Isle of Man Budget 2024

[finlo]

3 minutes ago, Gladys said:

And ring-fenced? 

You know and I know it's just fuel for the gravy train.

[Non-Believer]

10 minutes ago, Gladys said:

And ring-fenced? 

And that Tynwald didn't vote against the tax rises (not that they could).

And he would name the Liverpool Terminal culprits.

The man doesn't know the difference between truth and lies now, that's part of the problem.

[Dirty Buggane]

The only thing thats ring fenced is his ass, from any accountability.

[asitis]

7 hours ago, Gladys said:

And ring-fenced? 

I guess you could make any expense fit with some unclear wording !

[2112]

The Green Party have added their two pennerths worth to the debate, complain that the budget didn’t do enough to tackle climate change, inequality and specific health issues. 
 

Didnt £10 million get given, is that too little? Lots of people aren’t equal. The rise in income tax and the proceeds given to Manx Care to waste is helping specific health issues and funding the salaries of highly paid civil servants. 

[Fred the shred]

I think raising the kids bus fares was a big mistake there are more people kicking off about that than the NI rise even though the family allowance has been increased.   It seems to be the straw that broke the camels back.    If they had to raise it they could have waited until September when the new school year starts. We are talking of about £45.000 which is a decent amount but not a good move in the circumstances.   When I was a kid in the 1940s it was two old pence so obviously we walked unless the weather was really bad and it had to be bad.   

[Non-Believer]

Moorehouse to quiz Crookall in Tynwald next week on the bus fares hike, a rise of 25% quoted. Not that it'll do much good, it's another done-deal victory for DOI over the serfs.

[code99]

23 hours ago, slinkydevil said:

Direct quote from the CoC

'Ministers must be prepared to listen and understand, not listen to answer. Too much recent interchange has been the latter'

Allinson's letter (written by a CS drone obviously) is exactly that, not understanding.

I was quite unsettled by the contents of both letters. The CoC letter (essentially) said that they wanted much more day-to-day interaction with all levels of Government. However, the Treasury Minister did not respond to this request, and instead reiterated 'what the Government was doing', blah, blah, blah!

This is a small Island, an assortment of various communities with differing needs, and if we are to get through the challenges that lie ahead, greater amounts of 'togetherness' will be needed. Unfortunately, the IOMG is not showing any willingness to embrace anyone else’s opinions.

[CallMeCurious]

Out of curiosity ran some numbers of vehicle license vs CPI from 2010-2024

Vehicle Duty £158 --> £285 =  £127 (80% over 14 years = 5.7% avg.)

CPI =107.3 --> 157.9 = 50.6 (40% over 14 years = 2.8% avg.)

Just one of the many ways they take more and more every year and don't deliver anywhere near the minimum service.

The Isle of Man Public Service is made up of eight departments and various boards and offices who all report to the Council of Ministers.

The total number of public service workers is around 9,000 people, roughly 10% of the population or 23% of the working population, all working together for the Isle of Man. 

from https://hr.gov.im/recruitment-and-careers/who-we-are/

In the UK, there are 1,800,000 public adminstration roles (529,000 CS) for a population of 67,700,000 or 3% of the population.

Considering we don't have defence or diplomatic services or intelligence operations etc. to manage could we try to get to a headcount of 5% at least?

Look at the banking sector, they are constantly cutting head count as more and more is done automatically online by the customer themselves. Yet government seems to want more and more as they automate and have us do it for them  online too.

 

[manxman8180]

Whilst not doubting the spirit of your argument - Government is too big - but at least compare like for like.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/publicsectorpersonnel/bulletins/publicsectoremployment/march2023

There is around 2 million employed by UK NHS alone.

5.83m in public sector employment out of 32m or so total employed.  So over 18%......still lower, but if you then consider how many other services are privatised in the UK versus nationalised on the IoM - there would likely be little difference at all.

Still too many, I agree, but let's at least try to be more realistic.

[Mercenary]

34 minutes ago, CallMeCurious said:

Out of curiosity ran some numbers of vehicle license vs CPI from 2010-2024

Vehicle Duty £158 --> £285 =  £127 (80% over 14 years = 5.7% avg.)

CPI =107.3 --> 157.9 = 50.6 (40% over 14 years = 2.8% avg.)

Just one of the many ways they take more and more every year and don't deliver anywhere near the minimum service.

The Isle of Man Public Service is made up of eight departments and various boards and offices who all report to the Council of Ministers.

The total number of public service workers is around 9,000 people, roughly 10% of the population or 23% of the working population, all working together for the Isle of Man. 

from https://hr.gov.im/recruitment-and-careers/who-we-are/

In the UK, there are 1,800,000 public adminstration roles (529,000 CS) for a population of 67,700,000 or 3% of the population.

Considering we don't have defence or diplomatic services or intelligence operations etc. to manage could we try to get to a headcount of 5% at least?

Look at the banking sector, they are constantly cutting head count as more and more is done automatically online by the customer themselves. Yet government seems to want more and more as they automate and have us do it for them  online too.

 

"In June 2020 there were 5.5 million public sector workers in the UK, representing 16.7% of all people in employment." 

So in UK 8% of pop. / 17% of workforce. About 20% less than IOM - although includes areas like utilities which UK won't (& DBC workers etc. not included in IOM ones but are in UK figures).

 

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/publicsectorpersonnel

[Andy Onchan]

1 hour ago, manxman8180 said:

Whilst not doubting the spirit of your argument - Government is too big - but at least compare like for like.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/publicsectorpersonnel/bulletins/publicsectoremployment/march2023

There is around 2 million employed by UK NHS alone.

5.83m in public sector employment out of 32m or so total employed.  So over 18%......still lower, but if you then consider how many other services are privatised in the UK versus nationalised on the IoM - there would likely be little difference at all.

Still too many, I agree, but let's at least try to be more realistic.

So what percentage do you think then is acceptable and realistic?

[Andy Onchan]

The present hiatus puts me in mind of Lincoln's famous words, "government of the people, by the people, for the people". Both elected and executive are about as far removed from the electorate as can be and moving further away as the years roll by.

[Two-lane]

https://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/mhks-and-mlcs-still-parking-for-free-668674

Last weekend I sent a letter to IoM Newspapers with the heading "Free Parking for MHKs". They didn't publish the letter, but the above article is pretty much as I wrote it. And I didn't even get a credit on the byline. Hah.

Well, maybe his grammer is better than mine.

"Treasury Minister Dr Alex Allinson told the Manx Independent: ‘I’ve written to the Infrastructure Minister asking what the timescale is to bring car park charges back.

‘I would think it would be relatively straight forward.’

Allinson does not mention that he only wrote to the Minister because last week I wrote to him asking why he had done nothing about this.

And they want to save £45,000 by putting up children's bus fares. They were getting £112,168 in 2018-19. Not only is there the loss of that income in the past two years, but the rate for parking would (or should) have gone up as well during that time.

 

[Manxman1234]

7 hours ago, Fred the shred said:

I think raising the kids bus fares was a big mistake there are more people kicking off about that than the NI rise even though the family allowance has been increased.   It seems to be the straw that broke the camels back.    If they had to raise it they could have waited until September when the new school year starts. We are talking of about £45.000 which is a decent amount but not a good move in the circumstances.   When I was a kid in the 1940s it was two old pence so obviously we walked unless the weather was really bad and it had to be bad.   

Masisve rise in childcare to off set it,