PROCEED with caution. That was the overwhelming message from Tynwald members this week as they debated the possibility of privatising some government services.
Chief Minister Allan Bell successfully asked members to note that the Review of the Scope of Government report, and another report containing further comments from the team behind it, had been received and noted by the Council of Ministers. Mr Bell said the debate was a valuable chance for members to air their views on the contents of the reports and his motion welcomed those views, along with those of the public.
The Scope of Government report recommends many government services be privatised, contracted out to the private sector or corporatised (retained in government ownership but operated on a commercial basis by an arms-length company). Suggestions include mothballing the Villa-Gaiety and phasing out the Manx pension supplement. Most members agreed change was needed but had differing views on how it should happen.
Chairman of the Civil Service Commission Alfred Cannan (Michael) said he believed workers’ terms and conditions must be dealt with before anything else. For instance, he said some redundancy payments he had recently signed off on had been ‘extortionate in comparison with those that would exist in the private sector’. He said those kind of pay outs ‘could be a block to any corporatisation or privatisation’ as a private company wouldn’t want to take on existing staff on existing terms and conditions.
Juan Turner MLC said he agreed with the concept of privatisation but said nevertheless he did not believe it was necessarily a viable option in a small island community. He said, for example, the National Sports Centre was a facility that would not necessarily exist elsewhere for a population the size of the island’s. He said it would be cost-prohibitive for a private company to run such a facility as it is run now. His Council colleague Dudley Butt agreed with Mr Turner that certain services run by government, like the NSC, were special cases.
Overall, the idea of corporatisation seemed to garner more support than outright privatisation.
Another concern raised by a number of members was that in trying to cut back, more bureaucracy would be created, particularly in the arena of local government. Speaker of the House of Keys Steve Rodan warned new legislation could be required to allow a private company or local authority to take on a role currently borne by central government.
Graham Cregeen (Malew and Santon) said any service level agreements put together as part of a privatisation deal would have to be fully scrutinised and leave more wriggle room than, for instance, the user agreement between government and the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company for the exclusive use of the linkspan.