The government’s commitment to implementing recommendations made in a critical report about financial management has been questioned by the States spending watchdog.
The Public Accounts Committee has issued comments after reviewing the response by government chief executive Andrew McLaughlin and treasurer Richard Bell to a report published by the Comptroller and Auditor General earlier this year.
Comptroller Lynn Pamment said “significant improvements” were required in financial management and internal control at the Health Department in order to combat overspends in budget for each of the past five years. There was also criticism for Health for not having a clinical strategy for delivery of acute services, in spite of this being recommended previously, and over the absence of a fully documented workforce plan.
Ms Pamment recommended that government departments should undertake regular reviews of the effectiveness of their control environments and actions in reducing risk scores, but this was not accepted by the government.
In its comments, PAC, which is chaired by Deputy Inna Gardiner, expressed concern about the government’s non-acceptance, saying that specific evidence should be provided about regular reviews being undertaken in order to reduce the risks identified by the Comptroller.
The committee also calls for a faster pace of response in certain areas, including a pledge to address risk appetites by June 2026, saying this date should be brought forward to March.
And the government’s pledge to update the Financial Recovery Plan for the Health Department to address weaknesses identified by the Comptroller including that the department may continue to overspend, impacting patient services, by the end of 2026 also attracted adverse comment.
“PAC believes further reasoning behind this time-frame be given and suggests that this should be reduced to, at minimum, June 2026 to allow for accurate budgeting to be taken forward,” the committee noted.
Questions are also raised about whether internal audit arrangements are inadequate and sufficiently independent.
The comments paper concludes: “Overall, PAC welcomes response to the C&AG report, noting the agreement with the majority of recommendations made.
“However, the committee has highlighted concerns on the allocated risk profile and the indicated time-frame for implementation of actions in some cases, and requests that further consideration is given in these areas.”
