€41 million so unions can talk to each other and go on ‘fact-finding’ missions to New York. Again SIPTU claim to know nothing about this…
HSE finds serious irregularities in HSNPF
Updated: 22:28, Friday, 10 December 2010
A HSE internal audit report has uncovered serious irregularities in a body called the Health Services National Partnership Forum - including extensive expenditure on foreign travel.
The findings echo a similar controversy involving the €60m SKILL training fund earlier this year - where money was channelled to a SIPTU named account, which SIPTU said it knew nothing about.
The HSNPF’s total income between 1999 and 2009 was over €41m.
However, the audit reveals serious deficiencies in how that money was managed - including an incident where cheques were signed by an official rather than the authorised signatory.
It identifies over €1m paid out to trade unions between 2003 and 2008.
In total SIPTU received €924,963 from one fund - the Action Plan for People Management.
This money was paid into the SIPTU National Health and Local Authority Levy account - which SIPTU said was not one of its accounts.
It notes that three payments totalling €700,000 were paid to SIPTU - some of which was passed on to other unions.
Following contact from the Internal Audit team, four unions confirmed that they had received but not yet spent the funds, and to date over €250,000 has been refunded to the HSE.
The audit says: ‘It is not clear why HSNPF breached its own procedure by agreeing to pay over funds in bulk to SIPTU for SIPTU to disburse the funds to other unions and itself, without any evidence that claims had been submitted and properly validated without any account of how the funding of €925,000 was expended.’
A total of 21 foreign trips were undertaken by members of the forum at a cost of €146,480.
€154,474 was spent on links with American health projects in New York.
The audit noted that significant amounts of expenditure on the HSNPF director’s credit card were incurred for travel, hotels and restaurants.
It criticised the fact that the credit card statements were self certified.
Proper procurement processes were not always adhered to - and documentation and records were inadequate.
Grants totalling €13,380m were paid to various health agencies- but the audit states that some activity did not seem to be wholly partnership relevant - adding that the organisations should have taken them on as part of day to day activities.
Meanwhile, senior management of the HSE has been criticised for its governance of the €60m SKILL training programme for health staff.
Almost €2.5m was channelled to a SIPTU named-account and spent on controversial foreign travel.
The finding comes in an investigation commissioned by the HSE from former IBEC Director General Turlough O’Sullivan.
At least €2.3m from the SKILL funds was spent on 31 trips to America between 2002 and 2008.
The delegations included officials some of whom are retired from the Departments of Finance and Health, the HSE, unions, partnership bodies and spouses.
SIPTU has consistently said it had no knowledge of the account into which the money was paid. SIPTU has since taken control of the account.
A spokesperson for SIPTU said the sub-committee of SIPTU trustees that are enquiring into this matter are aware of these funds going into the SIPTU National Health and Local Authority Levy Account.
SIPTU has already stated that the money disbursed by the HSE was not sought received or audited by SIPTU.
SIPTU expects to complete its enquiry in the coming weeks.
The HSE internal audit report of the SKILL Programme has found that the programme did not meet its annual target of 4,000 participants.
The audit found that up to the end of December 2009, 8,977 support workers have participated in the training programme, at an average cost of €5,241.
The report estimates that the total cost of the SKILL programme for the existing workers will be €167m.
The report also states that based on the annual participant registration it will take until 2023 to train all existing 32,000 support workers.
Given the ‘exceptional projected costs’, the audit says it is essential that HSE management is assured of the effectiveness of the training programme to date and should carry out a review of the future costs to ensure it delivers value for money.
The audit also notes that the Labour Court recommendation did not specifically provide for payments to reimburse employers to replace staff who went on SKILL training courses - a practice know as ‘backfilling costs’.
