Treasury Minister Alfred Cannan found himself to be a minority of one as Tynwald gave almost its entire support to appointing an Auditor General.

Members were asked by Speaker Juan Watterson to back a motion that would fill the role by April 1 2021.

Tynwald first voted to support appointing an Auditor General in 2011 but despite three different governments, no one has ever been appointed. Mr Watterson told Tynwald that the role ’should save more money than it costs and enhance good governance for the Isle of Man’.

He provided seven reasons for why members should support his motion including driving improvements in governance and performance, bringing the island in line with best practice and help to enhance the understanding the public have of public finance and government spending.

Jane Poole-Wilson MLC, who seconded the motion, said Tynwald should ’embrace this as a means of helping government to deliver value for money in the way it delivers services’.

Mr Cannan tried to amend the motion to say that the role should not be established until ’adequate governance arrangements have been made’. He said from a purely financial management perspective the motion ’sounds like good news’.

However, the Treasury Minister said that promises of bringing overspends to an end and controlling government projects may not bear fruit and warned that in his experience of looking at the work in other jurisdictions they ’spend a lot of time’ looking to past overspends rather than future savings.

Rather than support Mr Cannan’s amendment, members backed an amendment from Lawrie Hooper (Liberal Vannin, Ramsey) to say that the role of Auditor General should be filled by April 1.

Mr Hooper’s amendment also says that the public accounts committee should bring forward proposals to amend the Tynwald Auditor General Act 2011 to ’establish proper governance arrangements’.