Government publishes response to Scope review

The Council of Ministers has published its response to the Scope of Government review, in the latest stage of a far-reaching project to overhaul the way the Island is governed.

The document contains a series of recommendations from CoMin on key suggestions made in the review, which called for the range of services provided by the Manx government to be drastically reduced and suggested alternative delivery models including privatisation, corporatisation and contracting-out. It also contains a selection of comments from the general public, private companies such as Colas and Ronaldsway Aircraft Company and public bodies including Manx National Heritage.

Some ministerial recommendations come as no surprise. The desire to make government 'smaller, simpler and less bureaucratic' is the raison d'etre of the whole exercise. More contentious principles are embraced elsewhere in the document, such as a call for services provided by local authorities to be wholly funded by them - in effect a call to end tax payer support and subsidy for council functions, passing-on the cost to rate payers.

Elsewhere, the idea of setting-up a Department of Corporate Development to oversee the process of reducing government activity has fallen by the wayside. Instead, there is support for proposals to add the brief to the remit of a minister, as yet unspecified.

Input from companies and bodies in the Island's business sector are also quoted. The Chamber of Commerce for instance describes the next steps as crucial, and says the willingness of government to change its culture will be 'central to any success'.

Comments from members of the public include worries about privatisation. One contributor raises concerns that changes to the running of public buses could result in 'cherry-picking of profitable services' and the loss of other, less popular ones. Another contributor questions whether those making key decisions on change, presumably ministers, 'are the same people with a vested interest in their own jobs in justifying [them]'.

CoMin's report, now made public, is not the end of the process - although it notes the process has now started! It's impetus from here depends wholly on the determination of the Chief Minister and his team to bring about the biggest change to the way we are governed since 1986 when the ministerial system was introduced.