Chief Minister Alfred Cannan didn’t communicate with his then health minister when the skeleton argument for appeal against a specific part of the Dr Rosalind Ranson tribunal was submitted.

Mr Cannan was questioned on the matter in Tynwald by Claire Christian (Douglas South) and former minister Rob Callister (Onchan).

The matter of Mrs Christian’s question related to information also sought by our sister website Gef The Mongoose and Paul Moulton into who ordered the appeals, when and why. Some of this information has since been released under FoI, though parts of those requests remain under appeal. 

The court appeal in question relates to the DHSC appealing against a part of the Employment Tribunal’s findings that Dr Ranson was unfairly dismissed which appeared to be seeking to compel the government’s lawyer, Angela Heeley, to breach client privilege. 

That appeal was rejected by First Deemster Andrew Corlett after a clarification of the intention behind that section was made.

Deemster Corlett ruled that Ms Heeley could provide the necessary information without breaching legal professional privilege.

In Tynwald this week, Mr Cannan repeated the comments in the release to Gef and Mr Moulton that he did not have the power to order the Department of Health and Social Care to submit the appeal, but he did offer his opinion to follow the legal advice provided by the Attorney General’s Chambers.

When asked a supplementary question by Mrs Christian, Mr Cannan said he also had not ordered Callin Wild, the firm which was now representing the DHSC, to submit a skeleton argument on Wednesday September 28 2022.

When asked who had given this order to DHSC officers, Mr Cannan said 'the Department of Health and Social Care' - an answer he replied when asked again. 

Mrs Christian then asked the Chief Minister if he was sure due process was followed and that department officers had been given the green light to order the submission of the skeleton argument by then minister Mr Callister.

He replied: ‘Yes, just to be absolutely clear in these matters, it is perfectly reasonable for a department to want to seek a view from the Council of Minister and for the Council of Ministers to be in a position to give advice to a department.

‘It is clearly laid out in the Government Code and in this particularly instance, advice was sought, but because of the timescales, it was impossible to go to Council, or I did not feel it was appropriate to go to Council, I gave a view and the DHSC subsequently then acted in accordance with the information that they had received and that they were party to.’

However, Mr Callister then asked the Chief Minister to confirm that he was not copied into any correspondence that was sent to officers in the DHSC on September 28, 2022.

Mr Cannan said: ‘As far as I am aware, the information, my view that I responded to and gave and that freedom of information was sent back to the department, the exact communication between the minister and his members and officers in the department, I am not party to in that time, or any other correspondence, either verbal or written that had been received around this case.’

Asked again by Mr Callister for further clarity that he was not copied into the email sent by the Chief Minister to the DHSC officers on September 28 2022, Mr Cannan confirmed that he had not and that the ‘correspondence had gone back to the DHSC’.

Speaking after the sitting to Paul Moulton of Isle of Man Television, Mrs Christian said that there is still a lack of clarity around who in the DHSC, and under whose authority, ordered the skeleton argument to be submitted and why the health minister wasn’t copied into Mr Cannan’s email. 

For his part, also speaking to Mr Moulton, the Chief Minister said he gave his view, but that the department ultimately launched the appeal.