Covid support scheme results go live

[reddal]

2 minutes ago, Last Ten said:

Here is my guess, there will be so much public distrust and backlash over this massive ££££££ Manx Covid handout scheme it will end up going to a Select Committee of Tynwald to report back on the findings or indeed the Public Accounts Committee. No matter what it has cost the Manx peeps a massive amount of Tax Payers money! Watch this space.

Yes it was expensive - and yes anyone that made a killing exploiting the system should be held accountable.

However - if the IOM Govt hadn't done these scheme - a lot - maybe most - of the companies on the island would have collapsed immediately. That would probably have been even more expensive in terms of benefits and long term impact.

Maybe they shouldn't have done lockdowns etc - thats a separate debate - but doing lockdowns without putting big support behind companies affected would have been an apocalypse for the economy.

Again - if companies made profits out if it - go after them. If they just about managed to survive even with the support - then that was the idea.

[Trevor Cowin]

I have an interest in this topic as it was my FOIA Request which triggered the Reesse of this information.  Could you r tell  me please when you became aware of DfE's Release? 

[NoTailT]

5 minutes ago, Trevor Cowin said:

I have an interest in this topic as it was my FOIA Request which triggered the Reesse of this information.  Could you r tell  me please when you became aware of DfE's Release? 

Wasn't it @Josems FOI?

[reddal]

6 minutes ago, Trevor Cowin said:

I have an interest in this topic as it was my FOIA Request which triggered the Reesse of this information.  Could you r tell  me please when you became aware of DfE's Release? 

Someone sent me a message about it like an hour ago - why is the timing of awareness important?

 

[Trevor Cowin]

2 minutes ago, reddal said:

Someone sent me a message about it like an hour ago - why is the timing of awareness important?

 

Because I received an e-mail at 2.35 pm iro the DfE's  Response to my FOIA Request which I made on the 31st January 2022,  which triggered the DfE's Release of the information to the general public, that - "I have drafted the responses to you, I am just waiting on the final sign off, so it shouldn’t be too much longer!" and I'm still waiting to Receive the DfE's Response to my FOIA Request. You'll not be surprised to learn that I'm pissed off at the the fact that the DfE has released the information to the general public, which didn't make a FOIA Request, but it still hasn't released the information to me after over 3 months.  

[Bandits]

10 minutes ago, Trevor Cowin said:

You'll not be surprised to learn that I'm pissed off at the the fact that the DfE has released the information to the general public, which didn't make a FOIA Request, but it still hasn't released the information to me after over 3 months.  

IOM Today had the story up about 25 mins before I posted the link here which the time stamp says was about 5 hours ago now so I’d say it was around 3:30 when the papers went live with the story and the links. 

[Roger Mexico]

12 minutes ago, Trevor Cowin said:

Because I received an e-mail at 2.35 pm iro the DfE's  Response to my FOIA Request which I made on the 31st January 2022,  which triggered the DfE's Release of the information to the general public, that - "I have drafted the responses to you, I am just waiting on the final sign off, so it shouldn’t be too much longer!" and I'm still waiting to Receive the DfE's Response to my FOIA Request. You'll not be surprised to learn that I'm pissed off at the the fact that the DfE has released the information to the general public, which didn't make a FOIA Request, but it still hasn't released the information to me after over 3 months.  

Presumably the idea is that they can now reply to your FoI with a smug little note saying that they're not obliged to give you any information that is already in the public domain.

They actually announced that they were going to be releasing the information on 1 April, and also issued a reminder mid-month, both saying that "anyone who is concerned that the release of their information might cause them damage or distress is encouraged to contact the relevant Department as soon as possible".  So heaven knows what the stuff that was blacked-out contains.  The release was original scheduled for 29 April, but presumably they decided that it would give people too much time to look at it over a Bank Holiday weekend and so delayed it till today with an associated press release.

[NoTailT]

47 minutes ago, Trevor Cowin said:

Because I received an e-mail at 2.35 pm iro the DfE's  Response to my FOIA Request which I made on the 31st January 2022,  which triggered the DfE's Release of the information to the general public, that - "I have drafted the responses to you, I am just waiting on the final sign off, so it shouldn’t be too much longer!" and I'm still waiting to Receive the DfE's Response to my FOIA Request. You'll not be surprised to learn that I'm pissed off at the the fact that the DfE has released the information to the general public, which didn't make a FOIA Request, but it still hasn't released the information to me after over 3 months.  

You're getting in a hissy that the public could see the result of your PUBLIC FOI? You know they get published on a public register at the same time you get your response normally anyway, right?

[Roger Mexico]

37 minutes ago, NoTailT said:

You're getting in a hissy that the public could see the result of your PUBLIC FOI? You know they get published on a public register at the same time you get your response normally anyway, right?

To be fair he seems more annoyed at the delay and that they failed to keep him informed, though he seems to have missed the announcements of their trying to pre-empt his FoI.  He will know that they usually publish the results though - he's put in enough over the years.  In fact the main problem is that sometimes politically sensitive stuff doesn't get publicly displayed (you see this particularly when they lose appeals) and the recipient has to do so themself.  

I pointed out back in January that the Information Commissioner's decision making them release the details of the payments Quayle received also implied that all other grants should be published as well.  So this was inevitable and even the UK Government (not known for being adverse to helping out the 'right' people) has regularly published details of all their support.

[Manx Bean]

8 hours ago, Trevor Cowin said:

Because I received an e-mail at 2.35 pm iro the DfE's  Response to my FOIA Request which I made on the 31st January 2022,  which triggered the DfE's Release of the information to the general public, that - "I have drafted the responses to you, I am just waiting on the final sign off, so it shouldn’t be too much longer!" and I'm still waiting to Receive the DfE's Response to my FOIA Request. You'll not be surprised to learn that I'm pissed off at the the fact that the DfE has released the information to the general public, which didn't make a FOIA Request, but it still hasn't released the information to me after over 3 months.  

Maybe you've pissed them off...

[forestboy]

1 hour ago, Manx Bean said:

Maybe you've pissed them off...

Again!

[Holte End]

I was thinking about putting in an FOI for all the emails received by DfE over the opt out.

[2112]

10 hours ago, Last Ten said:

Here is my guess, there will be so much public distrust and backlash over this massive ££££££ Manx Covid handout scheme it will end up going to a Select Committee of Tynwald to report back on the findings or indeed the Public Accounts Committee. No matter what it has cost the Manx peeps a massive amount of Tax Payers money! Watch this space.

Mistrust and a witch-hunt. I’m not going to criticise some of the the low £3000 payments as you will find that lots only claimed once, then tried to carry on. I distinction between some firms that have praised back, whilst admirable, will sow division, mistrust and allegations of cronyism.

[Bandits]

11 hours ago, Last Ten said:

Here is my guess, there will be so much public distrust and backlash over this massive ££££££ Manx Covid handout scheme it will end up going to a Select Committee of Tynwald to report back on the findings or indeed the Public Accounts Committee. No matter what it has cost the Manx peeps a massive amount of Tax Payers money! Watch this space.

It doesn’t need to go that far. A significant proportion of the claims are 100% genuine. We shut down peoples businesses. We stopped people from earning money. They had to be compensated or there would have been a riot and a lot more costs incurred by the economy clearing the mess up. All we need now is sensible legislation bringing in which reclaims grants paid in certain circumstances if it’s clear that the businesses didn’t ultimately need the money. So if your turnover was up and profits were up as a result of the money you received you pay a % of the granted money back. That’s all that needs to be done as a tidy up. And (as is happening) if you fold a company to avoid being found out you go for the owners. 

[Passing Time]

11 hours ago, Last Ten said:

Here is my guess, there will be so much public distrust and backlash over this massive ££££££ Manx Covid handout scheme it will end up going to a Select Committee of Tynwald to report back on the findings or indeed the Public Accounts Committee. No matter what it has cost the Manx peeps a massive amount of Tax Payers money! Watch this space.

It would have cost the Manx taxpayer a lot more money had businesses closed because of covid. The money received by some small businesses barely kept them going. It certainly was not a level playing field