THE “staggering” overspends on agency staff within the Health Department have shrunk in the last two years – but continued to place pressure on the budget, new figures have shown.
The data was provided in response to a written question submitted to Health Minister Tom Binet by Deputy Jonathan Renouf, who is vice-chair of the Health and Social Security scrutiny panel.
Deputy Renouf asked Deputy Binet to outline which areas of the Health Department had overspent in each of the past two years and by how much.
Of the nine areas listed in the minister’s response, medical and surgical services exceeded their budgets by the largest amounts, followed by mental-health. [see table].
Deputy Binet also provided a breakdown of expenditure categories, which showed that agency staff costs stood at 30,396,000 in 2023 and 21,722,000 in 2024.
The figures represent overspends of 27,586,000 and 14,860,000 respectively.
Deputy Renouf said: “The overspends in agency staff over the last couple of years are staggering, although it is at least good to see that the overspend seems to be on a falling trend.”
Deputy Binet noted that: “In both years, substantive staffing underspends were offset by significant overspends on agency staffing. A key driver of this overspend was structural vacancy levels.”
The minister continued: “This is not a recent issue but rather a trend which evolved and escalated between 2018–2022.
“Recruitment to substantive roles in 2023–2024 has begun to reduce reliance on premium cost agency and locum staff, and substantive staff budgets increased in-line with pay awards and workforce investments.”
Deputy Renouf’s question comes in the wake of major scrutiny over the overall health deficit, as well as plans to improve the department’s financial position with a major funding boost via the government’s intended 2026-2029 Budget.
