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11 June 2003HEALTH AGENCIES REBUKED OVER LATE PERFORMANCE INDICATORSIn his latest report to Parliament WA Auditor General Des Pearson has drawn attention to a significant failure by the State’s public sector health agencies in reporting their Performance Indicators on time last year. Despite being granted a 6-week extension beyond the statutory deadline of 31 August, 41 of 43 agencies still failed to meet that target, submitting their Performance Indicators only at the end of November, some 12 weeks late. Even then, the Performance Indicators were of such a poor standard they had to be returned for revision to avoid being qualified by the Auditor General – they were finally received by Mr Pearson’s Office between late January and early February, nearly five months late. In the report tabled today, Mr Pearson states this failure to meet reporting deadlines and the poor standard of the Performance Indicators resulted in “substantial additional audit resources being consumed” by his Office, and ultimately caused the annual reports of these agencies to be considerably late in being tabled in the Parliament. In such a situation, he says, “ultimate accountability to Parliament and other stakeholders for agency operations has been significantly impaired”. Commenting today Mr Pearson said that the issue was significant, as any extended delay in annual reporting meant that agency management was still applying its energies to matters that should have effectively been addressed in the past, rather than focussing on current and future needs. "Sound financial management is built on getting the fundamentals, such as compliance with statutory accountability and reporting obligations, right – if agencies are deficient in such basic requirements, which after all have been in place since 1985, it does give cause for concern that such deficiencies may be a symptom of further underlying management problems," he said. The report also details a number of other areas of concern across the public health sector, including aspects of asset management, revenue collections and banking, expenditure controls and payroll reconciliation. The audit opinion of one health service, the Minister for Health in his capacity as the Deemed Board of Metropolitan Public Hospitals (previously known as the Metropolitan Health Services Board), was qualified due to inadequate controls over postal remittances relating to Special Purpose Accounts and for inadequacies in incurring and certifying expenditure. Audit found that not all postal remittances received at teaching hospitals were opened and recorded before being forwarded to individuals and as a result assurance could not be given that all the remittances had been receipted and properly brought to account. Further, controls exercised over payments of moneys were not adequate and did not comply with legislative requirements, with deficiencies including both incurring and certifying officers not performing all the duties required by the Treasurer's Instructions and instances of officers incurring payments outside their authority. The matter of inadequate controls over postal remittances at the State’s teaching hospitals was raised by the Auditor General last year in a comprehensive review of Special Purpose Accounts (some $37 million per year is processed through these accounts) with results being reported to Parliament in a Report titled Management of Hospital Special Purpose Accounts (Report No 7, November 2002).
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Media Contact: Peter Villiers, Manager Reporting and Communications |
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