A damning Tynwald scrutiny committee report concludes a government department and its executive agencies failed to meet any of its original intentions.

The report says the Department for Enterprise’s (DfE) agency model is fragmented, lacks transparency and is unclear in its strategic direction.

It calls for Visit Isle of Man to be incorporated into a new Tourism Board and for the scope and purpose of the DfE to be reviewed by an independent third party.

Established in 2017 in place of the Department of Economic Development (DED), the original aim was for the department to reduce in size following the creation of the agencies.

But filled posts have increased to 193.5 FTE from a figure of 171.89 in September 2017, shortly before the transfer of DED’s functions to the DfE.

The economic policy review committee report, to be laid before this month’s Tynwald, notes: ‘The reduction in the department’s size has been marginal if the metric of total posts is used, and non-existent by filled posts.’

It highlights concerns at a lack of outcome monitoring, making it difficult to assess whether public funds are being used effectively.

Committee members, MHKs Jason Moorhouse, Kate Lord-Brennan and John Wannenburgh, pointed out that metrics such as ‘847 stakeholder meetings held’ or 52 events sponsored, organised and attended’ did not evidence tangible economic benefits.

It said an exception was Visit Isle of Man, whose reporting includes clearer outcome-based metrics such as visitor numbers and estimated spend.

In its evidence to the committee, the Chamber of Commerce argued that the existing model is overly risk averse and bureaucratic, work is fragmented, with each agency operating in its own silo and the department is often staffed by officers who have less experience than the people they support.

The committee report says these concerns were symptomatic of direction being set at agency level.