The Isle of Man Government's annual conference got underway at the Comis Hotel yesterday (Tuesday 17 September).
Siobhán Fletcher sat down with our political correspondent - and this week, our self-proclaimed government conference correspondent - Phil Gawne; to find out what was covered, if any of it came as a shock and whether people actually made the journey out to the Comis to attend.
Right, introduce yourself, Bobby Phil. Phil Gunn, the amongst radio, island man, government conference correspondent. There we go, that's your hat for this week. You went along to the first day of the conference at the Comus yesterday. Can you tell me what sorts of things they covered? Was any of it a shock? None of it was a shock. I mean, the programme was published in advance, significantly in advance of the conference. Everything that they said they were going to talk about was there. I suppose the only bit that was perhaps something we couldn't have predicted was what the Chief Minister had to say. And the Chief Minister obviously talked up the achievements of his government as you would expect him to do. He talked up the challenges. He explained that it's been a really difficult time coming out of COVID. But I suppose all governments have difficult things that they have to deal with. One of the governments I was involved with lost 200 million quid out of the VAT sharing arrangement with the UK. And you just have to get on with it. So I'm not sure if the Chief Minister was looking for sympathy, I'm not sure he got a lot there. But then, of course, the Chief Men has announced recently that the overspending in the Department of Health is not acceptable. And he was talking about delivering £10 million worth of efficiencies across the whole of government. You've got to bear in mind, 2008, when we lost the 200 million ever since then, every Department of Government has been looking to drive out in efficiency. So that's been happening for 16 years. Where are you going to find another £10 million worth of efficiencies? I'm not so sure whether actually the topics that aren't being discussed, like is it time for a radical rethink about how we do government on the Isle of Man? Maybe that would have been a better topic for the conference. So you think it's what being unset really is more interesting in this context? Yeah, perhaps. I mean, it's great. It's really important that we do address the economy. Clearly you need to grow the economy. If you can grow the economy, you grow your tax take, which means there's more money to spend on services. But how do you grow the economy when the infrastructure is looking a little bit shabby when you've got problems with the health department, which are being trumpeter than probably promoted more than perhaps would be wise indeed by the Chief Minister himself? How do you attract economically active people to the Isle of Man to do economically active stuff? When the services that they would expect are perhaps not as good as they would hope for? So you mentioned that that £10 million, I mean, they actually setting out anything in terms of a plan. I mean, I realise that they're not. This isn't like an electoral, you know, they're running for a general election. Here's my policies. But this is a reflection on where they are and where they're going. So are they actually outlining how they're going to do that? Or is it just sort of a promise that's being thrown out there? It's a promise that's being thrown out. Effectively, the chief officer, I can't think of the fellas name there, is Andy Ralph's, I think he's called. He is, yes, that's him. He has been tasked with working with the chief officers across government to deliver this £10 million of efficiencies. But, you know, they've tried these things in the past and there comes a point where you're tinkering around with a system which fundamentally doesn't seem to be capable of delivering what's expected by the amongst public. Maybe it needs more than just a little bit of tinkering. But we're not being told that if that is the case. And obviously going into this conference as well, a lot of the talk was around not to sound too sort of Trump rally-esque, but crowd size and whether anyone was going to show up. And because there was a lot of discussion about accessibility, public transport links, that sort of thing, it's obviously moved from the Villa Marina this year. What has the turnout been like? I mean, a lot of people were critiquing, say on Man in Line last week, that the tables were just going to be full of people from departments and things like that. Have you actually seen a presence of the public there? What's that looking like? The room was well filled, certainly for the earlier sessions when some of the key speakers were on, certainly the chief minister and other ministers were speaking. So there were a lot of people there, certainly in the morning session. Now, how many of those people were people who were there representing their businesses, representing their lobby groups, representing departments of government? I can't tell. There were an awful lot of people in sharp suits, which would imply that perhaps they were from various professional areas. There were members of the public there, and members of the public were asking questions. And again, to be fair on government, there were some great opportunities for them to ask questions and get these questions answered. So I don't know what government's ambition for the conference is, but it certainly gives an opportunity to find out about issues that perhaps they're interested in. And I would certainly urge anyone who's interested in Mags politics who can get the day after day to actually go along and find out what other ministers have got to say. We've got the Treasury Minister coming up at half past eight, and Andy Ralph, the chief executive officer of the Ireland Man Government, is there now. We've also got this man Paul Harrison, who is a senior council and executive director of Lexington and former Downing Street press secretary. So he's got the final session of the day to day. And again, it'd be quite interesting to hear what he's got to say. The other, of course, big announcement is that we're going to get more secure ports. I'm not sure that secure ports has been a big issue, but it certainly appears to be an issue that the Ireland Man Government have decided that they want to get a grip of. And the Justice and Home Affairs Minister is going to be talking about that later today. And she is backed up by the head of customs and immigration and the chief operating officer of the Cabinet Office. They're all going to be talking about that. So it'll be interesting to see what's changed in the last few years that requires this more robust approach. On that, though, you're mentioning that announcements are going to be made like, for example, at the ports and tightening security and that sort of thing. You know, one of the critiques we heard yesterday from an MHK was that this government conference isn't the place to be making big announcements because it's not necessarily as public as it may be worse at the villa, or maybe that these announcements should actually in fact be made in Timworld. What's your take on that? It's a difficult one, isn't it? Yes, it is important that big policy changes are discussed and debated in Timworld. Is it reasonable to trail them first at a conference which is organised to allow the public to come and find out what government's thinking? I think it is quite a reasonable thing for the chief minister to trail ideas in that way. But the chief minister, of course, as indeed do all the ministers have to remember that none of them has a direct mandate from the public. You know, we don't have a party political structure in the Isle of Man, so they can't claim to have an electoral mandate that says this particular policy was in my manifesto, therefore I'm pursuing this. So they do need to have Timworld backing for major policy shifts, certainly. Perfect, is there anything you think I've missed? No, I don't think so. Well, the free Buffy that was laid on for everybody. How are you sandwiches? I brought sandwiches, I was quite disappointed that I'd gone to the trouble of bringing some food and then discovering there was a free networking lunch provided which was unexpected. So again, anyone thinking about going to the conference, don't worry about packing your sandwiches. There'll be a free lunch in it for you, or free, probably paid by the tax payers. Well, yes. You paid for your lunch, you just indirectly. Too right. Yeah, all right, perfect. Thank you. Thank you for making it to the end of the Manks Radio newscast. 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