An MHK says she was 'ethically unable' to continue in her role within the Department of Health and Social Care.
Joney Faragher tendered her resignation shortly after Health Minister Lawrie Hooper stepped down.
She says she fundamentally disagrees with the direction she believes CoMIN is travelling in when it comes to healthcare funding:
Hi there, I'm Amy Griffiths and I'm one of the journalists in Manx Radio's Newsroom and you're listening to Newscast. Talking to Joni Faraga, a former member of the Department of Health and Social Care, but you've also attended your resignation. Now, why did you do that? Yeah, I have, with regret. And the reason is that the narrative has been increasingly clear. I mean, we heard in Laurie's resignation speech this afternoon what the narrative has been from Coleman and the direction of travel that we seem to be heading in, which is that this sort of budget shortfall is going to need to be met somehow. And we've already seen cuts and services, which I can't agree with. And I think in the future we'll probably see charges introduced. I don't know if you're in the chamber just now, but I did ask the Chief Minister to clarify whether he agrees with the free at the point of use model. And he wasn't able to clarify that. He did answer with quite a wordy response, which didn't really rule anything out and said that we did need to look at funding models. And that is so not aligned with my principles that I'm just ethically unable to sit in that role and preside over these cuts and potential introduction of fees. That's not what I believe in. But principles are all well and good. The fact of the matter is we're running out of money. Well, the Isle of Man government is running out of money. The available reserves keep diminishing. The great plan, which, you know, our Ireland plan, which was supposed to be regenerating the Manx economy, building more income for government as a result, doesn't seem to be working particularly effectively yet. So what is the option? What would you do instead, bearing in mind that money is incredibly tight? Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right. We have to have that sort of whole bird's eye perspective. We can't just say, "Look, I don't agree with that, but I have no alternative for that." But it is actually quite difficult to provide the alternative when you're not sitting in a central government role in Treasury Minister or Chief Minister's role. It is quite difficult to have that overall view of what the public finances look like. There are ways of raising additional revenue that Treasury seemed to be ruling out with their taxation strategy that we just debated in March earlier this year. Most of the sort of ways that I would have thought about raising additional revenue were already ruled out, even though they said they were going to explore options. And I discussed that in the debate. I did say there's a tension here, because you're saying you're going to explore options, but you've ruled them all out already in this strategy. It wasn't a strategy, by the way. It was just a set of probability principles. But that's where it feels to me, we're failing, that we have a very fixed mindset on how we raise revenue, and it's purely to tax workers. And we need to look outside of that. I equally think that it's super important that we actually involve the public in these discussions. A lot of the discussions and debates that we've had around the future of health care have been behind closed doors. And that's felt to me very uncomfortable, because this affects every single person on this island. And everybody should know about it. I think actually that we should put it out to a referendum, to be honest, to the amongst public. What is the future of health care? And how do we feel that it should be funded? Do we fundamentally still agree with the principle of freedom-point use, which I do? And I think the vast majority of people do. And if so, how can we ensure that our revenue raising is in line with what we need? We've just heard the Treasury Minister's statement, in which he kind of, well, he was obfuscatory, as you would imagine, because he can't really announce what's going to be in the budget, you know, four or five months in advance. But he did seem to say that the replacement of the 2% increase in higher rate tax, which of course, almost everybody in the island man pays, that 2% increase. It's more difficult than he had anticipated in terms of finding an alternative. We're surprised to hear that. I was surprised, and I was really, really disappointed actually, because what options have been explored. And that's, you know, that's what I will be phoning my question to him around. If we've already ruled out the options in the tax strategy in March, there wasn't really very much else to do, was there really? So how have they sat and explored those options if they'd already decided from the outset they were ruling most of them out? That seems to me to be not being very honest with the people of the Isle of Man. If there are other options, explore them openly and honestly tell us why they don't work, you know, bring us along. But I can't really get on board with this. We're ruling them all out from the outset. There aren't any other options for us to explore. We know that there are other options that work in other jurisdictions. Maybe they won't work here, but tell us why. Explain that to us. And perhaps that's exactly what the Treasury Minister will do, perhaps at budget time. One thing though that I think most of the people who have a passing interest in Manx politics will say is that they are aware that they are paying 2% more in income tax and that that 2% was to fund the £40 million increase in Manx Care's budget. And they will also be pondering how it is that having been asked to take that additional pain, Manx Care six months in seemed to be nearly £18 million over their budget. Surely to goodness part of your role in the Department of Health and Social Care was to try and keep an eye on that sort of thing. How has it got this far? Yeah, it's been an ongoing issue for the last two years. These issues are always cumulative. You know, you don't have the first sign of an issue. You don't kind of drop everything and leave. You want to see if you can work it through. You want to try and help resolve it. And that's kind of what's been going on really for the last two years. It really has come to ahead recently because there have been so many comments from the Chief Minister and from other members of Council of Ministers that we can't go over the budget, that there will be no supplementary that they have to keep within their budget and that this continual use of the word overspend, which is an incorrect word actually, because if you look at the mathematical figures which don't really lie, Manx Care hasn't been funded in line with the Sir Jonathan Michael recommendations. And again, I don't think that if they feel that that's not possible to do, I don't think that it's impossible that the rest of the court could have been brought along with them not funding them in line with this Jonathan Michael recommendations, but they haven't been honest and open about that. They haven't talked about that. Treasury is still saying that they have funded Manx Care in line with the Sir Jonathan Michael recommendations. Mathematically, we can see that that isn't the case. So I guess I just feel like we all need to have a little bit more honest communication and not just from politicians to the public, but between politicians as well, between Council of Ministers and Backbenches, and we just need to get these issues out on the table and discuss them and everybody needs to be brought along. I'm guessing though every department of government has had reports and reviews undertaken, many of which will have said, actually this department is operating on a shoestring, it needs more money. Ultimately, as politicians, your job at budget time is to decide who gets what money, and then your job is to make sure that your area of whichever department you're sat in actually sticks to the budget. I mean, that's what I would guess most people listen to this interview would be thinking, you know, if in their roles, wherever they may be, whether that's public sector or private sector, if they're given a budget, they have to stick to the budget. Yeah, and that's absolutely right. That that is the role of departmental members in the minister is in in DHSC. It's to ensure that Manks Care stay within their financial envelope. In on this particular occasion in last year's budget, Laurie, the minister was quite clear that it wasn't going to be enough money. We were all quite clear that it wasn't going to be enough money because Manks care have a very sound financial forecaster and they knew how much they were going to need. We could see that there was a shortfall in that. And there is there is no getting around that. You know, there's only so much blood that you can get out of a stone. Manks Care had delivered on cost improvement programs. They have delivered on savings, but they just it's paired down to the bone now. You cannot get any more savings out of it. And I think one of the reasons that it's taken such a long time to go back to your question from earlier was really that we needed that assurance around that. And we had to feel that they genuinely are at the end of what they can do now in terms of cost savings. We are at the point now where the only way that we could meet the financial envelope is service cuts or induction of fees. And again, I couldn't be on board with that. I'm not on board with that. Treasury Minister in his statement does seem to acknowledge that some of this this year's DH or Manks Care overspend will have to be accommodated. I think he was indicating something in the region of £8 million. I'm guessing that's in relation to announcements from the UK Labour government in relation to increases in salaries, which of course, a lot of the salary deals that we have on the Isle of Man are based on UK deals. So I suppose that is an area where Manks Care has a reasonably excuse? Yeah, absolutely. And I can't remember the exact figures. I know that Laurie who gave them earlier on with regards to the uplift in this financial year for Manks Care and the amount of that that was taken away for pay uplifts. And the fact that that comes out of the budget, despite the fact that you don't know how much it's going to be at the time that you put in your budget bid, is quite a significant disjoint really in our system. And one of the many reasons that many of backbenchers, including myself, have called for budgetary reform every single year on budget day, because perhaps it should be the case that for pay rises or uplifts to pay for government workers for treasury to take. And actually that means that your budget isn't out of sync right from the outset. Because you can only forecast that you're told by treasury that you can do forecast, for example, at 2% pay rise. And you can only put that factor that into your bid. We know that it's going to be higher than 2%. You know, you say it's 4.9% and you just have to take that out of the money that you've been allocated. So you're out of sync right from the outset. And there's just so many instances like that where really actually the budget process isn't really fit for purpose and isn't working for departments. Just as an anecdote, I was speaking to a government work I won't say which department. And they said, you know what, I'd rather not take the pay increase, because quite frankly there's a whole load of stuff that I want to get on with, which if everyone takes the pay increase, we'll not be able to do. And effectively, that's the position that departments have been in, possibly for the last decade. Yeah. And I mean, that's a whole other issue, really, from what we've started talking about. But they're all interlinked, don't they? It's quite hard to kind of pontificate on that, I think. There are lots of people out there who are equally struggling, although anecdotally, somebody might have said to you, they'd prefer not to spend the time and take the pay increase. I'm sure there are many people who equally would say, you know, I can't put food on the table, I'm choosing between heating and eating, and really getting a grasp of what's going on for manks people, for most manks people, is key here to find in how we can improve things for everyone. Do you think there is a solution to this? There's a solution to everything. Yeah, there is absolutely no problem without a solution, but this solution will be complex. And, you know, it might involve people, it might involve things that people will find to be unpopular. And I think that's where the rub is, that politicians are very unwilling to do things that might be unpopular. And I don't know how we can get around, that, you know, if we want to kind of progress as an island, we might need to look at, you know, how we're raising money, we might need to look at how our systems are set up, and we might need to look at our taxation system and reform of that. Thank you for making it to the end of the Manks Radio Newscast. You are obviously someone with exquisite taste. May I politely suggest you might want to subscribe to this and a wide range of Manks Radio podcasts at your favourite podcast provider, so our best bits will magically appear on your smartphone. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]
