HQ FoI !

[A fool and his money.....]

This is a man who very publicly defended Lewis Hamilton's multi-million pound VAT rebate on his private jet, despite the rest of us having no choice but to pay VAT on all non-essentials. Why would he let a small thing like morals or need get in the way of a lucrative claim.

The really sad thing about this is the two serving ministers jumping to his defence, even apologising to him! Makes you wonder how widespread this moral attitude to public money is within government.

[Lost Login]

5 minutes ago, b4mbi said:

It's an unincorporated business and its me that processes all of this type admin.

Once we'd been rejected for the first support scheme, it actually re-focused my moral compass a bit. Despite the loss of income, we didn't actually need any support as we are very lucky to have other income/assets, reasoning the support should go to those who actually need it.

Pity HQ doesn't appear have his compass similarly aligned.

So people with a bit of money are not entitled to make claims under the rules, even if they may have influence under the rules? So should they decline the state pension, not claim personal allowances, give away half there wealth or voluntarily double the tax rate. 

Many of the posts on this thread appear to be mainly because they don't like the fact HQ has a bit of money. I have no idea if he sits up at night counting every penny or privately gives away 50% of his income every year to good causes. I am not really bothered what HQ got, as long as it was within the rules, by far the bigger issue for me is that for all the money spent supporting businesses was it well targeted and value for money.  In respect of some aspects of the accommodation sector probably not but that that is not just because one person's business, who many appear to dislike, got a pot of money. 

[Sheldon]

8 minutes ago, Lost Login said:

Many of the posts on this thread appear to be mainly because they don't like the fact HQ has a bit of money.

That's probably part of it, but combined with him apparently being as dense as the core of a neutron star, and possessing absolutely no feeling for the zeitgeist. (A word I'd have loved to see him struggling to pronounce while reading it off a pre-typed speech.)

Edited January 28, 2022 by Sheldon

[A fool and his money.....]

6 minutes ago, Lost Login said:

So people with a bit of money are not entitled to make claims under the rules, even if they may have influence under the rules? So should they decline the state pension, not claim personal allowances, give away half there wealth or voluntarily double the tax rate. 

Many of the posts on this thread appear to be mainly because they don't like the fact HQ has a bit of money. I have no idea if he sits up at night counting every penny or privately gives away 50% of his income every year to good causes. I am not really bothered what HQ got, as long as it was within the rules, by far the bigger issue for me is that for all the money spent supporting businesses was it well targeted and value for money.  In respect of some aspects of the accommodation sector probably not but that that is not just because one person's business, who many appear to dislike, got a pot of money. 

Would you consider giving £57K of public money to a multi-millionaire while people in genuine need got £200 a week or nothing, to "well targeted" or "value for money"?

[b4mbi]

4 minutes ago, Lost Login said:

So people with a bit of money are not entitled to make claims under the rules, even if they may have influence under the rules? So should they decline the state pension, not claim personal allowances, give away half there wealth or voluntarily double the tax rate. 

Many of the posts on this thread appear to be mainly because they don't like the fact HQ has a bit of money. I have no idea if he sits up at night counting every penny or privately gives away 50% of his income every year to good causes. I am not really bothered what HQ got, as long as it was within the rules, by far the bigger issue for me is that for all the money spent supporting businesses was it well targeted and value for money.  In respect of some aspects of the accommodation sector probably not but that that is not just because one person's business, who many appear to dislike, got a pot of money. 

Of course they're entitled to claim, but we're talking about a specific set of circumstances of the government providing financial support to businesses effected by the pandemic.

Morally, and especially in his position as the chief public servant on the Island, and with all of his other income, unless other mitigating facts come to light, its my opinion he shouldn't have claimed. 

[Two-lane]

In the radio interview Allinson stated "... his motives were absolutely honorable throughout".

Quayle's motives were legal, no doubt. But I think Allinson's understanding of the word honorable (or ethical) are not the same as mine.

 

 

[b4mbi]

11 minutes ago, Sheldon said:

That's probably part of it, but combined with him apparently being as dense as the core of a neutron star, and possessing absolutely no feeling for the zeitgeist. (A word I'd have loved to see him struggling to pronounce while reading it off a pre-typed speech.)

I would like to see him pronounce statistics foot-teen times as well.

Edited January 28, 2022 by b4mbi

[A fool and his money.....]

5 minutes ago, Two-lane said:

In the radio interview Allinson stated "... his motives were absolutely honorable throughout".

Quayle's motives were legal, no doubt. But I think Allinson's understanding of the word honorable (or ethical) are not the same as mine.

 

 

Perhaps he was referring to honour amoungst thieves, because neither of them have a scrap of honour amoungst the people they are supposed to represent.

[Barlow]

4 hours ago, Ringy Rose said:

 

I get the fact it's the CM tilts things towards public disclosure, but I'm still not massively comfortable with the idea of this sort of information being disclosed naming each business individually.

 

If you apply for say a business grant the minutes of the committee meeting are public. Other grants too, say from Arts Council (as was).

[Barlow]

 

3 hours ago, Lost Login said:

 

This matter is fairly typical of what goes on in this Island. There has been a scheme running for nearly 2 years which has paid out over £13m and yet virtually nobody batted an eyelid over it and still don't. All the majority are bothered is one high profile person benefitting from it. The scheme and overall figures are not a secret, that the ex CM has holiday cottages is not a secret so where was the criticism at the time. Moaning about now just looks like sour grapes.

No one batted an eyelid because it was not known what was going on. People now have a better idea and in the form of a well known person who was absolutely central to everything that was going on during the pandemic on the Island. You've made a huge leap of logic to suggest sour grapes.

 

[Roger Mexico]

1 hour ago, 2112 said:

Listening to Allinson on the NPM, he is commenting that his department will make future applicants aware that their name may be put into the public domain, should anyone seek information.

As I pointed out earlier, the Information Commissioner was quite explicit, the paperwork did make it clear that those receiving grants would have the details available to FoI.  Allinson should stop believing what his civil servants tell him and look at what the situation actually is.  Hopefully somebody will (maybe already has) put in a request for the full list of grants given.  

Holiday accommodation was given top priority from the start and that support carried on for longest - at least till the end of 2021.  As Lost Login illustrated it was designed to restore lost earnings, not just help businesses survive - did any other   And by definition such a scheme would be aimed at the already wealthy, people who own more than one property.

It's no use claiming that Quayle was a naive innocent in all this.  Even if the schemes were designed by the Treasury, Cabinet Office would have been involved.  Even if he left the room when it was discussed at CoMin, he could have made his feelings known before.  Civil servants know how to do 'nice' things for their Ministers and sometimes these things don't even need to be said explicitly.  But nobody forced Quayle to apply.

[Lost Login]

1 hour ago, A fool and his money..... said:

Would you consider giving £57K of public money to a multi-millionaire while people in genuine need got £200 a week or nothing, to "well targeted" or "value for money"?

I would have hoped to come up with a better scheme. To me it is the scheme that is wrong not that some apparently correctly claimed under it. To me HQ receiving funds is a distraction from the bigger picture, especially when far wealthier people probably received far more. It seems not untypical in the IoM to want to identify a scapegoat and having identified one be happy to ignore the bigger picture so everything carries on as before.

[Gladys]

Just now, Lost Login said:

I would have hoped to come up with a better scheme. To me it is the scheme that is wrong not that some apparently correctly claimed under it. To me HQ receiving funds is a distraction from the bigger picture, especially when far wealthier people probably received far more. It seems not untypical in the IoM to want to identify a scapegoat and having identified one be happy to ignore the bigger picture so everything carries on as before.

I have to agree.  HQ is a sideshow that gets people frothing at the mouth.

More to the point is the handling of the FOI and the real benefit to preserving the whole economy brought by all the various schemes.

The really sad thing about the HQ issue is that no one, absolutely no one, MHK or CS, thought that there may be an optical issue in this.  No emotional intelligence at all. 

[Lost Login]

1 hour ago, Barlow said:

No one batted an eyelid because it was not known what was going on. People now have a better idea and in the form of a well known person who was absolutely central to everything that was going on during the pandemic on the Island. You've made a huge leap of logic to suggest sour grapes.

I am sorry it was a very public scheme and it is widely known that the ex chief minister had an interest in holiday cottages. These matters are not exactly secret and anybody who had taken a cursory glance to look at or think about knew. What you are effectively saying is the GMP need to be spoon fed by the media as they cannot think or work things out for themselves.

I am a member of a non profit organisation which is very reliant on TT income to pay its bills. It was a common complaint that Government could put together a scheme, costing many millions,  that would enable extremely wealthy peoples companies to claim funds not just if they had a hotel e.g  the likes of Jim Mellon, Trevor Hemmings but if they had expensive apartments let as serviced apartments, or another property let as self catering accommodation whilst they could not scape together anything for the clubs that run temporary camp sites etc to enable those clubs to fund their facilities for the good of the community.

It stank in my view as a scheme and I am effing annoyed about it as I spent a long time at the time trying to get some support from the government, to little affect, whilst fund raising and cost cutting to keep the non for profit organisation going. Now HQ is found to have received some money people are up in arms. Fat lot of good that is for those organisations that needed support from such a scheme over a year ago. That is why I am far more bothered about the scheme than that HQ receiving funds as if the situation arises again all that will have been achieved by this noise is a person who is in Government might not claim but we will see no real changes to the actual scheme. It was the scheme that was wrong and that is what needs to change, but all the focus on HQ means that is ignored so drinks all round for everybody else.    

[TheTeapot]

So many people have stories about the difficulty they had accessing the 'support'.

Edited January 28, 2022 by TheTeapot