Spyk3r

Were they Asian or African based on your assumption that they are immigrants? I too am curious about why there wouldn't be any news on it.

Get ready for more inflation and a further increase to combat the inflation and then more (surprise, surprise) inflation...

That is so Sheldon!! but I do agree.

I see thanks for your feedback. Would be interesting to hear how they make it- but it looks like it is in Tesco too now, so must be legitimate.

Is that speculation or as far as you know dating back to 2018 when you were there?

Perfect, thank you @dooahhdoo! Thats exactly what I wanted to know!

@Anyone Isle of Man's population reaches new record high | iomtoday.co.im

@Anyone I will try, thanks. When doing a speed test (on either Speedtest.net or Fast.com) you will see a "Ping Time". If you are on Sure, please could you do the same, but change the Server to London for Speedtest.net.

Hi All, I am in the market for a new fibre connection at home (Currently on 1Gbps through Manx Telecom) but I would like to find out what the latency is to local and UK based servers are on Sure. Currently, when running a Speed Test to Manx Telecom - my ping is 1ms, but when doing it to Sure its about 19ms. London is 10ms. I want to find out if Sure is the same - so anyone on Sure fibre - please could you let me know if you're getting similar pings to UK based Servers? Thank you!

So I have just seen this updated on the government website. https://www.gov.im/media/1382662/06032024-visa-application-fees-processing-times-page.pdf Currently 55 working days for entry clearance, Further leave to remain and indefinite leave to remain!\ Priority is being given to applicants applying from Ukraine. Anyone have any insight into why it is so slow?

Agreed. In terms of numbers though it is 2% in addition to the 20% we are already being charged. But that 2% increase is about £30 million which is what their remuneration went up by in the 22/23 financial year. I feel like service has degraded in the last few years, so more money for less...

And now we will likely have to wait about 9 months for 23/24...

At least... yes - as this is the lower banding - the figure is likely to be out by about 10% in my estimation.

Thanks for that. Here is the updated table:

I decided to draw up a table which is slightly different... So I have taken the lower banding total, the counts for relevant rows and put them into a table that gives us details of what the total cost is per banding. It also shows us where there have been changes year on year. For the percentage columns the cost and count will be the same as we dont have a specific number difference, only a calculated one which is based on the lower banding and the count of staff. If I have made any errors in numbers - apologies! This was done fairly rapidly. Feel free to let me know and I will adjust. The reading is quite concerning... 33.7% increase in staff between 50 and 75k from an already high salary base of £62,150,000...

This!!! 100% agree with you!

I have often contemplated the following: Bureaucratic Requirements (sometimes nonsense) - GDPR/Freedom of information requests etc Compliance managers in place to ensure we are compliant with European and global requirements, which I understand is required, but often ask myself whether it is necessary. I also think that this is only going to get worse and we are going to have to get more people doing reporting on information which is ultimately going to cause additional bloat. Consider the DHSC/Manx Care Fiasco - we have two boards which to the layman look like they are doing the same thing. I don't actually know what the DHSC and MC boards do and where the division of duties comes from - I acknowledge it may be outlined somewhere - but It isn't readily available information that I can find by doing a simple google search. What I can find is that the DHSC is responsible for establishing health and social care Priorities and writing policies to meet those priorities (Read above Bureaucratic Requirements). I'm certain Manx Care could do this themselves, couldn't they? There isn't such an arm for the Steam racket, is there (all this Arms length bs)? Consider the Freedom of information portal - anyone can request information on almost any topic from the government - but someone or a team has to then go through the records, prepare and respond to the request. I would imagine this type of job wouldn't have been around from before 2016 up to maybe 2019... Now I wouldnt be surprised if there is someone dedicated to this per department (i may be incorrect - this is just an opinion), There is also a lot of time wasted where someone has to reply and say the information is not held - and that the requester should contact a different department to potentially get the information they want. I had to assist in a DSAR a few months ago - sifting through terabytes of data in documents to provide information - censor information that was classified as someone else's personal information and then provide that in a format that could be viewed by the person who requested it. It was 5-6 days worth of work for this simple request. That is time taken out of people's days that could be used to deliver services... I'm not saying it should all go (and I understand that the move to a technologically advanced civilisation necessitates us creating ways to protect individuals and their personal data) - but we really do need to assess what each role is doing in the government. We have C£2b in reserves - some of that is down to investments and a lot of it has been used in the past 3-5 years but i'm sure at some point we would have been running at a surplus in order to build a reserve of that magnitude.

Apologies Ramon, I had it wrong - your calc is correct - I was applying the monthly to an annual amount - which was incorrect. I removed my post after I realised, but I think it was too late for your response!

I had a quick look at this and I think it is great!

Okell's – Vino - i ordered from here - there is a delivery fee though...

I got it as well... so i dont think it is being targeted at certain people... considering my partner is a joint account holder

I'm in the same boat - however, if the issue is if you leave Douglas to go to Ballasalla or Castletown, you have to factor in things like fuel into the city for work/leisure/shopping etc. As soon as you do that, it is cheaper to stay put. But it does feel like you're stuck between a rock and a hard place...

Well its official now https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/douglas-council-increases-rates-by-12/ Still shocked to be honest... double inflation, most expensive by the looks of things on the island.

12.57% and we get fortnightly collections, recycling - which lets face it, only some use, unlike the refuse which everyone uses. I guess we need to subsidise the expensive sea wall works, new amenity site (which is quite nice) but gets used by most people in the east of the island - including Santon, Laxey, Malew etc. That means between DCC and Treasury, im likely going to be paying £2k annually for the benefit of living in Douglas...

I am in agreement - they cost £1 at spar for 16 caplets... it costs more in paperwork, authorisations, dispensing time etc to the NHS for this than what its worth. To be honest, i'm not even sure why people are going to the doctors for minor ailments unless they are repetitive and could be symptoms of something worse.