Manx financial scam: Chinese Filipino Boilerhouse

[alpha-acid]

5 minutes ago, Luker said:

It might have been better if Moorhouse could either actually read or have a vague idea what is going on though. 

As he was a teacher he can obviously read and think, maybe it is you that can not

[Luker]

2 hours ago, alpha-acid said:

As he was a teacher he can obviously read and think, maybe it is you that can not

No his question was clearly lacking in most substance. 

[Roger Mexico]

On 9/7/2024 at 7:54 PM, Fred the shred said:

Waste of money and time.    How did 100 people get residents and work permits without the Company they were engaged by being investigated ?    The horse has bolted god knows who is living on the Island there should be passport control at the port as well as the airport.   Most people have passports these days it is time to take control of our borders.

Apologies, I meant to respond to this before, though it's probably better done here (which it refers to) rather than the Gov Conf topic.

But what this comment demonstrates is how people end up being brainwashed by the cliches of how the UK media discuss things like immigration rather than looking at what is actually happening.  Because taking "control of our borders" is exactly what the Manx Government has done.  It has taken over the issuing of work visas from the UK and loosened some of the conditions on them - with regard to the minimum that people need to be earning and the bringing in of dependents, for example.   

So the vast majority of these people will be here perfectly legally, they will have their passports and all the papers.  Imposing inconvenient and expensive checks on everyone will have no effect.

[Lxxx]

1 hour ago, Roger Mexico said:

Apologies, I meant to respond to this before, though it's probably better done here (which it refers to) rather than the Gov Conf topic.

But what this comment demonstrates is how people end up being brainwashed by the cliches of how the UK media discuss things like immigration rather than looking at what is actually happening.  Because taking "control of our borders" is exactly what the Manx Government has done.  It has taken over the issuing of work visas from the UK and loosened some of the conditions on them - with regard to the minimum that people need to be earning and the bringing in of dependents, for example.   

So the vast majority of these people will be here perfectly legally, they will have their passports and all the papers.  Imposing inconvenient and expensive checks on everyone will have no effect.

If you have a wander round Douglas on any given day during working hours you will encounter a whole number of individuals who, by their demographic and the way they wander around aimlessly with nowhere apparently to go, you might assume are recent arrivals, aren't part of the workforce and therefore unlikely to be economically active. 

In the absence of any coherent public strategy we could do with knowing if any of them are in receipt of social security funds and how much our drive to just bring in more bodies is costing us.

[Non-Believer]

3 minutes ago, Lxxx said:

If you have a wander round Douglas on any given day during working hours you will encounter a whole number of individuals who, by their demographic and the way they wander around aimlessly with nowhere apparently to go, you might assume are recent arrivals, aren't part of the workforce and therefore unlikely to be economically active.

I hate to say this, but in Ramsey too particularly over the last year. Groups of very unfamiliar faces, demographics and backgrounds hanging around bus stops and transit points in particular. One has difficulty in processing that they're here because it's a preferred holiday destination.

[Gladys]

Can you claim social security on arrival? Thought there was a prior period of residence required. 

[Lxxx]

19 minutes ago, Gladys said:

Can you claim social security on arrival? Thought there was a prior period of residence required. 

I believe this question was asked in Tynwald recently and the Treasury Minister said his department had no clue who was in receipt of social security within the five year residence threshold.

[Roger Mexico]

1 hour ago, Lxxx said:

If you have a wander round Douglas on any given day during working hours you will encounter a whole number of individuals who, by their demographic and the way they wander around aimlessly with nowhere apparently to go, you might assume are recent arrivals, aren't part of the workforce and therefore unlikely to be economically active. 

Do you mind!  Wandering aimlessly up and down Strand Street was basically my childhood.  And everyone else's.

It shouldn't take much thought to realise that not everyone has the same "working hours".  The Hospital doesn't throw all the patients out the door at 5pm; the Police aren't manned by faceless robots at then (much though the Chief Constable is trying to get there); bars and restaurants tend to operate when most people aren't at work for some mysterious reason.   If every supermarket closed at 5:30pm, people might get rather hungry.

And you're actually commenting on a thread about a 'business' that operated in the Chinese market.  In reality they worked a 24-hour schedule as many internet-based operations do, but China is UTC+8, so even someone working peak business hours in that market would be finished by mid-morning at the latest.  Plenty of time to hang around.

[Ringy Rose]

2 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

So the vast majority of these people will be here perfectly legally, they will have their passports and all the papers.  Imposing inconvenient and expensive checks on everyone will have no effect.

Precisely this.

And not only will they be here legally, all those checks will already have been carried out when they arrived in the UK (the vast majority) or in Ireland. Immigration officers meet aircraft that arrive from outside the Common Travel Area.

People want to expand the Passports and Immigration Service to duplicate the UK’s Border Force are also the first ones whining when the civil service wage bill goes up. Immigration officers aren’t cheap either.

[Roger Mexico]

1 hour ago, Lxxx said:

I believe this question was asked in Tynwald recently and the Treasury Minister said his department had no clue who was in receipt of social security within the five year residence threshold.

Someone (you?) referred to this on another topic, but as ever it's worth looking at what the reply said.  It was from Moorhouse and asked: In each of the last three years how many people, resident for less than five years, have received financial support from social security; and what the cost of this has been.

As the reply pointed out:

The term “Financial support from social security” encompasses all benefits under the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992, the Pensions Act 2014 and the Jobseekers Act 1995 as those Acts are applied to the Island, as well as free TV licences for the over 75s, civil legal aid, work placement allowances, other work-related payments, criminal injuries compensation and redundancy and insolvency-related payments where employers have failed or been unable to meet their statutory obligations.

Many of these benefits and payments are available to individuals who have been resident in the Isle of Man for less than five years, subject to their meeting the relevant specific entitlement criteria (which for certain benefits includes a residential requirement of shorter than 5 years).

The Benefits Information Guide is 108 pages long and contains details of around 30 benefits each with a variety of residential and other qualifications and it doesn't cover a number of things listed above.  And there will be exceptions within the regulations.  For example to get Attendance Allowance you have to be "ordinarily resident in the Isle of Man or the UK for at least 104 weeks in the 156 weeks immediately before you claim" but that isn't required if "you have an illness that is likely to limit your life expectancy to 12 months or less".

Other benefits will be contributory or part-contributory (eg you need to have paid NI under certain conditions - such as Jobseekers or various pension-related one.  It's all very complicated because life is complicated.

So a lot of people will have qualified for at least one of these perfectly validly over the period, even though they had been here less that five years.  The five years probably comes from the residential qualification for Income Support, but even that is complicated:

To be entitled to Income Support you normally have to satisfy the Isle of Man residential condition. You will satisfy this condition if you–

• were born in the Isle of Man;
• have been ordinarily resident in the Isle of Man for a continuous period of at least 5 years at any time; or
• have been ordinarily resident in the Isle of Man for 3 or more separate periods which, when added together, amount to at least 10 years

and that's before you look at all the other possibilities such as marriage etc.  So even then you could have validly received benefit and not been here five years previously.

So basically it was a stupid question that would require them to look separately at every file on everybody.

Edited September 11 by Roger Mexico
Formatting

[Roger Mexico]

It should be added that Watterson had asked a more technical question (as referred to in the Moorhouse reply) which did get an answer of sorts:

On how many occasions the 'harsh and oppressive' override was used in each of the last three months; and whether the Department will commit to routinely collecting data on use of this exemption going forward?

In answering I have assumed that the Hon. Member’s question is in relation to the Isle of Man residential condition which applies to each of the income-related social security benefits, i.e. income support, employed person’s allowance and income-based jobseeker’s allowance.

The relevant legislation provides that where a claimant meets all the qualifying criteria for one of the benefits mentioned above except for the “IOM residential condition”, they are to be regarded as satisfying that condition if they satisfy a [social security] adjudication officer that there is a special reason which would render their disqualification from entitlement exceptionally harsh or oppressive.

The Treasury does not routinely capture the number of cases over any particular period where a social security officer has awarded an income-related benefit notwithstanding that the claimant does not satisfy the IOM residential condition, having determined that it would be exceptionally harsh or oppressive to deny them benefit.

To establish the exact number of awards of income-related benefits made to persons under the “exceptionally harsh or oppressive” provision during the last 3 months would require social security officers to undertake a manual search of around 1,000 casefiles. 

[...] However, the recollection of the adjudication officers is that in the last 3 months just two awards of employed person’s allowance have been made under the “exceptionally harsh or oppressive” provision referred to above and no awards of income support or income-based jobseeker’s allowance have been made under that provision.

Going forward, I have asked the officers in the Social Security Division to keep a log of all awards made under the “exceptionally harsh or oppressive” provision.

So it doesn't happen very often.  From the odd case I've heard about, even those cases usually relate to people with good Isle of Man connections who just fall outside the criteria.

[Omobono]

5 hours ago, Lxxx said:

If you have a wander round Douglas on any given day during working hours you will encounter a whole number of individuals who, by their demographic and the way they wander around aimlessly with nowhere apparently to go, you might assume are recent arrivals, aren't part of the workforce and therefore unlikely to be economically active. 

In the absence of any coherent public strategy we could do with knowing if any of them are in receipt of social security funds and how much our drive to just bring in more bodies is costing us.

its what the police used to term as having no visible means of support ,  so it beggars belief  as to where the money to keep them in expensive Flannels shopping bags  ,vapes and the big gold chain and medallion  they usually wear around the neck ,   

[Gladys]

3 minutes ago, Omobono said:

its what the police used to term as having no visible means of support ,  so it beggars belief  as to where the money to keep them in expensive Flannels shopping bags  ,vapes and the big gold chain and medallion  they usually wear around the neck ,   

Who are you talking about?  Was in Strand Street today and hardly saw anyone fitting that description. 

[mad_manx]

8 hours ago, Lxxx said:

If you have a wander round Douglas on any given day during working hours you will encounter a whole number of individuals who, by their demographic and the way they wander around aimlessly with nowhere apparently to go, you might assume are recent arrivals, aren't part of the workforce and therefore unlikely to be economically active. 

In the absence of any coherent public strategy we could do with knowing if any of them are in receipt of social security funds and how much our drive to just bring in more bodies is costing us.

Not everyone you see wandering around in daytime is unemployed etc ..

Many recent arrivals of the demographics that you describe are working  in care homes etc on night shifts. 

[Luker]

1 hour ago, mad_manx said:

Not everyone you see wandering around in daytime is unemployed etc ..

Many recent arrivals of the demographics that you describe are working  in care homes etc on night shifts. 

Or scamming people overnight on Asia time!