The Madness Goes On

[Non-Believer 12,523]

Consider the major participation event (surely?), The Parish Walk.

 

Why do we not need a Development Officer for this, given that we need guidance for all the "lesser" sports?

 

Or is it that it's so successful down to lack of Govt interference?

[Bubba 11]

Haven't heard much from the "Transforming Government" team in a few years. Did they give up?

[Numbnuts 1,114]

Was heavily involved in a sport from the 80's through to mid to late 90's ...Myself and a couple of other enthusiastic volunteers!! organised and built up a sport to having a total of 30 or so teams...Very successful sport and players went on to represent England,GB and professional teams in the UK as well as many age group area and national teams... This was all done with no money been payed to us and just enthusiasm and common sense.... A very structured and organised leagues and set up.... Now we all have moved on due to age ,demands off personal life amongst other reasons and that same sport is struggling with just about 9 teams and a very adverage standard! As others have said it can't be played down what a wonderful job Dot Tilbury does and I also agree with another poster about the standard of football over here and the input to junior players! Terrible input to young kids and no direction or correct preparation for playing at a higher level is given...For the amount of football played over here and standard of facilities the end result is very poor! This is what these sports development officers should be addressing but clearly there not. As for cricket the last guy tasked with development was only interested in elite players and not growing the sport..Again a failure in Sports council not to give clear guide lines to work too...

Edited April 19, 2016 by Numbnuts

[guilty 64]

I presume an effective Stop Smoking Adviser will save the Health and Social Care Department money.

 

No it won't. The estimated annual cost of smoking-related disease is £4m. The govt income from tobacco duties is £20m.

[Bobbie Bobster 3,419]

Source?

[Butterflies 540]

IOM Govt income from tobacco was £18m in 2012-2013 (source). According to ASH (anti-smoking group) the UK spends £2b a year on smoking related diseases (source). Divide the UK population of 65m by 800 to get the IOM population of circa 80,000. Divide the £2bn the UK spend by the same 800 and you get £2.5m as the cost to the IOM NHS annually on smoking related diseases over here.

 

So IOM Govt is up by around £16m annually on the deal.

 

Worth remembering that you don't have to be a smoker to die or suffer from a "smoking-related disease". Everyone who suffers from anything that could be caused by smoking is lumped into the figures of how much smoking costs the NHS, therefore the figures are actually wildly exaggerated.

 

The average smoker pays about £3000 a year to the Government in taxes. How are they going to recoup that once we're all on ecigs?

Edited April 20, 2016 by Butterflies

[woolley 19,198]

Does that take into account the huge amount saved in pensions, old age medical treatment and care homes by smokers killing themselves younger? Statistics, damned lies etc.

[Bobbie Bobster 3,419]

@butterflies Nice Fermi estimate there, thanks.

[Butterflies 540]

What's fermi & where's your contribution to any debate?

[Roger Mexico 9,373]

What's fermi & where's your contribution to any debate?

 

Mr Google is your friend:

 

[...] a Fermi problem, Fermi quiz, Fermi question, Fermi estimate, or order estimation is an estimation problem designed to teach dimensional analysis, approximation, and such a problem is usually a back-of-the-envelope calculation.

 

I think it was a compliment. Admittedly that happens so rarely on Manx Forums that I'm not surprised you were surprised.

Edited April 20, 2016 by Roger Mexico

[Butterflies 540]

A compliment? Naaaaaah, no way. I did google but only fermi which didn't help. Thanks Roger.

[guilty 64]

Yes, Fermi estimates are generally considered to provide a good approximation. The figure of £4m that I mentioned is my own Fermi estimate, very similar to Butterflies calculation, but based on more up-to-date information. That's because our own NHS does not record such statistics (or at least, they are not currently available).

The £20m income from tobacco duties comes from 2016 HM Customs and previous Govt accounts (again, Butterflies identified this at about £19m). But there is also an additional 'local' collection of duties of about £0.5m from tobacco movements out of bonded warehouses.

It should also be noted that the roughly £19m of duties received from HM Customs is, itself, calculated by Customs as a Fermi estimate, based the ‘Share of GNI’ revenue sharing arrangements with the UK. When we move to Mr Teare's new FERSA (Final Expenditure Revenue Sharing Arrangement) this will actually be measured on consumption and may change - up or down?

[Andy Onchan 4,118]

The easy answer to get people to stop smoking or even considering starting is to tax a packet of 20 at 25 squid a pop. And if that doesn't work hike it up again.

[guilty 64]

The easy answer to get people to stop smoking or even considering starting is to tax a packet of 20 at 25 squid a pop. And if that doesn't work hike it up again.

I don't think that would stop it. It would just lead to smuggling and black-market sales.

 

For a typical packet of 20 cigarettes costing £8.47 the duty is £5.19

VAT at 20% of the retail price adds £1.69

 

Cigarettes are a government product - you buy government tobacco. You buy 16 out of 20 cigarettes in the pack from the government, with the tobacco companies as a minor partner handling logistics. It's a government-run profit-making business at both ends of the equation: tobacco tax revenue at one end, and pension savings when you die early at the other end.

[rmanx 1,107]

Bloody hell.

 

Considering how bad fags are for you, you'd think they would be illegal or something...