Isle of Man Budget 2024

[Fred the shred]

I see Mr bitter and twisted Thomas took the opportunity to try and gather a few votes with his pathetic attempt regarding money to be spent on schools.   Castle Rushen has been an ongoing project for too long but he begrudges this trying to turn attention to schools in his own patch.    What a boi he is his c.v. speaks volumes nothing achieved, sacked by two C.M.s now trying to scrabble enough votes to get re elected.   The other dissenters are in the same mound, load of nowts.

[Non-Believer]

8 minutes ago, CrazyDave said:

Wasn’t it a published five year plan of using reserves that we are only part way through?

 

And what is at the end of the five year plan period that will alleviate the draw on the reserves? Do we even have a progress report to date?

[Interested Reader]

40 minutes ago, Non-Believer said:

I strongly suspect that the NI fund is going to be drawn upon which will not be popular in the quarters who know and care about what is going on but as the majority don't, they will do it, amending legislation as necessary.

I’m sure you could probably go back 10 or 15 years on this site and most other IOM social media platforms and find the following forecast 

- The NI Fund ultimately being raided to bail them out of the crap 

- The public sector wage bill getting totally out of control compared to revenue

- IOM Government pension obligations eating up a huge part of tax revenues

- The excessive cash demands of the PS being prioritized over everything else 

- Nobody doing anything about any of the above 

So what’s going to change? 

 

[Interested Reader]

19 minutes ago, Fred the shred said:

The other dissenters are in the same mound, load of nowts.

John Wannenburgh is an excellent MHK. 

[Albert Tatlock]

17 minutes ago, Interested Reader said:

John Wannenburgh is an excellent MHK. 

Well, he is the majority of Tynwald.

[Fred the shred]

All John Wannenburgh does is object to anything and everything.   This does not make a person excellent unless the person comes up with a bigger and better idea or solution to the proposal or plan.    What exactly is his claim to fame, where has he performed in a department and made a difference ?   There is no point or value in dissent unless you can offer a workable alternative.    Josem is a prime example of this he is just a big yap, lots to say, critical in extreme, but no answers.  

[Fred the shred]

On the bright side we have still got a nice new building which I understand is still very quietly going ahead to house a wreck of an awl fishing boat which may or may not have been used by a smuggler, also there will a couple of Government jobs going to take money of the excited queue of holiday makers who have travelled far and wide to view this eighth wonder of the world, also a cleaning firm will be involved to keep the building stick and span.    A plaque, no doubt, to complete the exhibit.    So all is not doom and gloom if we can afford this there must be some hidden assets the great unwashed know nothing about.    

[woolley]

5 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

The problem is that with the  current rate of reserves burn, we don't have 20 years, unless they raid NI, which they probably will, which might give us that period.

Plus, we can't just sack them anyway, there are expensive redundancy terms to be adhered to.

It just seems to be amazing that they cannot see or begin to address some of the reasons that we need to draw £100M< a year from reserves.

 

3 hours ago, Hairy Poppins said:

The island doesn't have 10 - 20 years. At most the reserves are going to support current spending levels for 4 - 5 years at most, that's barring any unexpected national emergency. 

 

There is a history of charging on blind without regard to the future and it is at the very least imprudent. It isn't even self-interested if everything is going to hit the buffers in short order. As I mentioned, this is staring them in the face. It's inconceivable that they "can't see it", and this is the thinking behind my caveat that perhaps they do know something that we don't. Even if they do though, whatever that knowledge is can always change.

As Hairy Pippins says, It looks like there is only 4-5 years left on current trajectory. It seems most odd that they continue to expand. The idea of retrenchment of the headcount seems alien to them.

 

[Blackajah]

1 hour ago, Declan said:

I'm not sure it makes much difference who we vote for. The Government is always returned. 

There was quite a large vote against sitting MHKs last time - especially ministers. I'm pretty sure the Labour, Lib Van, Green, Wallenburgh and Stu Peters voters thought they were voting against the status quo. Whilst in Peel where 70% didn't vote for Minster Hamer and 93% didn't vote for Minister Boot - were they voting for "same again". 

The problem is a programme for government is never put to the people to support or reject. It's drawn up by a Chief Minister, who is only selected after we vote. 

Additionally, MHKs don't have the support of political party infrastructure and membership or their own researchers to propose ideas or courses of action. So rely on what the senior CS propose. And they're not answerable to the electorate but to the organisation. 

 

There were far better non-status quo candidates standing than the above.... voters just weren't brave enough.  

[Banker]

2 hours ago, Interested Reader said:

The externally invested funds are largely the NI Fund which is supposedly ringfenced to provide state pensions. So unless you want your state pension squandered to support a public sector that can’t right size itself properly the £190M that are “free reserves” is actually quite concerning considering they were over £500M not that long ago. 

That’s c£900m which leaves £1.3bn so not a majority 

[CrazyDave]

1 minute ago, Blackajah said:

There were far better non-status quo candidates standing than the above.... voters just weren't brave enough.  

Where?  I didn’t see any

[Blackajah]

15 hours ago, Moghrey Mie said:

This is grossly unfair. If you looked at Manx Care Board meetings you would realise they are constantly looking at cost savings. They have more control over their spending than most government departments appear to have.

They are still a VERY expensive later of higher management - various heads of this and that all on HEO & above rates and no evidence anywhere of them giving anything like value for money. 

[WTF]

1 hour ago, Andy Onchan said:

A lot can happen in five years 

fuck all has happened in 30 years regarding gov spending.

[ian rush]

Given this budget, will we see first pension sharing costs brought forward by PSPA?
 

In a way the real ones responsible for lots of the mess (and not bearing much current flak) paid in 1.5% of salary for accrual of pension based on 1/40ths of half final salary, and as deferred members have been getting inflation based uplifts to benefits. That is where the real current problem with pensions lies, in that those liabilities were not funded properly, whether in the case of pensions in pay or capable of being drawn on.
 

Current scheme members are paying c. 10% contributions and getting an accrual rate at 94% compared to the past, so the current employees are meeting a much bigger percentage of future pension benefits.

 

[woolley]

6 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

Plus, we can't just sack them anyway, there are expensive redundancy terms to be adhered to.

I didn't suggest sacking anyone. My strategy was based entirely on natural wastage by staff turnover and retirement. It could give some breathing space and be manageable if things were heading in the right direction instead of out of control in the wrong direction. There was the MARS scheme a few years ago. Something similar might be offered again, but this time they'd have to mean it and not go back to recruiting again in short order.