IOM DHSC & MANX CARE

[Jarndyce]

10 minutes ago, Gladys said:

Just from the perspective of financial control, how was either of them being paid without a contract? 

Precisely: whether it was secondment, part-time or permanent (Magson); or bank-work, part-time or permanent (Dr Glover) - if Finance/HR hadn’t been clear on their type of employment, Payroll wouldn’t have coughed up their respective salaries without insisting on clarification of the basis of their contracts.   In each case, a great cloud of vagueness and uncertainty descended on the Minister - but it MUST have been clear and defined for Payroll, HR and for the individuals concerned.   So, in theory, it was easy to check…

Edited June 11, 2023 by Jarndyce

[Gladys]

8 minutes ago, Jarndyce said:

Precisely: whether it was secondment, part-time or permanent (Magson); or bank-work, part-time or permanent (Dr Glover) - if Finance/HR hadn’t been clear on their type of employment, Payroll wouldn’t have coughed up their respective salaries without insisting on clarification of the basis of their contracts.   In each case, a great cloud of vagueness and uncertainty descended on the Minister - but it MUST have been clear and defined for Payroll, HR and for the individuals concerned.   So, in theory, it was easy to check…

Possibly they were being paid other than through the payroll, say as a contractor, just like, say, a company engaged to provide the loo rolls.  But even so, there would surely be a contract, invoice and document to confirm delivery of services and/or goods?   

This might be a possibility for Dr Glover, who herself wasn't 'employed' but her company provided her services.  Again, there would be no doubt on the basis of the payments made, you would think. 

[Jarndyce]

6 minutes ago, Gladys said:

This might be a possibility for Dr Glover, who herself wasn't 'employed' but her company provided her services.  Again, there would be no doubt on the basis of the payments made, you would think.

My initial understanding was that Dr Glover was employed on a "Bank" basis - until it was no longer expedient to admit that she was an employee, albeit of a specific subset.   But I could be wrong: that's the point - the waters have been muddied.

You are correct - there would be no doubt on the basis of payments made - Minister at the time could have cleared this up in two shakes.   But that would have been counter-productive for him, since he was the one who needed the waters to remain muddy.

[Moddey Dhoo]

3 hours ago, Jarndyce said:

Would JM have had any interest in this appointment?   Would he not just have left it to the local managerial team?   Who would have explicitly warned him?   Do you know that he was?

I suspect that it was nepotism and chummocracy which got Murray appointed as COO, which she then extended further once she was in post - arguably JM should have paid more attention to this key appointment, but I suspect if the local senior managers had suggested a trained chimp for the post, JM would have taken their recommendation -  “local knowledge” and all that.

On reflection, a trained chimp may have done less damage in the post - allegedly.

JMs appt. Couch was gone on his word and he was instrumental in getting Murray appointed. Murray played him a bit but quite what his motivation for having her there was .... who knows. As interim CEO Murray then appointed herself as COO to be of Manx Care and then the nepotism and cronyism was off to the races (mates, daughter etc) . JM was likely involved in Murray's appointment to that role and was specifically warned against it.

[Moddey Dhoo]

3 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

The LTA was irrelevant, the problem they had was that she was clearly recruited with the implication she would be transferred to Manx Care along with 99% of the rest of the staff - once transferred new terms would be agreed.  Magson and Conie (and probably others) then told Foster and Cope that she didn't want to transfer and was under performance management - both of which were untrue.  As ever, petty spite seems to have been the main motivation and politicians went along with it for an easy life.

No , your wrong on this. Because of the money Ranson wanted they made it an LTA. Conie was convinced she was on an LTA and they could run the clock out on it.

[WTF]

44 minutes ago, Jarndyce said:

   So, in theory, it was easy to check…

if you actually wanted to of course.......................................

[Roger Mexico]

38 minutes ago, Moddey Dhoo said:

No , your wrong on this. Because of the money Ranson wanted they made it an LTA. Conie was convinced she was on an LTA and they could run the clock out on it.

That's true and shown by what the DHSC claimed at the Tribunal, but I was explaining that it didn't work because of what Ranson had been told at the interview and the implicit terms she was employed on - it was clearly just a way of passing on the decisions on salary etc to Manx Care (who as it happens employed her replacement on a higher salary still).

[Roger Mexico]

59 minutes ago, Jarndyce said:

My initial understanding was that Dr Glover was employed on a "Bank" basis - until it was no longer expedient to admit that she was an employee, albeit of a specific subset.   But I could be wrong: that's the point - the waters have been muddied.

You are correct - there would be no doubt on the basis of payments made - Minister at the time could have cleared this up in two shakes.   But that would have been counter-productive for him, since he was the one who needed the waters to remain muddy.

I think you and Gladys are giving these people too much credit.  Most of the time they're not pretending that they don't know what is going on, they're genuinely clueless and only admitting it as a last resort.

From memory Glover was only paid as Bank because they couldn't see another way to do it (I suspect they were hoping to be invoiced, but it was her personally providing the service not her company and she wouldn't to complicate the tax affairs of the latter).  It only became an issue when Ashford claimed she wasn't employed off the top of his head.

No one ever got to the bottom of how Magson was employed - despite much derision from the Tribunal etc.  I suspect there was either no formal contract at all or she was being paid some way that was only borderline legal at best.  Or both.  Neither could be admitted publicly, so they have to keep changing the subject.

The trouble is that modern management is treated as a performance: saying the right things in the right tone of voice; using the right reassuring jargon; striking the right attitudes; promising outcomes that they will never be judged against.  Details are meant to be sorted out by the underlings while they provide 'leadership'.  If it all goes wrong, they feel they have done their bit and will protected by the system - and they usually are. 

The only anomaly in this case is that some people have been shown the door - though still generously rewarded.  But that may have been more due to a power grab within the system than a genuine attempt to clear out the guilty.

[Moddey Dhoo]

32 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

That's true and shown by what the DHSC claimed at the Tribunal, but I was explaining that it didn't work because of what Ranson had been told at the interview and the implicit terms she was employed on - it was clearly just a way of passing on the decisions on salary etc to Manx Care (who as it happens employed her replacement on a higher salary still).

My understanding was the LTA was agreed - there was a long time between the interview and agreement on Ts & Cs.  There will be an LTA somewhere, Ranson probably has a copy herself, but DHSC couldn't produce a signed copy and were therefore their case was sunk before it began. Of note in the tribunal there was a hint of 'she would have been fired anyway because she wasn't really any good' from DHSC but that was slapped down pdq and then not mentioned again. This is presumably what Dr Allinson used to refer to as the 'alternative narrative' before he was issued with suit and sat down again.

[Gladys]

1 hour ago, Roger Mexico said:

I think you and Gladys are giving these people too much credit.  Most of the time they're not pretending that they don't know what is going on, they're genuinely clueless and only admitting it as a last resort.

From memory Glover was only paid as Bank because they couldn't see another way to do it (I suspect they were hoping to be invoiced, but it was her personally providing the service not her company and she wouldn't to complicate the tax affairs of the latter).  It only became an issue when Ashford claimed she wasn't employed off the top of his head.

No one ever got to the bottom of how Magson was employed - despite much derision from the Tribunal etc.  I suspect there was either no formal contract at all or she was being paid some way that was only borderline legal at best.  Or both.  Neither could be admitted publicly, so they have to keep changing the subject.

The trouble is that modern management is treated as a performance: saying the right things in the right tone of voice; using the right reassuring jargon; striking the right attitudes; promising outcomes that they will never be judged against.  Details are meant to be sorted out by the underlings while they provide 'leadership'.  If it all goes wrong, they feel they have done their bit and will protected by the system - and they usually are. 

The only anomaly in this case is that some people have been shown the door - though still generously rewarded.  But that may have been more due to a power grab within the system than a genuine attempt to clear out the guilty.

No one has ever got to the bottom of how Magson was employed by the DHSC is possibly because she never was employed. We are told she was seconded, which means, I think, DHSC has a contract with her employer to provide her services and the employer is reimbursed with the costs.

So the secondment contract is highly relevant and payments would not be going through the payroll.  Didn't someone ask if she would be paying IOM income tax?

Edited June 11, 2023 by Gladys

[Two-lane]

43 minutes ago, Moddey Dhoo said:

This is presumably what Dr Allinson used to refer to as the 'alternative narrative' before he was issued with suit and sat down again.

I have seen no reference to that again. Does anyone know what happened?

[Moddey Dhoo]

46 minutes ago, Two-lane said:

I have seen no reference to that again. Does anyone know what happened?

I'm guessing he did what most people would do when issued with suit by a determined and clever person married to a lawyer would do . Shut up.

[Two-lane]

Abbotswood and more...

[Roger Mexico]

1 hour ago, Moddey Dhoo said:

My understanding was the LTA was agreed - there was a long time between the interview and agreement on Ts & Cs.  There will be an LTA somewhere, Ranson probably has a copy herself, but DHSC couldn't produce a signed copy and were therefore their case was sunk before it began. Of note in the tribunal there was a hint of 'she would have been fired anyway because she wasn't really any good' from DHSC but that was slapped down pdq and then not mentioned again. This is presumably what Dr Allinson used to refer to as the 'alternative narrative' before he was issued with suit and sat down again.

It was discussed at some length in the Liability Decision starting here:

104. After seeing the Respondent’s advertisement in 2019 to appoint a Medical Director, Dr Ranson was the successful candidate. As advertised, the role was open-ended and not limited to a two-year term. The job was described as being Permanent Full Time with an operational MD role. The appointment was described as “Interim.” She opted for the Limited Term Agreement (LTA) of two years to receive the increased remuneration. The appointment was set against the background that Dr Ranson knew from the outset that following Sir Jonathan Michael’s report, the Respondent would be going through a transition process. She expected a trouble-free transition for her to continue with Manx Care.

I couldn't see anything about a valid LTA not being found (though it wouldn't surprise me) but it's clear from the subsequent pages of the Decision that the fact was that it clearly wasn't expected to be an interim appointment was the deciding factor.

As for the allegations of incompetence, they didn't even try to make them to the Tribunal:

117 [...]  The Respondent’s un-pleaded case was that the reason for Dr Ranson’s dismissal was based on allegations of capability. This was never the reason given to Dr Ranson at the time (December 2020) and no due process had been followed procedurally to ensure a fair dismissal anyway.

Which didn't stop them trying to make out it was the 'real' reason in the usual whispering campaign, though only a few politicians seem to have been gullible enough to believe them

[Two-lane]

@1:30 ... timid MHKs