Department of Nitwits

[Roger Mexico]

44 minutes ago, dilligaf said:

  No doubt I will regret asking, but are all the SPCo staff now classed as Gov. workers ?

Not in these numbers.  The reply to Watterson excludes the Post Office and the MUA as well:

The drop in 2019 was probably due to privatisation of jobs at the Airport.  As already noted, the tendency over the last decade has been to get rid of lowly paid manual jobs from direct government employment while the number of upper and mid-level managers increases.

[joebean]

I worked in the public sector in the UK in the 90s and there was a cost cutting drive in that period. As a manager I was asked to look at cost savings in my area and, like everyone else, I presented the options with the shroud-waving commentary about loss of service. The net result was that making decisions about what to get rid of fell to the Centre. They responded to this difficulty by simply cutting budgets between 5 and 10% for the following year, leaving management in the field to decide what to cut. We all made those decisions and lived within the reduced budget. 
Within IOM Government there is no drive from the Centre. With no drive comes no resolve and the fractured nature of Departmental Government places the Treasury in the invidious position of trying to control expenditure with little operational knowledge about what is necessary and what isn’t. Of course this does not work.

The situation is not helped by the fact that the Chief Secretary is in charge of little else than Cabinet Office. He is a weak person in a weak position and, if setting examples were his thing he would have failed miserably since Cabinet Office itself has seen some of the biggest expansions in staffing, inflated roles and expenditure. He is nothing more than a blown up administrator who leads nothing other than the CM along the well-trodden path to status quo. Howard does not need much leading as he was happily shuffling along that path in his fancy shoes anyway. 
One day the chickens will come home to roost. It will take someone truly exceptional to lead us out of the mire with a system of Government that is not fit for purpose and a group of senior officials who have no experience or interest in the welfare of taxpayers and the public coffers.

[Beelzebub3]

8 hours ago, Derek Flint said:

https://www.jobtrain.co.uk//iomgovjobs/DisplayJob.aspx?JobId=11220

Derek, I doubt very much that you would last long doing this job, the last 3 or 4 certainly did not last long, you have to remember with whom you will be under, who is  a certain gentleman with a penchant for a certain german brand of vehicle, and believe me he is a complete and utter gobshite! ps good luck to the candidates for the post as  they will need it.

[Roger Mexico]

49 minutes ago, Beelzebub3 said:

Derek, I doubt very much that you would last long doing this job, the last 3 or 4 certainly did not last long, you have to remember with whom you will be under, who is  a certain gentleman with a penchant for a certain german brand of vehicle, and believe me he is a complete and utter gobshite! ps good luck to the candidates for the post as  they will need it.

But surely that's the idea:

1. Get highly paid job

2. Fall out with boss making ridiculous demands

3. Resign claiming constructive dismissal

4. Accept enormous tax-funded payout to keep quiet.

[Derek Flint]

1 hour ago, Beelzebub3 said:

Derek, I doubt very much that you would last long doing this job, the last 3 or 4 certainly did not last long, you have to remember with whom you will be under, who is  a certain gentleman with a penchant for a certain german brand of vehicle, and believe me he is a complete and utter gobshite! ps good luck to the candidates for the post as  they will need it.

Who says I was going to apply? 

[Non-Believer]

Methinks that Derek's experience now serves the taxpayers better by being outside the tent, pissing in.

Rather than accepting a role with whatever good intentions, then finding out that the edifice he's joined has no intention whatsoever of restructuring or adapting to the times and being assimilated into the "pissing out" club of tent occupiers and staying schtum is the best and most lucrative way of staying in the tent.

[Beelzebub3]

16 hours ago, Derek Flint said:

Who says I was going to apply? 

I thought that you liked a challenge? that job would be just that.

[Derek Flint]

18 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

Methinks that Derek's experience now serves the taxpayers better by being outside the tent, pissing in.

Rather than accepting a role with whatever good intentions, then finding out that the edifice he's joined has no intention whatsoever of restructuring or adapting to the times and being assimilated into the "pissing out" club of tent occupiers and staying schtum is the best and most lucrative way of staying in the tent.

There’s thirty years work ahead. Some bright people in their 30’s in Government who get it. Hopefully they won’t be assimilated on the way up and will start to make The difference 

2 hours ago, Beelzebub3 said:

I thought that you liked a challenge? that job would be just that.

I didn’t even read the job description and I doubt I’m even qualified. But I spent 30 years trying to be progressive, and encourage change, and it was hard enough even in a part of the public service that was reasonably up for it. Gradually, it wears you down and makes you ill. 

I prefer pushing at the open doors these days, rather than the revolving ones or those that are on those really heavy spring loaded hinges. You know the ones, you think you are just about through then it thwacks back and twats you in the face. 

 

[joebean]

4 minutes ago, Derek Flint said:

 

I prefer pushing at the open doors these days, rather than the revolving ones or those that are on those really heavy spring loaded hinges. You know the ones, you think you are just about through then it thwack back and twats you in the face. 

Yes, I know that feeling very well. We had similar experience. 

[Non-Believer]

Just now, joebean said:

Yes, I know that feeling very well. We had similar experience. 

Me too.....

[ThreeRaccoonsInATrenchCoat]

On 9/24/2020 at 12:06 PM, Roger Mexico said:

 

As @Banker points out Manx politicians have absolutely no control over the civil service and we don't have any career politicians left.  Apart from the presiding officers (Rodan and Watterson) there's only Cregeen and (just) Robertshaw who have been there for longer than ten years.  And Christian seems pretty keen to become a career politician herself.

In actual fact 'business people' like Christian (small business owners) are already numerous in Manx politics and always have been.  In the current Keys you already have Perkins, Peake and Corlett among the backbenchers, none of whom seem particularly diligent, and such people dominate the Council of Minister: Quayle, Cannan, Boot, Harmer and Skelly all fit that description.  The swamp still seem rather wet though.

 

That was exactly my point. The politicians have no control over the civil servants and there are NOT ENOUGH "business people" in Manx politics to take them on. Who in the current Tynwald (by which I mean the HOK and COMin, etc) is a real business person, meaning someone with business experience at an executive level? Maybe a couple of them and that's about it. Your list of "business" people is rather liberal or stretching it a bit. Christian is okay, it is unfair to criticise her as she has not been in post long enough. Let's give her a chance and by that I mean the next full term as well. The new wave of young socialist agitators isn't going to help things either. Their beliefs and policies would cause immeasurable damage to the island's social and economic fabric and there are many disenfranchised people who may end up voting for them. It's a sorry state of affairs. One lot of morons up against another lot, with only a handful of sane people near the helm. 

[ThreeRaccoonsInATrenchCoat]

On 9/24/2020 at 10:48 AM, Rhumsaa said:

Just looks like edge asking a pedantic technical question about when an MHK becomes an MHK and Thomas and hooper getting their legislation geek on quoting various passages of the act

Did I see you in Strand Street this morning pushing a pram?

[Apple]

22 hours ago, ThreeRaccoonsInATrenchCoat said:

The new wave of young socialist agitators isn't going to help things either. Their beliefs and policies would cause immeasurable damage to the island's social and economic fabric and there are many disenfranchised people who may end up voting for them. It's a sorry state of affairs.

I don't agree with your analysis. Maybe that is just  what we need for some constructive change. It is our apathy that continues to put these people in post, then it is our fault surely.?

Looking at the Tynwald / HOK public attendance it seems very much that not enough people are that interested, so why should the politicians be concerned.? 

[doc.fixit]

But we can't say, 'NO', to a candidate. However bad they are someone is elected. Please can we have a, 'none of these', tickbox?

[Uhtred]

7 minutes ago, doc.fixit said:

But we can't say, 'NO', to a candidate. However bad they are someone is elected. Please can we have a, 'none of these', tickbox?

Wouldn’t disagree - but stand by for an empty House of Keys chamber!