is. The approximate £14,000 of Government-backed incentives has generated over £100,000 of consumer funds on the cards, with over £70,000 spent at local hospitality businesses to date.

So that suggests that somewhere there is £30K still sitting on the cards unspent despite all these incentives? 

As Sheldon says it's pretty standard.  It's not just cards that get lost forgotten about and whatever, it's what you might call the residuals.  So someone spends £44.50 from a £50 card on a meal and then doesn't bother getting rid of the rest.

5 minutes ago, BriT said:

Yes I understand that. But if the range of places you can spend money at are so exciting why is 30% of all the money loaded into cards still unspent? 

Well quite.  But of course there weren't that many to start with.  It's also possible that they've miscalculated and £84,000 has been spent, these aren't numerate people.

One question that was raised is what happens eventually to the unspent credit after the voucher lapses.  Naturally Hooper said he didn't know but would tell Tynwald members privately.

[BriT]

12 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

One question that was raised is what happens eventually to the unspent credit after the voucher lapses.  Naturally Hooper said he didn't know but would tell Tynwald members privately.

Well that’s where I was going next as I thought the credits (your own money!) expired after a certain length of time after being loaded so it would be interesting to know how long that £30K has sat there for. Maybe a corporate gave some rewards to staff last Xmas that they’ve still not spent as they didn’t like what you could spend it on? 

Edited October 23, 2022 by BriT
Xmas

[Twitch]

3 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

Moorhouse asked an interesting question at last week's Tynwald: How many LoveIOM cards have been sold; what the value of those cards is; and how much has been invested in these cards both financially and in terms of officer time.  The full exchange is below:

It's worth looking at the actual figures from Hooper's reply at the start of his response (link will lapse, but it's page 20 of Hansard):

The Love Isle of Man gift card is an Economic Recovery Group project which the Department for Enterprise was tasked to develop in order to encourage on-Island spend in support of the Manx economy. I have circulated a copy of up-to-date statistics to Tynwald Members that confirms around two and a half thousand individual Love Isle of Man gift cards had been sold to individuals and corporate businesses. The approximate £14,000 of Government-backed incentives has generated over £100,000 of consumer funds on the cards, with over £70,000 spent at local hospitality businesses to date.

From the launch of the project to date, just over £240,000 has been spent on the initiative, which includes front-loaded costs of £200,000 to build the platform itself, ongoing administration services and Government-backed incentives of £14,000. These costs have been further broken down in the statistics that have already been circulated.

Currently, the Department for Enterprise’s marketing team has taken on responsibility for marketing the Love Isle of Man gift card as part of their business as usual work, which has not added to any headcount. As a result, this has reduced the ongoing operational cost with the appointed supplier. A business development manager is also in place to manage this project and the relationship with the appointed external supplier, which accounts for roughly half of their workload.

Firstly you will note the desire to hide as much actual information as possible by circulating it privately to Tynwald (to be fair to Watterson I think he may be trying to do something about this).  But even the figures we have are pretty damning.  Over £240,000 plus staff costs (and half of the costs of a "business development manager" won't be cheap) for £70,000 of spend.

It's also clear that there was no actual demand for it from retail businesses.  Instead the whole thing was driven by a few finance sector companies wanting to give vouchers to their staff at Christmas.  So the £14,000[1] went to subsidise presents given by the well-off.

What is extraordinary is that this is still being treated by DfE and its Minister as some sort of success that must be continued with.

 

[1]  To get figures to add up I reckon this is based on 20% government subsidy of the money already spent in businesses on the cards.  So even if no more cards are sold there may still be further costs.

If Hooper and Lewin had any sense they would scrap it now.

However...