THE HEALTH Service Executive (HSE) does not know whether savings of €35 million a month are being achieved due to industrial action by staff around the country, a confidential memo shows.
Top-level HSE managers have warned they are facing serious difficulties in running the organisation as a result of a ban on the provision of key performance data in areas such as finance and activity levels. The ban was put in place by unions as part of the current industrial action in the public service.
In the confidential memo given to members of the HSE board last Thursday, senior management said that at corporate level they only had access to high-level financial information on the state of the organisation, and that this was not sufficient for decision-making purposes and “could be masking underlying underperformance in some core service areas”.
They said the control processes in place in the organisation were not operating efficiently as a consequence of the industrial action, and that it was not possible to determine whether the HSE was implementing the range of cost reductions required to live within its official level of funding.
“There is obviously an imperative to remain within our voted allocation for 2010, and any corrective action needed to ensure this will potentially result in service reductions,” the memo stated.
The memo said to live within its official budget the HSE had to reduce spending by €35 million per month, and that without information on whether these targets were being met the HSE could be left in a situation in coming months where “it has to achieve a full year saving of circa €400 million in six/seven months”.
“The only financial information available to us corporately is at a high level. It has been possible to prepare a vote report for March and we are in a position to monitor our cash. In many services, managers at individual hospital and Local Health Office level are having difficulty accessing more detailed financial information, and accruals are not up to date . . . There is also no visibility of achievement against our value-for-money targets and other cost containment actions.
“The HSE centrally does not have visibility of crucial data to assess performance against plan . . . This gives rise to new risks to the effective delivery of the service plan above and beyond those already known,” the memo stated.
Members of Impact have been engaged in industrial action in the HSE, including the ban on data provision on the organisation’s performance in areas such as finance, activity and staffing levels.
The governing central executive committee of Impact has effectively rejected the agreement on pay and reform reached between public service union leaders and the Government a fortnight ago. The union said its industrial action will continue for at least another month until the results of a ballot of members on the deal is known.
In the memo, HSE senior management said the absence of a monthly performance report was “significant”, as it provides the management information used to account for delivery of the National Service Plan, and to ensure proper control was exercised in respect of voted resources.
“This information is critical for the monitoring of known or emerging risks and provides the senior management team with the basis on which important management decisions are made,” the memo said.
Management stated that the absence of this report for January and February was particularly important.