Treasury Minister Anne Craine has refuted a claim the Manx government adopts a 'Mad March' approach to spending at the end of the financial year.

She was responding to a House of Keys question from Onchan MHK Peter Karran who asked whether anything was being done to make it harder for departments to spend large sums of money in the run up to the budget.

Mrs Craine said it was natural to have more payments towards the end of a financial year, and the situation wasn't unique to the Isle of Man.

Rushen member Juan Watterson suggested the fault lay with having a strict annual budget.

Mrs Craine accepted a rolling budget might be better for certain departments, particularly education which runs to the school year rather than the financial one.

But she insisted Treasury already provided enough checks and balances to ensure end of year spending was kept under control: