No specific assessments on the economic value of a post office within a local area have been carried out.

Minister for Policy and Reform Chris Thomas confirmed to the House of Keys this week that he is not aware of such an assessment.

Questioned by his regular sparring partner Lawrie Hooper (Lib Vannin, Ramsey), Mr Thomas also confirmed that an assessment into the contribution to the local economy provided by the ability of people to collect benefits or pensions from a location within the local area has also not been carried out.

Mr Hooper questioned if it was government policy for an assessment to be carried out when enacting a new policy. He asked the minister: ’Is it not done as a matter of course?’

Mr Thomas said that the economic affairs unit is only a small team consisting of four members and that it ’responds to Tynwald requests’. This has seen it perform assessments on the TT and the heritage railways.

And he added that the Post Office’s economic contribution includes the £10.6m it pays in wages each year and that where possible, the government tries to make economic assessments where possible.

He said: ’But we also have to be aware we are a smart, small nation which needs a smarter, appropriately sized public service. And we can’t do everything just because it looks good.

’I was trained in economics and the issue with economics is if you ask an economist how they are, they reply, ’’relative to whom?’’

’You are stuck on a desert island starving with a few cans of baked beans and you just hope there are physicists and chemists who are there, because the physicist and the chemist would do something useful, like, mine for materials to blow up the cans of baked beans, and the physicist would look for leverage. But the economist would just assume we had a can opener.

’So the whole business of economic impact assessment relies on assessments and so on and we need to be very specific as to what it is we’re investigating.’

Mr Thomas also asked Mr Hooper for assistance in understanding exactly what it is that he wants assurance on.

Tim Baker (Ayre and Michael) asked Mr Thomas if there is a policy on when a assessment needs to be done.

He added: ’The impression of his fairly lengthy answer before, which was very entertaining but I’m not sure it was very illuminating, indicated that he was making it up as he goes along.’

Mr Thomas said Mr Baker might have a point and ’maybe’ there should be yes/no boxes to tick which could determine when an assessment is needed. He added: ’The Post Office has stepped up to the mark and considered the impact on society and communities of what it is doing.’