It’s the “Case of the Missing 1600” – a tale of how the Health Department lost, and then found, 1600 employees.
But it will take the most analytical minds to decipher the department’s explanation of how it managed to discover this vast number of public servants.
The department’s senior bureaucrats fronted State Parliament’s Estimates Committee last Friday as part of the Budget explanation process that allows MPs to delve into the detail of each department or agency’s annual expenditure.
Opposition Leader Steven Marshall opened with what seemed an innocuous question: “How many people at the end of the year were there in the department?”
The answer and explanation could have easily been sent, unedited, to the writers of the BBC comedy Yes Minister, which specialised in making fun of bureaucratic double-speak.
Health Minister Jack Snelling told Marshall his department employee numbers were: “At the end of May, 30,975.”
Marshall thought that seemed high: “In last year’s budget, the budget for this financial year was that the Health Department would have 29,372 employees this year and you have ended up with 30,975. By my reckoning, you are up by 1603 people. What happened there?”
You might like
Snelling said this was a case of switching the body count from one where they tallied actual people as opposed to a financial measure.
“The increase in Full Time Equivalents (FTEs) is basically the result of a realignment of our FTE position, but there were no dollars provided as a consequence of that. I will ask the acting chief financial officer to explain.”
And this was where it got really confusing.
The Minister deferred to the department’s acting chief financial officer, Danny DeCesare.
“Just to amplify the Minister’s comments a little further, the predominant cause for the increase was essentially a realignment of the cap, our FTE numbers, by virtue of a period of time previously.
“Perhaps I will provide an example. First of all, the FTE numbers have increased. Say, for example, FTEs are provided on the basis of an average salary of $100,000 but indeed the salaries are actually $80,000 each, you will have to increase the FTE numbers to correlate with the dollars, and that is the sole purpose of the increase to the FTEs.”
The Health Minister seemed satisfied that his department’s bean counter had nailed the issue.
“That is exactly the point Mr DeCesare is making. The point is that that number did not reflect the number of FTEs we actually had in the system, and so what has happened is that there has been a parameter adjustment, which means that the FTE numbers we have better reflect the actual number of FTEs we have in the system,” Snelling said.
Stay informed, daily
The Minister also wanted to make it clear that this numbers game had no impact on the finances of his department.
“But the important point is that, as a result of this parameter adjustment, there are no extra dollars. We do not get any extra money from Treasury; it is just basically a statistical anomaly.”
Steven Marshall thought there was one matter to clarify.
“Minister, do you know how many people work in your department?”
And here’s how it went:
SNELLING: Yes.
MARSHALL: How many?
SNELLING: At the end of May 2014, 30,975.
MARSHALL: Do you know how many were there at 30 June the previous year?
SNELLING: There were 30,921.
MARSHALL: Even though one month earlier you said that there were 29,372?
SNELLING: That is the adjustment.
MARSHALL: The adjustment basically provided that there were a thousand more employees in the department than you knew a year ago?
SNELLING: The 30,921 is the adjusted number.
MARSHALL: But is that the actual number, or is it just a statistical—
SNELLING: My advice is that is the actual number.
And if that hadn’t clarified matters, the departmental spokesman thought he could tidy it up: “We have known for some time that there has been an anomaly, from a budget perspective, with our FTE caps, and we have been working with Treasury to provide further evidence about both the reasons and the history associated with that anomaly. But, again, to reiterate what the minister said, it is a budget adjustment; the FTEs have always been there, in terms of the cap.”
Steven Marshall though he’d check one more time to see just how many employees had disappeared, then reappeared on the books.
“Previously, though, what was the underestimation of the number of employees that you had? Was it, in round terms, 1600?”
DeCesare wrapped it up: “No; in round terms, from just the statistical anomaly, it is around about 600 FTEs.”
After the Estimates Committee hearing Steven Marshall told InDaily he was none the wiser.
“The best I can say is that they had a shed load of people they didn’t know existed.”
Perhaps it’s time for a roll call at HealthSA.
Want to see more stories from InDaily SA in your Google search results?
- Click here to set InDaily SA as a preferred source.
- Tick the box next to "InDaily SA". That's it.
