Hooper has resigned

[Non-Believer]

From December '22. Lord alone knows what the figure is now, especially with the extra staffing for Manx Care.

[asitis]

FFS how much longer is everyone in business and administrations going to keep quoting Brexit, Covid, Climate Change Etc as a cover all for their ineptness !

 

[Gladys]

2 minutes ago, asitis said:

FFS how much longer is everyone in business and administrations going to keep quoting Brexit, Covid, Climate Change Etc as a cover all for their ineptness !

 

That is the letters B and C covered. Let's see what excuses are rolled out under D. 

[TheTeapot]

There's a chart somewhere with the amount of gov employees and what they get paid split into bands. It's been posted on here before, several times for different years. Could do with it being posted again if anyone can?

[woolley]

32 minutes ago, Ringy Rose said:

Cabinet Office includes the government IT service and the HR department. Strip those out and they don’t spend that much.

I accept this. The Cabinet Office took over lots of staff from other Departments after it was formed. It hasn't just grown from new recruitment.

However, as I've said so many times for years, the continuing expansion simply cannot be justified. You absolutely have to get some senior managers onside. Appeal to their self-interest, anything, but it has to be done. Need to see a reducing headcount target, and it can be done by natural wastage at least for starters, so evolution rather then revolution. Every retirement and resignation, the post is reviewed with a presumption not to replace. If replacement vital, then first option redeployment. Only new recruitment as a last resort. Change the culture and signal serious intent to live within means.

[woolley]

Regarding the new "Healthcare Levy". I do wonder about the tax cappers reactions if the levy was applied to their total income at a percentage as suggested. Could this be challenged legally as "not what we signed up to"?

[Vaaish]

1 hour ago, Ringy Rose said:

Why didn’t Cannan say this in April then?

And given Cannan was the one pushing for Manx Care from day one, why weren’t these controls put in place at the time? Surely the Treasury Minister pushing for Manx Care should have been front and centre of putting these controls in place.

Whether what he’s said accurate or not their positions are untenable. But I strongly suspect that what Cannan said is not accurate, but he knows that Manx Care staff don’t have the right of reply. Question is whether Cope will be quietly paid off so she won’t argue back or whether we’re going to get Ranson v2. Cannan was instrumental in Ranson v1 too, from what I heard.

The guy’s always been a rather stupid man. All that KWC and Sandhurst taught him was how to be a bombastic bully.

If Cannan is practicing to deceive by weaving a tangled web, he’s very likely to fall foul of it. This could be fin de siècle for him. Particularly as he seems to be fast burning through friends in Tynwald. 

[Two-lane]

"But during a debate on reforming Manx Care in Tynwald the next morning, Mr Cannan described the claims about privatisation as a ‘fabrication’."

"Mr Cannan said the ex-minister had sought to ‘lay the blame of his own failings’ at the door of CoMin by ‘contriving’ a council paper asking for unequivocal support for healthcare free at the point of delivery."

Clearly there was a vote in the Council of Ministers regarding healthcare free at the point of delivery. It was voted against.

Hooper interpreted that as an intent to privatise.

Presumably Cannan interprets it merely as a move to pay-as-you-go (but not to privatise, even though they may well contract out the work).

For the average man in the street, the difference between pay-as-you-go and privatisation is negligible. Either way, it costs extra.

[cissolt]

2 hours ago, Ringy Rose said:

I’ll ask the same thing I always do: where would you make the cut?

The easy thing to say is “cut civil service bloat”. Sounds great. The hard thing is to say exactly which people should lose their jobs. Wannenburgh has never answered that question either.

It’s like “red tape”, everyone always says we should cut it but can’t ever manage to point at exactly which regulations they disagree with.

Julie edge mentioned a shed load of new manager roles created at manxcare, one band was costing 2.4 million alone.  I wonder what the combined cost of all the new managers is to the public purse? 

I can't remember the band, was it HEO have an additional 23 members at 70-100k?

[CATHYJAY]

Any system that makes patients pay should be considered unacceptable. Why are the ones that have the most not paying the most? A country is only as good as the care it takes of it's weak and vulnerable, as usual at the moment the political field is in uproar, give it a few weeks and all the anger will evaporate into the ether. Until it rears it's head again.

[Vaaish]

2 hours ago, Ham_N_Eggs said:

Who is he saying Hooper’s consort is?

He means Joney Faragher - consort in the sense that she resigned alongside Hooper, having been a political member in DHSC. 

[Two-lane]

What is the reason for the trip to Jersey? I do not find a reference to that anywhere (other than in Cannan's vitriol).

[Nellie]

2 hours ago, The Phantom said:

I would admit, without having some sort of review to measure efficiencies, ROI etc it would be difficult to say where to cut.  Thing is, has anyone actually tried to review any of this?  We're being told that Depts are trying to make cuts or become more efficient, but I've seen no evidence. 

 

 

It's actually pretty easy to do, once the organisation's leadership is totally committed. You look at the structures - how many 'layers' are there - not just managers, but also officer levels, and you look at 'spans of control' - how many people do managers, supervisors, team leaders actually lead or supervise?

Once you've captured the current structures and roles, it's straight forward to identify roles that aren't contributing, or probably aren't required and where roles and responsibilities are duplicated or can be merged. 

If you 'red ring' the jobs that are surplus, it's amazing how quickly the other roles holder agree they could actually manage six people instead of three, or that they too always wondered what the Deputy Assistant Head of Paperclips actually did.  

Edited 1 hour ago by Nellie

[Two-lane]

2 minutes ago, Nellie said:

It's actually pretty easy to do, once the organisation's leadership is totally committed.

 

[woolley]

2 hours ago, Ringy Rose said:

I’ll ask the same thing I always do: where would you make the cut?

The easy thing to say is “cut civil service bloat”. Sounds great. The hard thing is to say exactly which people should lose their jobs. Wannenburgh has never answered that question either.

It’s like “red tape”, everyone always says we should cut it but can’t ever manage to point at exactly which regulations they disagree with.

You say this regularly, but it's disingenuous. The headcount has grown enormously in recent years, and it's STILL growing even now. How have our services improved?

I'm not saying we should sack people now. We just need to change the mindset to one of retrenchment and away from continuous expansion. I outlined how to make a start in my earlier post. Recruitment freeze, natural wastage with presumption not to replace, redeployment, recruitment only to replace for vital functions where redeployment not practical. It's a start, and it sends a message that our government understands that it isn't Westminster. It is serving a small island of 85,000.

Following on, we look at size and scope of government for the future, and we match the size of the administration to the size of the population, not seek to do it the other way around.