T Y N W A L D C O U R T O F F I C I A L R E P O R T
R E C O R T Y S O I K O I L Q U A I Y L T I N V A A L
P R O C E E D I N G S
D A A L T Y N
S T A N D I N G C O M M I T T E E O F T Y N W A L D O N E N V I R O N M E N T A N D I N F R A S T R U C T U R E P O L I C Y R E V I E W
B I N G V E A Y N T I N V A A L M Y C H I O N E A A S C R U T A G H E Y P O L A S E E Y N E R C O O I S H Y N C H Y M M Y L T A G H T A S B U N – T R O G G A L Y S
DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNITY, CULTURE AND LEISURE
HANSARD
Douglas, Wednesday, 13th February 2013
PP34/13 EIPRC-C, No. 1/12-13
All published Official Reports can be found on the Tynwald website www.tynwald.org.im/Official Papers/Hansards/Please select a year:
Published by the Office of the Clerk of Tynwald, Legislative Buildings, Finch Road, Douglas, Isle of Man, IM1 3PW. © High Court of Tynwald, 2013 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 13th FEBRUARY 2013
Members Present:
Chairman: Mr D M W Butt MLC Mr A F Downie OBE MLC Mr Z Hall MHK
Clerk: Mrs E M Lambden
Business Transacted Page
Procedural ......
Evidence of Hon. G D Cregeen MHK, Minister for Community Culture and Leisure and Mr N Black, Chief Executive, Department of Community, Culture and Leisure ......
The Committee adjourned at 11.54 a.m.
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Standing Committee of Tynwald on Environment and Infrastructure Policy Review
Department of Community, Culture and Leisure
The Committee sat in public at 10.30 a.m. in the Legislative Council Chamber, Legislative Buildings, Douglas
[MR BUTT in the Chair]
Procedural
The Chairman (Mr D M W Butt MLC): Welcome everybody. This is a meeting of the Environment and Infrastructure Policy Review Committee and we have today with us, Mr Nick Black, Chief Executive of the Department of Community, Culture and Leisure and we have Mr 5 Graham Cregeen, Minister for the same Department. I am Mr Dudley Butt MLC and I chair the Committee. With me is Mr Alex Downie MLC and Mr Zac Hall MHK and our Clerk is Marie Lambden. Could you please ensure that your mobile phones are switched off, not just on silent, because it will interfere with Hansard if they are not. For the purposes of Hansard again, we shall try to 10 ensure that only one person speaks at a time, if that is possible. Thank you. The Environment and Infrastructure Policy Review Committee is one of three Standing Committees of Tynwald Court established in October 2011 with a wide scrutiny remit. We cover three Departments: the Department of Community, Culture and Leisure, who are here today; the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture; and the Department of Infrastructure. Today’s 15 session is the second of our routine scrutiny sessions with those Departments. We met with the Department of Food and Agriculture in June, the Department of Infrastructure in November and today we are meeting with the Department of Community, Culture and Leisure.
20 EVIDENCE OF HON. G D CREGEEN MHK AND MR N BLACK
Q1. The Chairman: So welcome, gentlemen. Can I ask you both to introduce yourselves and then… Could I start, perhaps, with the Minister first: could you introduce yourself and give us a 25 brief overview of how you think the Department has been operating in the last few months?
The Minister for Community, Culture and Leisure (Mr Cregeen): I am Graham Cregeen, Minister for the Department of Community, Culture and Leisure and with me we have Nick Black, Chief Executive. 30 If we start off with a few key points of what the Department is up to. The Department owns things like the Camera Obscura and we have got the Wildlife Park, the Villa Marina, the Gaiety, the NSC, we run regional sports pitches, we support the regional swimming pools and we are sponsoring Department for Manx National Heritage, the Heritage Foundation. We have also got the OFT and Manx Radio, so we are the sponsoring bodies for those. 35 The purpose is to support visitor economy, create a quality life and support communities via sports and arts development. This costs – 2013-14 Budget, if approved – about £17.5 million gross expenditure, but the gross expenditure, sorry, is £25.9 million. Salary, loan charges, pool grants make up 110.4% of the net budget from the start of the year. Sometimes referred to as loss-making, current position is subsidised, some activities make real 40 profit and those that are targeted to break even, do so. Bus operations are heavily subsidised to provide economic infrastructure and allow social inclusion. About 60% of passengers do not pay. Without subsidy we would only run a number of routes that would be viable routes, so there are about five routes that would only be viable, if you had to pay for everything without any subsidy. ______3 EIPRC-C/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 13th FEBRUARY 2013
Rail operation costs about £2.75 million, but generates an economic value of around £11 45 million to the Isle of Man – 10% of all tourist income alone and 25% when linked with Manx National Heritage joint activity. Much has been done to reduce costs: Villa Marina, Gaiety Theatre down from £1.35 million to below £930,000 next year. Well published things are staffing changes, involving redundancies and removal from Whitley Council and imposed changes in terms and conditions. 50 Income also up. Despite the poor summer weather on record, the Curraghs Wildlife Park has welcomed over 40,000 visitors, the highest for over six years. Operating in a commercial environment, we strive to increase revenue. However, our primary focus is to enhance the quality of life for people on the Island. Unlike many areas of Government, the Department’s income relies almost totally on discretionary spend by customers in a price sensitive environment and without 55 the protection from the broader economic climate. The small size of the Island and its population reduce the profit potential, making many of our services unattractive to private sector ownership. To continue to drive Department services and facilities at the current level and quality, subsidies are a necessity. However, limit to what can be done by trimming costs, budgets have in real terms fallen by 60 8.1% since 2010-11, costs have gone up. Currently spending 2.7 per annum on energy, for example, for savings… Other savings are harder. Articulated buses would give us an approximate saving of £300,000, but there would be a capital saving of about £3 million on replacement fleet.
The Chairman: We will come to those issues later on. I am just getting an overview of how 65 you think the Department has worked in the last –
The Minister: So that is some of the things that we are looking at. We are also looking at the Agenda for Change. Our Department is one of the leading Departments to put forward areas of the Scope of Government. We are looking at the Villa 70 Marina, Gaiety, Wildlife Park, how we can make these things more attractive and to try and get within our budget. So currently we are spread quite thinly because our budgets have been hit massively over the last few years and from somebody who only came into the Department from July last year, there are very few bodies around to try and progress the situation.
75 Q2. The Chairman: Thank you, Minister. Could I start off with the good news? I will try to give some good news first. Manx sport and recreation: I have some knowledge of what they are trying to achieve with the community, with disabled and disadvantaged people and some of the referral schemes they do. I wonder if Mr Black could give us an overview for the Committee’s benefit of the schemes that they are doing, 80 particularly the referral schemes they are undertaking at the moment and what they do for the wider community?
Mr Black: Thank you, Mr Chairman. I will be very pleased to do that. As you say, it is one of those areas of the Department that is realistically all good news. We 85 spend what I believe is a very small amount of money on Manx sport and recreation as a team, more formally known as the Sports Development Unit of the Department, and that costs us around £450,000 a year, including all the salaries. In terms of the benefit you might want to be interested in three particular areas. Obviously, Chairman, you referred to your own example, but with your role in Health as well, you will know 90 there is an overall link with health and particularly there, perhaps, their drive to ensure that exercise and health are maximised in a view that I am sure is designed to cut down the long-term cost of the health service of treating people once they have become ill. Our role is very much at the start of that process, to work with people like Dr Kishore’s team in Public Health to try to stop people becoming a customer of the Department of Health in that sort of more acute sense that they 95 might need hospital treatment. So we have a physical activity referral scheme for adults and some of the things are provided by the Department of Health, but most of them are provided by ourselves. Our Walk and Talk sessions at the NSC have been very popular for a large number of years. We have, I think, the most numbers at the NSC, but we also have outdoor ones working with DEFA and providing a bit 100 further afield, so people can go for more of what might be a targeted stroll in the country, again with old people, again with a leader, again with health goals; but there are chair-based exercise programmes, ladies’ activity mornings at the NSC, activity afternoons, gym sessions, swimming sessions, and of course we should not forget the disability-specific sessions.
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Again, as you will know, there are a number of people on the Island whose disabilities mean 105 they cannot participate in all the same sessions, but we provide specific sessions for people with a range of disabilities, both mental and physical, and they are not only very well received, they are also providing a good health benefit. So we have been very successful in the overall physical activity strategy and realistically, if we carry on doing as well as we have been doing, we will be looking for a permanent person to co- 110 ordinate those activities, to make sure that they are not limited by capacity and that we can make sure we can cover the whole Island as much as possible and very much I see that as an investment in the future of the population.
Q3. The Chairman: That is the adult referral scheme. How does that work and refer to the 115 scheme?
Mr Black: Some of the sessions I have referred to have been run for many years on a ‘turn up and join in’ basis, like the Walk and Talk. More recently, we have developed a referral scheme, whereby health professionals, such as GPs, or community-based health professionals can 120 recommend. Another very simple referral form, they send in to our team and there are particular targeted groups. For example, we do a scheme for people recovering from cardiac work and they have specific sessions that help them build up their strength in a way that does not threaten their recovery, but does mean that they secure the benefits of the remedial plumbing that has been undertaken to their cardiovascular system. 125 So that is not just through things like consultants that some referrals might be seen to, but GPs and other health professionals in the community will refer to that. We have developed that more recently with young people. Would you like me to – ?
Q4. The Chairman: Can you talk about the primary school work you do and also young 130 people?
Mr Black: Well, let me carry on with the referrals and young people, because one of the particular problems the Department of Health has raised, through a strategy of a relevant title, is an obesity problem – in particular, the numbers not only of adults, but of children who are primary 135 school age showing signs of medical obesity. We now have a scheme where there are referrals from, again, health visitors, health professionals and medical professionals, we are working with – we have had a launch session with 33 young people. A report recently has gone to the Sporting and Healthy Schools Partnership, which is a joint venture between Health, ourselves and Education and I think your own role – your Children’s 140 Champion role – that is focusing on all the usual groups, particularly those with health needs, but also, of course paying special attention to those children who are looked after by the Isle of Man Government, because their needs can sometimes differ and again for the disabled group, make sure we include people again, who might be left out. That has been a great success. I think the steering group was recently presented with a range of evidence, but to me the most 145 important evidence was from parents saying how much their children had grown in confidence, how they are now able to join in kicking around a football at lunchtime. One young lady, 13 years old, lost four stone over the very few weeks of the programme. Her mother wrote in and said what a huge difference it has made to her confidence, how she is now able to enjoy being a teenager. I think, to be able to support that sort of work, we approached the Department of Health, our own 150 Department, Education and Social Care to carry that on and make it more than just a pilot programme, and for £5,000 per Department, making a total of £20,000, we have been able to turn that into a scheme that will carry on. My personal view, Mr Chairman, is for that level of money, the successes we have had are phenomenal and it is something that I would struggle… I would always hope to be able to 155 persuade the Minister that we must carry on with that, whatever the pressures we are under and our budget pressures are severe. I think Members have recently had some information on budgetary figures and I am sure they noticed that our Department was probably, if not the most severely affected by reductions, one of the most severely affected, but for me this sort of work is absolutely the heart of what we do, 160 providing benefits to the health and quality of life of the Isle of Man.
The Chairman: Unsurprisingly, I do agree with you. Mr Downie, you have a question.
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Q5. Mr Downie: Yes, we have heard a lot recently about Government and the problems with 165 obesity. I would like you to tell me now why or when, as I understand it, Tynwald passed a resolution that children must travel free to school on the buses. If that is the case, surely what we should be doing is revisiting this policy and having, say, a two-mile exclusion zone. If parents want to pay for their children to go on the bus, fine, but we should be encouraging them to walk or cycle to school, wherever possible, as part of this drive to get this obesity problem under control. 170 Would you agree with that?
Mr Black: I think I would say there is certainly a great deal of support for your view, both among officers and most politicians I speak to, who feel that for health reasons alone, we should be encouraging children to walk to school. We did note that, during the recent industrial action on 175 the buses, much larger numbers of children were happily walking to school. Because we had so few drivers available, even though we were able to recruit a good number extra, we had to limit the school services. Our commitment to the Department of Education is that we get the kids to school.
180 Q6. Mr Downie: Can you confirm that it is Tynwald policy?
Mr Black: It was in about the year 2000, Mr Downie, when there was a last-minute change in policy. I believe the issue was that there was a withdrawal of one of the family benefits, in terms of social security and to compensate for the loss of that benefit, a late decision was made by the 185 Treasury to allow free bus travel to and from school for all Island schoolchildren, everyone going to a Department of Education school.
Q7. Mr Downie: I would appreciate if you could come back to the Committee with that, just to confirm it, because it is an issue that we might want to look at, because, obviously, there is a 190 knock-on effect here. If more children were to walk or cycle to school, who live within fairly close proximity, you would not need as many buses. If the parents were prepared to pay, if they wanted, which the option would be theirs, it would increase your revenue stream, so there are a couple of issues there and it is one that is quite important. If you are handicapped in what you are doing and it is affecting the obesity of children by a policy that was agreed some years ago, perhaps it should 195 be revisited?
Mr Black: I will happily supply that to you, Mr Downie. From the record, I do have a copy of the Hansard, I believe it is the Budget debate of the year 2000, but I will quite happily do the necessary research and supply it through your Clerk, Mr Downie. 200 The Chairman: Thank you. Mr Hall, a question.
Q8. Mr Hall: Mr Black, regarding Manx Sport and Recreation, I understand that natural wastage has been used to reduce the management levels – correct me if I am wrong – and do you 205 think, that being the case, will that change provision going forward? Do you think that local authorities may be able to play an enhanced role, given that some do own sports pitches and parks etc, and if you can expand on that?
Mr Black: I think the reference you are making, Mr Hall, is to the most senior post in our 210 sports and leisure environment, where the individual is retiring. Yes, as a Department with budget challenges, we obviously have to look at posts that are vacant to see if we can make a saving. We will be managing without that strategic level post, focusing our efforts on the operation of the NSC and on Manx Sport and Recreation. We are enhancing both those roles, because we are very fortunate in that we have capable officers who are ready to step up that little bit extra to allow us 215 to do without the more senior role, and I will make sure that I put my own efforts into supporting those officers. In terms of taking the work forward, I have no doubt that this work will continue to move forward. We are very fortunate indeed with the team of people we employ in that area and I think we benefit from the fact that they treat it as a vocation, rather than a job. It is a very pleasant part 220 of the Department to visit at any time, it is staffed by people who are enthusiastic and quite happily give up their own time to help. Anyone going to the Commonwealth Youth Games would have seen large numbers of our staff engaged in sports at the NSC, quite happily giving up their own time to do a bit extra. This was not large numbers of overtime claims; these are people who
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believe in what they do and, of course, that makes my life and my job much easier because these 225 people are very keen to do the right thing for the Isle of Man. In terms of working with local authorities, I think you are absolutely right that anyone with a play facility can help and if you look at developments, both in Douglas near the Family Library, you will see there has been an installation of what I would call fitness machines, but I am sure there is a more professional term for them. Ramsey at the Mooragh Park now has a fitness trail, 230 using, again, machines that are more aimed at fitness than at fun, although I am sure they provide a modicum of both for those who are keen and use it. Those are done by local authorities, two of the larger ones and I am sure others would be welcome to join in. That is something for the schools and health partnership to look at, because it is a good area we could take forward, again with our colleagues in the Department of Health. Yes, I would hope they could do more and I think that is a 235 very helpful suggestion.
Q9. The Chairman: As schemes increase and you have more referrals, you will need more staff and resources eventually. That is your dilemma.
240 Mr Black: The problem with these things is that success is in a way a problem, but if we remember the fact that we are actually creating savings for other Departments, then I would hope that we would be able to continue to work with other Departments to say, ‘Actually, could you help us here?’ I have nothing but praise for the co-operation we have had from the other Departments, who are mainly within the remit of the Social Policy Committee, such as Health and 245 Social Care and Education and Children, who have really worked with us to take these initiatives forward, putting their hand into their budget pockets. I know that for those Departments, finding £5,000 is not much, but to allow something to go from a pilot scheme to a viable scheme for a year is very good. You have asked me to touch on the primary school physical activity scheme, which I know is 250 something the Minister is very keen on. In essence, this means working currently with 17 primary schools to put in skilled coaches to do after-hours sessions, again to provide an incentive for people to join in with fitness and to work. This is helping the schools to develop in terms of their standard of physical education, because we are giving a qualified person to show us an example, but also helping the kids. 255 It was originally targeted at schools where there might be a greater social need for that, but we have now broadened that out and we have attendances of over 1,000 a month. Isle of Man Sport, which as I suspect the Committee knows, is the part of the Department charged with distributing lottery money, aimed by Tynwald at sport and chaired by the Minister, with the assistance of Mr Corkhill, who is Vice-Chair. Isle of Man Sport has agreed to fund that for two years, that 260 extension of that physical activity referral scheme for primary schools and there is a good hope that we will be able to secure further monies in the future to keep that scheme forward. Again, I think the Department’s aim is very much to get people when they are young, to show them that sport is fun and good for you and to sell those health benefits. If we can create a generation that does not provide such a burden on the Department of Health in the long term, I am 265 sure the Department of Health will be grateful.
Q10. The Chairman: Thank you. I would like to commend your Department, your Minister and yourself for the work you are doing in that area, and that is the good news. We will perhaps move on to other issues now, which could be slightly more difficult. Buses: 270 this is a public forum so you may not be able to say a lot, but we would like an update on how the bus drivers’ dispute is going, if that is possible.
The Minister: Currently, all drivers are driving under the new enforced contract. None of the drivers has decided to leave our employment, so they are continuing to work under these new 275 contracts. There has been a number of offers that have had recommendations from the union that have gone to the drivers, I think about three, and unfortunately all three have been voted down by the drivers. At the last ballot, there was a large number of drivers who abstained from voting. There is another ballot taking place this week and we hope that the ballot result will be out by Tuesday next week, so that is the current situation. One thing that has been made clear is that we 280 have to get within our budget and those savings have to be made. So that is the position.
Q11. Mr Hall: If you can just confirm, Minister, that… you have put it on record that you confirm whether you have been… the option of going to arbitration is not an option?
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285 The Minister: It is not an option.
Q12. Mr Hall: So, as I understand it, before going to arbitration, the terms of reference have to be agreed between both parties and obviously the arbitrator then would decide how to make those savings, in this case of £300,000. How far has the Department considered any terms of reference 290 and have these been discussed? You cannot go to arbitration until those terms of reference have been agreed between both parties.
Mr Black: Mr Hall, the Department’s line on arbitration is as follows. We have concerns about arbitration. Arbitration is a process involving a lay individual reaching a subjective judgment 295 about who is most right or who is most wrong on the balance of probabilities. We, as a Department have taken copious advice and acted very carefully to always try to act within the law on employment in the Isle of Man and, as you know, there is a remedy for our actions, in that we have dismissed all the drivers and they have all been offered new contracts, which as the Minister has said, they are all working to. They have all elected to remain on our staff. 300 They have a remedy, in that the industrial tribunal… my apologies, the Employment Tribunal can hear claims of unfair dismissal and the union has made it clear publicly that those claims will be made. Indeed, I can confirm we have started to receive some. That is a process where a tribunal appointed under the Isle of Man’s legal system hears the matter and tests it against employment law. So my view and the Department’s view is that we have provided a remedy in that, at no cost, 305 an individual can go to a tribunal and say, ‘That employer dismissed me unfairly,’ and there is a process there by which the actions the Department took can be tested against the Island’s employment law. That is a remedy for those who wish to use it. The process of arbitration, as I have referred to, is a subjective one, where I would like to stress that mediation, which is a precursor to arbitration, I accept, has been extensively used. The 310 Industrial Relations Officer of the Manx Industrial Relations Service has been with us, time and again, to try to negotiate different ways of looking at things and, as I think the public are fairly fed up of hearing, the Department’s position, the Minister has made clear, any way of saving the £300,000 was fine, but no more money. There is no more money to give. The saving has to be made and arbitration may, if it were done in a way that were unfavourable to the Department’s 315 views, create a situation whereby an arbitrator was committing us to expend money that Tynwald had not voted us, which is a situation I do not believe that I can recommend to the Minister as in any way the right thing to do. We have acted within our budget, within the law and if some reason we have erred in any way – and I can reassure the Committee I have done whatever I can to make sure we have not erred, 320 but the industrial tribunal… the Employment Tribunal provides a remedy at no cost to the individual, to challenge the actions we have taken.
Q13. Mr Downie: Can I clarify, then, how many people have been dismissed?
325 Mr Black: All the drivers were dismissed, Mr Downie, I think the total number is in the order of 100. I can send you an exact figure if you like –
Q14. Mr Downie: There is a substantial number who have accepted the new conditions?
330 Mr Black: Everybody who was dismissed has continued to work for us and are all on the new terms and conditions. Some of those are doing so under protest, but they are driving under the new terms and conditions.
Q15. The Chairman: So was there a time limit for this dismissal? Has that now expired? 335 Mr Black: The legislation provides for a period of notice, Mr Chairman, so anyone’s dismissal under whatever terms, there is a minimum period. People working less than two years for us have two weeks’ notice. People who have worked for longer periods get one additional week per completed year, so a three-year service driver gets three weeks’ notice, the maximum is 12. 340 So at the end of the time when drivers of at least 12 years have been given their 12 weeks’ notice, at that point, they were all placed on the new contract and had the choice then, either to say, ‘I do not accept this, I am off, I am going to find a better job driving a lorry’, or ‘Alright, I will come back to work, but I do not like it.’ Most of them took the view that they would come back, but register objections. A small number accepted that they would come back and were quite 345 happy to do so and did not register an objection; but the majority returned to work on the new ______8 EIPRC-C/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 13th FEBRUARY 2013
contract, but under protest, notifying the Department they would go to an industrial tribunal, which I suspect they almost all will.
Q16. Mr Downie: So can I just clarify that further then? What do they hope to achieve at the 350 industrial tribunal? Do they want to go back to the original terms and conditions? Is that what it is about?
Mr Black: It would be perhaps wrong of me, Mr Downie, to guess what their individual motives are. However, the tribunal could provide for them to be either returned to some or all of 355 their original conditions, or could provide them for compensation, in respect of the change. You may be assured that I have tried, wherever possible, to act in a way that the tribunal would find to be reasonable, i.e. the actions that the Department took were proportionate to our financial and service needs and that we were acting in a justified and justifiable way. So I hoped all along to minimise the risk that a tribunal would provide for either of those options. 360 The Chairman: Mr Hall.
Q17. Mr Hall: Can you confirm – and I appreciate you may not be able to answer this – but is it not the case in the eyes of the law regarding changes in terms and conditions, that if the contract 365 had been changed and they obviously then are working to that contract, they are deemed to accept those terms and conditions and if they do not agree with those terms and conditions, they are to file for constructive dismissal? Is it not the case that, in the eyes of the law, the drivers are effectively agreeing to the new terms and conditions by working, if they have not already filed for constructive dismissal? That is 370 obviously a very legal question, but any legal advice that you have –
Mr Black: I can give you a non-legal answer, Mr Hall, and you will recognise that I am not qualified –
375 Mr Hall: No, I recognise that.
Mr Black: – and I would have to defer to Mr Attorney for a proper answer. My understanding is, that under a contract, once there is an exchange for consideration, a contract is made, so once you have taken the money, then you are working to that contract. My 380 belief is that the approach taken is that the claims for unfair dismissal relate to the loss of the old terms, whereas the industrial action relates to the imposition of the new ones. Again, it would be either for the union to describe exactly what motive they ascribe to each tack and I will happily provide a more legal answer but –
385 Mr Hall: If you could, I would appreciate that, yes.
Mr Black: I will check the Hansard, Mr Hall, and make sure we get your question right.
Q18. The Chairman: Okay, thank you. We will stay on buses for a little while longer. I know 390 your Department does a lot more than that. The purchase of the new articulated buses, or the proposed purchase, I think, Minister, you said you would save £300,000 by using those? Is that in staff costs or – ?
The Minister: Staff costs, fuel costs, the general running of those services, because if you were 395 running eight of these articulated buses at their capacity, it would be a replacement for 16 double deckers. So you have got the reduced fuel costs and reduced manning costs and the maintenance of those vehicles as well. Plus, we would not be looking to have to replace them with brand-new double-deckers for that number.
400 Q19. The Chairman: You realise there is lots of adverse publicity about the buses? Photographs on the internet at the moment about them being stuck here and there. How are you going to cope with that?
The Minister: What we are doing at the moment, this is a trial and with any trial, what we have 405 is, we have got driver training. So drivers are being trained to manoeuvre the vehicles in some of these situations, and of course, like anybody who is changing the vehicles that they drive, they do ______9 EIPRC-C/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 13th FEBRUARY 2013
get things wrong, because that is the learning process of a different vehicle. It does not matter whether it is an articulated bus, or if you have gone from a Mini to a Ford Galaxy, there is a learning experience in there. The trial will be taking place with the children next week when the 410 schools return and we will be assessing how those trials go. We have not purchased any of these vehicles and this is a way of trying to get within the savings the Department has to make. We have been set a very challenging budget and our position is that we have to look at these, or it could be reduction of services and part of our duty is social inclusion, but with budgetary cuts, it does make things very difficult. 415 Q20. The Chairman: The public concern seems to be about safety: the safety of children standing up. Is there any evidence of that, of going down this route?
The Minister: These buses have been type approved and it has been made quite clear that any 420 vehicle that goes onto the road has a capacity and these have been approved. Mercedes have them all over the world. We rely on their experience to say that this is the capacity of these vehicles. That is the position we have got.
Q21. The Chairman: Should the hypothetical situation occur, whereby you can charge 425 children for travel within, say, three miles and you need fewer buses, would that change your policy in maybe purchasing these buses?
The Minister: It possibly would. One of the difficulties that we do have, though, is that on a nice sunny day, you might not mind sending your child off to school and saying, ‘You can walk 430 today,’ but if you have a day like today, then parents may decide, ‘Well, I will go and put them on a bus.’ We could be in a position that if we reduce the size of our fleet, that on a nice sunny day, we could probably leave half of them in the depot, but on a day like today we could be in a situation where parents are saying, ‘Hang on a minute! My child has been stood outside, it could not get on a bus, got soaked through.’ It is a fine balancing act and I think it is a thing we have to 435 deal with – parents, schools – to deal with how we get our children to school.
The Chairman: I should not do it, but in my day, we had to walk miles to school, both there and back, in whatever weather.
440 The Minister: Yes, but people get used to –
Q22. The Chairman: Buy them an umbrella instead of a bus! Still on buses, one more thing from me: the proposed bus station in Victoria Street. What has happened over that? 445 The Minister: Due to the public consultation… and the desire had started before my time in the Department and on the consultation, people did say they had a number of concerns with Victoria Street. On taking them into account, we decided that it would not be appropriate at this time to continue with Victoria Street, so we are currently looking at new areas where we may wish 450 to put a bus interchange.
Q23. The Chairman: So Victoria Street is ruled out?
The Minister: Yes. 455 The Chairman: Zac?
Q24. Mr Hall: I will put a question to you. We move on to the bus timetables, and of course recently we had the RTLC, who obviously deemed that the Department had not gone through the 460 proper due process before, obviously, producing the new timetables. Can you explain what that process is exactly and how did that error come about? I mean, it seems quite a simple error.
The Minister: I do not think it was an error. What happened was the RTLC decided, this year, that they wanted our timetables in a month ahead of previous years. So they wanted our timetables 465 for a longer period than they had done in the past. It set out under –
Q25. Mr Hall: Why was that? Why did they want…? ______10 EIPRC-C/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 13th FEBRUARY 2013
The Minister: Nick? 470 Mr Black: I believe, Mr Hall, though I am sure you will wish to check with them, that they moved from going to ad hoc meetings as required, to fixed monthly meetings on certain dates in every given month. Unfortunately, we do not appear to have been notified of that. We submitted our things with the usual statutory requirement, which I believe is either 21 or 28 days, I am sorry 475 I do not have the exact number in my mind, but we submitted them on time, only to be told, ‘Oh, you have missed the meeting, you will have to wait for the next one.’ So we believed we had given the required amount and we also believed, of course that the legislation, the road traffic legislation, I am sure the Minister made clear in either Keys or Tynwald, is that the duty to consult lies with the RTLC. 480 Q25. Mr Hall: Thank you very much for clarifying that. We were talking about the £300,000 that you have got to save, but obviously the subsidy on the buses is huge, at £5 million to £6 million. It seems that in the greater scheme of things, we need to address perhaps the huge subsidy, more so than the focus on them being fixed on 485 £300,000.
The Minister: What we have is around 60% of people who travel on the bus travel for free.
Q26. Mr Hall: Is there any objective or aim for the Department to change? At the moment you 490 are saying 60% travel for free. Is there any move to reduce that?
The Minister: That is the current entitlement. One of the areas we are looking at is the implementation of Smartcards and we are aware that there is an area of revenue that we are missing and some of this may be… We have had people come to us and say that they have tried to 495 get on a bus, tried to pay, the bus driver did not accept or did not clip their card. So we had revenue protection issues to deal with. We also have issues regarding schoolchildren, in that they may live in a certain area, but decide that one night they are going off to visit a friend who is on another bus. So we have capacity issues, that they are using the free bus service at the end of the day to go off to other places. The 500 introduction of the Smartcard would actually save us a considerable amount of money and we make sure that people were getting on the correct bus.
Q27. Mr Downie: Right, I have got a couple of questions for you. The first one relates to the issue you have just been speaking about now. You must have been to London and other cities and 505 seen how easy it is now to use an Oystercard? What consideration has the Department given to going cashless on the buses and having everything pre-paid and then take away this additional element of administration? Surely that would save money and then you would also benefit, like Londoners are benefiting now, by holding, in their instance, tens of millions of pounds of money that has not been spent. That is the way these systems work, you would not have the same 510 situation in the Isle of Man, but surely it would be much easier for somebody to log on and log off and then go to a machine, or go to a shop and top their card up?
The Minister: I think from our previous position as a member of the Public Accounts Committee, one of the things that was looked into was the old bus ticketing system. It was deemed 515 that, unfortunately the previous bus ticketing system was sold on the grounds that it could actually have done a Smartcard and it turns out that it could not. Members of Tynwald were given a presentation early last year regarding a new Smartcard system that the Department was looking to introduce. That is currently going through the procurement process, so we had hoped that we would be able to introduce it early on this year. It is 520 now looking that we could be another two to three months off, before we can actually go through and bring in that system, but it would be a Smartcard system, and from recollection on the presentation, Members were told you could compartmentalise the card, so you could have an amount of money that goes on for bus, but you could also put on other areas where you put money in and it would give you access to other areas of the Government system, like the Villa Marina or 525 the NSC or something like that.
Q28. Mr Downie: Has a cost-benefit analysis been carried out on that?
The Minister: It has been. 530 ______11 EIPRC-C/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 13th FEBRUARY 2013
Q29. Mr Downie: You can actually save money by doing it?
The Minister: I think Nick will correct me if I am wrong, it is round about £200,000 a year saving. 535 Q30. Mr Downie: Right, well that is a substantial amount really to be saved. The other question, Lord Street seems to have crashed and burned for whatever reason. If you were around here in the 1960s, like I was, there were twice as many buses on the roads, Douglas Corporation ran their own bus network, Manx National Transport, as it was called then, we had 540 numerous coaches all accommodated with great ease in the Sea Terminal. Has that not that been considered, as a possible place now, bearing in mind it is heated, there are good toilet facilities, there are lockers, there is a coffee shop? How long are we going to carry on with this provision where people are standing in the rain in unsuitable areas, where we have already got a place that has been built and the investment has been made, before we make a decision? 545 The Minister: One of the things the new Smartcard would bring is that it has a part that would have intelligent bus stops possibly put into it. You could have very similar to an airport terminal layout, where you have a big screen, which will say the next bus is due in 10 minutes – I do not know whether you have seen them in the UK and other places – that the bus shelters have got the 550 time, what bus it will be and how long it will be before it gets there. One of the things that we could use the Sea Terminal for is an interchange, rather like Lord Street used to be, where buses were parked up all day, it could actually be used more prolifically as a pickup point. So we do not need to have just one area, we could actually look at the Lord Street area where we are at the moment and enhancing some of the facilities there, plus we could 555 also utilise areas of the Sea Terminal to send people out and use that as a bus interchange.
Q31. Mr Downie: Surely, when the Corporation build their 300-space car park down in Lord Street and the library and so on, that area is going to get very congested. We are seeing the public inconvenienced for a long time now and surely, it is about time there was a decision made about 560 where the buses were going to be, a proper home for them in Douglas.
The Minister: I think, previously, the Lord Street site was ruled out because there was an agreement with a developer, which I understand may have run out at this time. So that is why Lord Street had initially been ruled out. 565 I would hope that with ourselves and Douglas Development and the Department of Infrastructure, we can now start looking at different areas, so it is something that we will be addressing shortly.
Q32. The Chairman: So where is that up to then? Victoria Street has been ruled out, so you 570 must have a plan now to go somewhere else?
The Minister: We are now looking, because of the situation at Lord Street, there is a possibility of actually looking there again, and also utilising areas of the Sea Terminal.
575 Q33. Mr Downie: If money is tight, surely the Sea Terminal would fit your purpose now and in actual fact that is what it was built for – for buses.
The Minister: I would not know if it was built for buses. That was before my time, but it is an area we will look at, because the changes have come about on that site. 580 Q34. Mr Downie: Given the sailing pattern is now completely different from what it was in the 1960s, when the boat goes in the morning at a quarter to nine, there is not another boat in till quarter past six in the evening. So you have got a whole window of opportunity to utilise that place. 585 The Minister: One of the concerns that was brought up from traders in Douglas was that if the bus station was too far out, people would not walk to the Sea Terminal. I think that is one of the areas why we should look at, possibly, a number of places, rather just having a centralised bus station at the Sea Terminal. It may be appropriate to have it in possibly two locations. 590
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Q35. The Chairman: Can I ask, on behalf of the Committee, that you write to us with your plans for where you propose to do that in the future and how the plans are progressing as to where the next bus terminal will be? Can I move on to… sorry, have you got one more? 595 Q36. Mr Hall: Yes, I just have one question. I am looking and referring to the statement that the Chief Minister recently made in the newspaper regarding the Department of Community, Culture and Leisure being disbanded and in the Scope of Government. Can you confirm what discussions have taken place with regard to the Department being disbanded, sections of it being 600 transferred to other Departments perhaps?
The Minister: I think when you look at the scope and the Agenda for Change, when you look at what the Department does – like I said earlier, we have got the Villa Marina and Gaiety, which we are looking at, we are looking at the Wildlife Park, so we are seeing how we can deal with the 605 operation of those facilities – depending on how those areas go will be dependent on whatever the position of the Department is. Previously, about three years ago, when they did the initial Scope of Government, myself and some other Members actually had disbanded the Department of Tourism and Leisure at the time. I think we are, as I said, at the forefront of the Scope and the Agenda for Change so we will be 610 looking at numbers of areas of our Departments to see what we can do with them.
Q37. The Chairman: You said in your opening statement that those areas are the sort of areas that would not be suitable for privatisation, that private industry is not interested in those.
615 The Minister: There are some areas of the bus service that you would end up subsidising a private contractor to run the service that we are currently doing. When you look at the Villa Marina, over the years when Douglas Corporation had it, there was very little investment in the latter years to keep the property. It would be very difficult to find a private investor who would want to take over the whole cost of an area like the Villa Marina and then run it. I think that is one 620 of the areas that Government will probably have to do, is to keep hold of it, whether there is a private operator would be another issue.
Q38. The Chairman: Can I ask about the Villa Marina and other facilities which get criticised, like the café at the NSC etc. I think you said the cost of the Villa had gone down from 625 £1.2 million, to £800,000? (The Minister: No, £930,000.) Yes. How was that achieved?
Mr Black: Chairman, the headline figures for the changes to the Department’s budget, excluding loan charges, show that, since 2010 we have reduced the cost of the Department by very nearly 15%. We have made a large number of changes in terms of taking out managerial and 630 administrative staff and anything that cannot be defined as a front-line essential. There is £350,000 there. I think most people on the Island who follow the news realise that we have made some very challenging decisions in respect of our staffing, which is a large chunk of our cost. As I think the Minister said at the start, when we enter a year financially, we are already 110% spent. So all our money is gone and more before we start. Everything else comes from our trading 635 activities. We spend the best part of £3 million a year on energy; our diesel bill alone is £1.6 million. So our services are at times very expensive to run, but as the Minister said in his introduction they provide both infrastructure and social inclusion. When you move to the Villa Marina and the Gaiety Theatre, which, as you all know, we operate as a complex, my personal view is that adds greatly to the quality of life on the Island. I 640 think, from a quick mental run round the Island, you will find the next biggest venue on the Island in terms of entertainment is probably somewhere around 300 seats. You are looking at places like the Peel Centenary Centre or Port Erin Arts or… they are down in the low hundreds of seats. The Villa Marina can operate a concert for over 1,600 people and can have sit-down events for around 1,000, so it is, in many respects, the church hall of the Isle of Man. It provides that central venue. 645 You will know yourselves it is used for Tynwald functions; it is used for a variety of things –
Q39. Mr Downie: But do we need to be running the cinema? Could that not be privatised?
Mr Black: I perfectly accept your point, Mr Downie, but at the moment running the cinema 650 provides a subsidy to the rest of the complex, because that is an area of Government that… Many parts of our Department, we have changed in the last few years to free our managers to operate ______13 EIPRC-C/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 13th FEBRUARY 2013
businesses within the public sector. The line the Department has taken, which I am sure this Minister endorses, but his predecessors did, is that we accept that scope challenges will come, but if we can continue to run our businesses as efficiently as we possibly can, then either they stay in 655 Government and they are cheaper for the taxpayer, or they leave and we get a better price for them, because we have done a good job in running them.
Q40. Mr Downie: So on the issue of the Villa then, one of the problems that I foresaw a few years ago, was that we are not competitive regarding employment costs, and we bring people in on 660 an ad hoc basis to collect glasses and so on and they are probably being paid twice what they would be paid in the private sector.
Mr Black: As you know, Mr Downie, one of the changes we have made was to take those casual staff out of the Whitley Council agreement. It was voted through by Tynwald, so I should 665 not say we made it –
Mr Downie: That has all been done now.
Mr Black: – Tynwald achieved it for us. We brought that to Tynwald, you are absolutely right, 670 we were paying seriously over the odds for that work. I fully accept the staff we want in our venue are people who have good levels of customer service and an ability to represent the Department, it is the premier attraction on the Island, so I would not for a second suggest that the individuals working, many cases, who worked for us for many years, very loyally and very well, should be paid minimum wage or the sort of rate you might pay in the local pub. We are looking for people 675 who have got more skills, but my own view was that was less than the rates that were being paid under Whitley Council. I think we were probably the first Department to undertake a number of changes in the last few years. Not many people have moved forward on redundancies like we have done, including compulsory ones, not many people have taken staff out of Whitley, so we can pay them a rate we 680 believe is consistent with the job, and not many people have terminated the employment contracts of the largest group of their staff and started again.
Q41. Mr Downie: I think the other Department – well it is not a Departmen; a sub-department – was MNH, who took a lot of people out of Whitley and of course you have a responsibility in 685 that area now –
Mr Black: We work closely with them. It is a Statutory Board, as you know, Mr Downie, from you long-standing role with them, but we are the sponsoring Department and we work closely with the Director and the Chairman and their staff. 690 Q42. The Chairman: Can I just ask about… You say your revenue is dependent on discretionary spend by the public. How is that revenue standing up, especially in the Villa and the Gaiety? Are you still making…?
695 Mr Black: At the Villa and the Gaiety, a large number of shows are put on by independent promoters, so we take a hire from that. Booking levels are holding up well and they vary, but we are estimating that the Royal Hall will be booked next year at around the 50% level, which for a single large venue is a good improvement. The Gaiety, we are looking at, I think about an 80% booking. The Gaiety benefits from more longer runs, so you will see people like Manx Ops or 700 Choral Union or Taylorian booking up the place for, say, a two-week run of a show and that keeps the usage up, especially with some of the afternoon matinee performances. So, they are very well used venues. The cinema has had great benefit from a commercial attitude being taken by the manager and staff down there. We have good relations with UK film agents, we have had some great films. 705 Realistically, when people choose to go the cinema, they do not choose which seat they want to sit in, they do not choose which ambience they want; they choose which film they want to see. The trick to running a cinema is getting the films that the public wish to see. Our cinema benefits massively, in that it has good facilities and access for the disabled.
710 Q43. Mr Downie: It could not go wrong with Les Miserables.
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Mr Black: We cannot get them all. We got the TT film, as you know, Mr Downie, and I am sure you were one of those who came to see it, but the TT3D film kept us going for a good length of time and we did very well as a result. We do not get all the best films, it would be wrong for us 715 to get all the best films, because that would be competing potentially with the private sector provider, but we do operate an alternative, we do provide a different ambience, a smaller venue, but the success with which the team have run that, has produced an income stream that we can use. That income is holding up. Most of our income is holding up reasonably well, but we have some challenges; a tiny fall, about half a per cent in some of the bus areas, but good growth in the 720 railway and exceptionally –
Q44. The Chairman: How did the railways and trams go this year? It was a bad summer, I know, but –
725 Mr Black: It was a poor summer, but if you look back at, perhaps the figures for the Snaefell Mountain Railway – which is perhaps our most ‘touristy’ railway, in that otherwise there is not a lot of reason to go up the Mountain – you go up to go up the Mountain. You do not go to somewhere on it; you go for the experience. We were ticking along at 38,000, 39,000 for many years a long time ago. With the refurbishment we have done, that went up in 2011 to 49,000. With 730 the weather in 2012 it fell back to 46,000 people. Actually, I think that is pretty good, because there were many days you could go up there and realistically not see your hand in front of your face, so we are very weather driven there. We have had good groups from the cruise markets, we have had good local people, the number of diners was the same, so the people taking meals up there stayed the same. People were enjoying the experience and the novelty and we need to keep 735 that going. Of course, the railways generally, as the Minister said, contribute, we believe, £11 million to the visitor economy. We think, on their own, that is 10% of the visitor economy. They are a very key asset, they do cost us money to run, but we are always looking at new ways to earn money, so we hope to introduce first-class travel as an option for some of our services. You will still get to 740 the same place, you will still travel by steam railway, but if you wish to pay a few quid extra, to sit in the posh coach, then we will happily take that extra money from you. If you want to pay a lot of extra money, we are looking at a way from this summer of charging you to travel with the driver and fireman and throw the odd bit of coal on and for your labours, you will have to pay us. Driving steam locomotives is a passion for a lot of people from, mainly, boyhood and we have had 745 great success with the driving experiences on the trams. Large numbers of people repeat book and treat it as their holiday. These are activities that are going out in hundreds of pounds a ticket and they allow us for very little investment to secure an income, just like the commercial railways in the UK do, or the heritage railways in the UK do, but you also heard perhaps on the radio this morning, the steam railway supporters referring to the fact 750 that they are doing increasing amounts of heritage work with us.
Q45. Mr Downie: Can you just update us on how much more money is required to be spent on the permanent way on the railways?
755 Mr Black: We do have a five- to six-year programme for all our capital work, Mr Downie and I can provide you with a written figure. It is not one I can do off the top of my head, I am afraid. We do think that will have broken the back of it, but you are absolutely right we have spent significant amounts of money. The Department has spent money on the Ramsey to Laxey section of the MER. In the old days 760 of the DTL, as you know, that was almost an emergency activity that was under Mr Earnshaw’s time as Minister. We have spent a lot of money on the Steam Railway, but that was part of the IRIS scheme, which again many of you will recall, so for very little extra money we were able to rebuild much of the Steam Railway, because the track bed was used for the main IRIS pipes. That was a very cost-effective investment. 765 We have had to put money into Snaefell, because the investment has not been kept up over the years, but we are towards the end of that work now, but I can certainly provide you with a full breakdown of our estimated costs. I am afraid we are not quite at the end yet, but we are getting there.
770 Q46. The Chairman: Before bringing this to a halt, one general question. You provide most of the tourism infrastructure for people to come here, railways and the steam train and MNH etc.
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What problems are there, bearing in mind the fact that tourism is in a totally separate Department from you? Does that make sense to you?
775 The Minister: I do not think it does, one of the reasons being that I have been approached by a number of people who want to do issues, events, railways or sporting events and that lies within the Department of Tourism. If I give you an example –
The Chairman: The DED, you mean, through – 780 The Minister: If I give you an example that we had the vice-president from Japan East Railways over here last summer. I have never seen somebody so excited, for a man who was in charge of the Bullet Train! When he came over here, the man was so excited that he actually got to have a go on an electric tram doing 15 miles an hour and then he got to sit on a steam train. He and 785 his group were really excited about it. He reckons there is the best part of half a million people in Japan who would come over to see what we have, and it is areas like that I think that we probably need to go and push, because that is a huge market for the Isle of Man to go and tap into. It is very difficult when you have got –
790 Q47. The Chairman: The marketing is in a different Department.
The Minister: The marketing is in another Department and yes, we do have dialogue with them and we have discussions with them, but people tend to come to us as the heritage, for the railways, for the sport and I have had people come to me regarding whether we should have part 795 of, say the Tour of Britain cycling here and you say, ‘Well, that is a tourism event’ and it is that sort of difficulty that we do have.
Q48. The Chairman: So instead of being disbanded then, your Department should be increased? 800 The Minister: I think there should be probably a better linkage. Previously I was a critic of the way the Departments were broken up and how they were last time. I think there are ways we could actually make it work better.
805 The Chairman: Thank you. Mr Hall.
Q49. Mr Hall: Could you give the Committee an update on the diesel locomotive, of where things stand at the moment?
810 Mr Black: Our diesel locomotive, Mr Hall, is in build, is expected in early summer. We have two more meetings left to sign off the progress. As you know, with a spend of this amount –
Q50. Mr Downie: Is this the European option or the American option?
815 Mr Black: This is the American option.
Q51. Mr Downie: Because you only got approval by Tynwald for the European option, did you not?
820 Mr Black: I was very careful to check the resolution of Tynwald, Mr Downie, and it did not specify the geography of the supplier.
Q52. Mr Downie: As long as you get it at the right price, I do not care.
825 Mr Black: It is even cheaper than the European option, although it still has remanufactured components. There are more new components for the money. We honestly think it is a better deal, Mr Downie and it comes within the budget. The diesel locomotive should arrive here ready for use before the main summer season. Where in fact its main savings for us will be in services on days when we do not have to fire – 830 Q53. Mr Downie: The other question, will you be able to run it on the Electric Railway track to Ramsey? ______16 EIPRC-C/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 13th FEBRUARY 2013
Mr Black: I do not think we have intended to, Mr Downie. 835 Q54. Mr Downie: Well, one of the things I was critical of: I was in charge of the railways when you had your centenary of the Electric Railway and as one of the biggest attractions we had here, we actually ran the steam railway from Douglas to Ramsey and since the track has been relaid, the bends have been laid so tight now, they will not accommodate the bogies on the steam 840 train, and I thought that was a tragedy really. That should have been… Before your time, but we missed a real attraction there and we got a lot of people here for the centenary and the steam on the MER was a very big attraction. If you look at the history of the railway, they actually used some of the locomotives you have got now to actually build the Electric Railway from Ramsey to Douglas.
845 Mr Black: And the Snaefell Mountain Railway with Caledonia. Mr Downie, I will happily put it to our Chief Engineer and our marketing people. The new diesel locomotive is a bogie locomotive, so the curvature should not be the problem we have had with the steam locos, where, of course, the driving wheels are coupled and more rigidly fixed, if not totally. That is certainly worth looking into, because we have got the 120th of the MER this 850 September, it is something we want to make a bit of a splash about. Our activities are attracting people from the UK: interestingly and slightly ironically, our mass services during the drivers’ industrial action created a good little gaggle of photographers with big cameras and UK-registered cars, so people were coming across just to see the trams being operated intensively.
855 Q55. Mr Downie: So the other question then is, in my time at the centenary, that was organised by a man called Alan Corlett. You then had the other chap take over who has gone now out to Ramsey to run the Museum out there, Paul Ogden, who did an excellent job. So, who is Mr Railways Promotion now?
860 Mr Black: The officer doing marketing and promotional work on the railways is Richard Little. He has an assistant and he also has the benefit of working with Ian Longworth who has had many years’ experience in heritage rail and in marketing and running tourist attractions, so between that team, with some support from the Department of Economic Development in terms of off-Island advertising, we are making good progress and numbers are up, our income is up and not 865 obviously a finished job, but we are still making good progress with railway events. As you will know, there have been some good initiatives shown in putting on new events. The Island at War was started as a railways event, but other people will be joining in. We will have MNH joining in. There was a Hangar Dance last year at the Airport. One of the air service companies helped us 870 there and we had good numbers and it provides something we hope we can actually slide slightly through the calendar, to potentially assist the Department of Economic Development with its new plans for the classic motorcycling festival. We are a nostalgia event and I believe that Department had in mind some of the Goodwood Revival-type activities. We have been asked to see if we can perhaps bookend their event and provide a bit more of that nostalgic background, because we will 875 be doing it anyway. So in those areas co-operation with DED is still very much a good thing and the people that we have as colleagues in Tourism, are still our colleagues down the road.
Q56. The Chairman: Can I just ask a final couple of questions from me. Manx Radio, your relationship with them: you are the Department responsible for Manx Radio. What was your 880 submission and your view on the current debate about amalgamating three radio services, and subsidising them?
The Minister: We have made a submission to the Select Committee. We are the sponsoring Department, but Treasury is actually the shareholder. We are going to have to wait for the 885 submission from the Select Committee, because our evidence is currently with them.
Q57. The Chairman: Is that public evidence, or –
The Minister: It is currently gone in that. I do not know whether they have published it yet. 890 Mr Black: I certainly wrote for disclosure, Mr Chairman, it was not restricted in that sense. I wrote on the basis that it would be disclosed and –
Q58. The Chairman: Can you give us your views today, or would you rather not? 895 ______17 EIPRC-C/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 13th FEBRUARY 2013
The Minister: I suppose we could send it. It would probably be better to send a copy, rather than –
Mr Black: I am happy to send a copy to you, Chairman, but very briefly, whilst we are the 900 sponsoring Department for Manx Radio, that means that we look after some of its working, in terms of Tynwald, though Treasury also take a role in that and we have an ongoing relationship, but the financial management is entirely through Treasury. The issue of public service broadcasting is clearly an important one and I think the Department would wish to support public service broadcasting, to support its role in the community of the Isle of Man. Of course, 905 community is something that we are also involved in and would recognise many of the ways that Manx Radio has delivered that service in the past to a good standard. The issue of the new model of all things together is not one which we feel very able to judge on because we do not know about the background, we do not know the proposal, but we have made a submission about the fact that it is very important and we would very much wish the 910 Committee well in their endeavours and we expect to be called to give evidence to that, but I will happily provide a copy of the submission to you.
Q59. The Chairman: Thank you. Finally from me, the Manx National Heritage: you are the sponsoring Department there. What is the relationship? It used to be quite prickly some years ago, 915 I seem to remember. How are things progressing with MNH?
Mr Black: Certainly in my time in the Department, I would say our relations have been excellent. We put on large numbers of joint events. We do Christmas things together; we do railway things together; we provide bus services, joint ticketing. We introduced, through the work 920 of Ian Longworth and Edmund Southworth, a heritage explorer pass, which links your bus pass, your one-week bus ticket, to your one-week MNH ticket. We have progressed with their full assistance the new legislation, part 1 of which is now through, providing for their new governance, and part 2 of which provides for new professional, academic and archaeological standards and things like treasure, that is still being worked up together. I was with their Director only yesterday. 925 We meet monthly. The Chairman and the Minister meet at least twice a year formally, plus ongoing. We have a Department Member who is nominated to be one of the trustees of MNH, so we very much enjoy a good working relationship with Manx National Heritage and we hope we can increasingly do more together, whilst respecting their independence and their very important role in the Isle of Man to be the voice of protection for the Island’s heritage. 930 The Minister: We also work with them on Island and culture, so there is continuing –
Q60. The Chairman: Is this for the Year of Culture, which is what, next year?
935 The Minister: Yes.
The Chairman: Thank you. Mr Downie, some questions.
Q61. Mr Downie: Yes, one that is sitting here with a circle round it. I understand you have 940 responsibility for the visitor centre. Right?
Mr Black: The Welcome Centre at the Sea Terminal.
Q62. Mr Downie: The Welcome Centre. How many staff do you have down there and what is 945 their actual function these days?
Mr Black: Their function is an increasingly varied one, Mr Downie. We provide the traditional service of tourist information centre, which is effectively on contract to DED, We provide that for them. We provide sales of the tickets for the Villa Marina and Gaiety Theatre; we provide bus 950 tickets and information; and we act as a general hotline for things that are going on. The change more recently is that that is the forefront of our Customer First work. Customer First is a project we were allocated under Transforming Government, whereby we were looking to spearhead and promote new ways of working that provided not only better services to the customer, but reduced cost to Government. One of the things that work identified was there were a 955 huge number of manned customer enquiry points across Government. I think the number for Douglas was something in the order of 40 places where you could go and ring a bell and someone ______18 EIPRC-C/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 13th FEBRUARY 2013
would come out and say, ‘Do you want a form or can I help you?’ We are very much trying to provide a centralised point for Government and you can now find that you can go to the Welcome Centre and they will deal with certain of the Department of Infrastructure enquiries. 960 The Central Government Office enquiry point that you will recall from the building next door used to be manned and the telephony was there. That is now integrated into the Welcome Centre. When the staff are not doing Government switchboard work, they could be, for example, giving out information on when is the next no. 3 to Ramsey. The numbers of staff are increasing there. I have not got an actual number in my figures, but I will happily send you – 965 Q63. Mr Downie: I think it is somewhere between eight and nine now.
Mr Black: I really could not comment. You might well be in the right ball park, but the important point is they are doing more and more as we take on these services – 970 Q64. Mr Downie: I know I am throwing a curve ball at you: it seems to me logical that that is the place where the buses should stop. If you are providing all this information, why are you not using it to its maximum benefit?
975 Mr Black: I think the previous Department actually closed the bus information point at Lord Street and did indeed move the staff into the Welcome Centre, partly to boost that service. One of the things that all our Ministers in our Department… and we have had, obviously, Mr Cregeen, we have had Mr Crookall and Mr Cretney in the life of our DCCL. They have all made it clear that they feel the situation at Lord Street is not ideal for the passenger, that we need better information 980 and to be completely blunt with you, Mr Downie, better information for us means happier passengers and probably more passengers buying more tickets and that is in our interest.
Q65. Mr Downie: Better utilisation of Government facilities, opportunities for the private sector to open up more businesses in places like the Sea Terminal. Costa has been an outstanding 985 success, now there is a W H Smith’s in there. This is really what Government should be trying to promote and work more with the private sector to get more benefit out of the system and the more people we can get through there, the more cost effective it is going to be. We are heating that place down there, probably to about 20° most days and apart from the time the boats are there, which is only once a day now in the morning and once again in the evening, 990 the building is totally unutilised.
Q66. The Chairman: Could I ask, that role then, as the Welcome Centre, came from the Chief Secretary’s Office, did it, through the Agenda for Change, for the Transforming Government…?
995 Mr Black: The Welcome Centre was a creation, Mr Butt, of the latter years of the Department of Tourism and Leisure to try to centralise its Villa Marina, its buses and its tourism information activities in one convenient place.
The Chairman: The new role has come from Transforming Government. 1000 Mr Black: The additional role of trying to take in work from other Departments, trying to reduce the overall number of staff and reduce the number of counters and to make it easy for the customer: that came out of Transforming Government a couple of years ago, but as you all know, the projects under Transforming Government were recently distributed to all Departments, that 1005 they were posted in. We have kept the Customer First project from the start. It is something I believe we were allocated, because we have real customers. I am known as saying that a lot of Departments talk about customers, but their customers are not necessarily customers who have a choice. Our customers have a real choice. If you want to go swimming, I very much encourage you to come to 1010 the NSC and use the fantastic facilities, but you could spend your money in one of the regional pools that are not run by the Department – even though they are significantly funded by the Department, they are run by local authorities. So there is a choice and we have to provide services that customers want to use, we have to set prices, so that customers can afford them, we have to market those services and we have to check the quality and check that customers are happy. That, 1015 to us, is really dealing with customers, so we need to manage information about them, we need to tune our services to them and we need to market them.
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That is why I believe we were given Customer First, because although not unique amongst Government Departments, we have the concentration of customer-facing businesses with discretionary purchasing and options where people can actually go elsewhere in the market on the 1020 Island. I think every part of our service has a competition. There are other people running trams, there are other people running steam locomotives. Everything we do, we are trying to attract a discretionary spend, and that is why, at the start of the year, more of that money has gone than we need and we earn the rest.
1025 The Chairman: Thank you. Mr Hall.
Q67. Mr Hall: Just a few final questions from me. Mr Black, you touched on the Whitley Council regulation and of course some workers within Government and within your Department are excluded from this. Can you confirm what input or influence did the Department have in those 1030 discussions with excluding workers from the Whitley Council?
Mr Black: Very much, happily. The idea was ours. We identified – I think Mr Downie has already made reference to it – that we were paying well above market rates for a role that was effectively a casual job, employed on casual terms, but we were stuck with paying permanent 1035 Whitley Council wages. We approached what is now the Office of Human Resources to say, as you know, they centrally deal with Whitley Council negotiations on behalf of Government and I know that Members have had experience there, but we asked the employers’ side of Whitley Council to raise this on our behalf and to negotiate. So the actual negotiations were done by the people in what was then the Personnel and became OHR and took it forward. I think Mr Gawne 1040 was the Chairman at the time and brought it to Tynwald for a vote, but it was our request to say, ‘Look, can we take out, through local agreement, DCCL casual staff from the Whitley Council agreement?’ We were successful in that. It was not an immediate matter. It took us quite a few months to get through the process of negotiation, but I understand the Whitley Council negotiations are often characterised by that. 1045 Q68. Mr Hall: The other question is the Office of Fair Trading, you are the sponsoring Department for the Office of Fair Trading. Sometimes it seems that I wonder whether it has been able to really reach its full potential, but how is the Department, how are you involved in the policy and operations and how are you working with the Office of Fair Trading in terms of 1050 cowboy builders, being one topic, which of course involves many sections of Government, Health and Safety and Work Permits, etc?
The Minister: We are the sponsor so legislation comes through our Department.
1055 Q69. Mr Downie: You do not set the policy.
The Minister: The policy is set through OFT so they run everything. I understand your thing about cowboy builders. The other day a fellow knocked on my door and asked if I wanted a price for some work. I said no and as he walked away, I noticed he had a UK vehicle, so I asked him if 1060 he was local. He goes, ‘No, I am not.’ I said, ‘Do you have a Work Permit?’ He goes, ‘I have got a licence’, and my first call was through to Work Permits, gave them the registration number and they liaise through with the Police to deal with these. The Office of Fair Trading does, if they want legislation, or if they want anything to go through to Council of Ministers, then they will come to the Department and we will go through the 1065 issues with them, but they do set the policy that they want to do.
Q70. Mr Hall: Okay, my final question is which DCCL properties, other than the NSC being one of them, are actually exempt from planning permission in respect of, obviously, moving towards the permitted development orders? Do you have any other view? 1070 The Minister: I think the Wildlife Park has gone into permitted development.
Mr Black: And there are some other small examples, not particularly through that new change, but certain railway developments associated with the permanent way have been exempt from 1075 planning permission for a long time. I believe also the erection of bus shelters is a matter which does not need planning, but there are number of small operational matters that fit in there, but they are long standing ones, rather than this new change. ______20 EIPRC-C/12-13 TYNWALD STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 13th FEBRUARY 2013
The Chairman: A final question? 1080 Q71. Mr Downie: Yes, just a point that my colleague raised there just jarred my memory a little bit. What has happened to the grand plan for the Ramsey amalgamation of the bus station and the tram station? Have you got money for that in your capital projects?
1085 Mr Black: Mr Downie, the grand plan, as you refer to it, is still very grand and is still a plan. The work is ongoing, but it is not actually led by our Department. It is a regeneration project, with the Department of Infrastructure providing the project management, I believe, through their properties manager as the project manager. I think Mr Christopher is the project leader, but we are very actively involved. 1090 I believe that the intention is for us to vacate the traditional bus station that we have in Ramsey and for facilities to be focused in the location of the current MER terminus. That will free up some land that could be used for other purposes by other Departments and will allow us to have both together and also allow the buses to be nearer the centre of Ramsey.
1095 Q72. Mr Downie: Any timescale or…?
Mr Black: I have seen drawings of it, Mr Downie, but I do not believe it has gone much further than that. I think –
1100 Q73. Mr Downie: We have seen drawings of this too, but we do not know whether this is you or somebody in the church, flying a kite.
Mr Black: I am afraid we are not that close to matters heavenly, Mr Downie, and lych gates are not within our remit. That was news to me when I read the paper, so hopefully it is nothing to 1105 do with us!
Mr Downie: You never know.
Mr Black: The heritage of the Island is our concern, but that one, I think is a higher authority. 1110 Mr Downie: They say the church has got lots of money.
Mr Black: A higher authority, that one, Mr Downie. Would you like me to provide you with an update on the Ramsey interchange scheme? 1115 Q74. Mr Downie: No, I am happy with the explanation you have given us. It is just that it has been around for a while now and these things have a habit of getting kicked into the long grass and obviously, a case has been made to amalgamate to two of them. It is a facility that would be much used in the north. 1120 Mr Black: I am sure, when the Department of Infrastructure next return, they will be happy to provide you with an update of how they are doing, as the project leaders, but as far as I am concerned, it is still going ahead and still working well together with the local commissioners to progress that plan. 1125 Mr Downie: Right, very good.
Q75. The Chairman: Thank you for your evidence and your submissions. Anything else you wish to say before we adjourn? 1130 The Minister: No, thank you very much.
The Chairman: We will probably write to you after this, when we have got the Hansard to maybe follow some queries up with you. I think I gave you a couple of jobs, Mr Black, to come 1135 back to us with. Thank you for your attendance and we will see you in a few months’ time. We will get some updates from you in writing and we will probably be writing to you, as I say, to further some of these queries today. Thank you for your attendance.
The Committee adjourned at 11.54 a.m. ______21 EIPRC-C/12-13