Ministerial Statement

SA HEALTH

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Treasurer, Minister for Workers Rehabilitation, Minister for Defence Industries, Minister for Veterans' Affairs) (17:58): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: I rise to make a ministerial statement to provide further detail to a series of questions about the reconciliation of SA Health accounts. I have been advised that the new enterprise-wide financial system, Oracle, was implemented across all SA Health entities to create a single general ledger for the health portfolio. This has lead to greater consistency across the health portfolio and will allow for greater accountability for individual sites. The Oracle system replaces the older legacies disparate accounting systems across the portfolio. As planned, the new system was rolled out in a two-staged approach across the Department of Health and several health entities during the 2010-11 financial year.

PKF is a finance firm that has been engaged by SA Health to help with some of the transition work required with the implementation; in particular the closing of legacy bank accounts associated with the old financial systems and moving the cash balances over to the new bank accounts. PKF is also assisting with the clearing of the cash at bank reconciliation of the old Central Northern Adelaide Health Region and the old Southern Adelaide Health Region to Adelaide Health region.

Currently, there are some significant unreconciled amounts of approximately $50 million in Central Northern Adelaide Health Region and approximately $10 million in Southern Adelaide Health Region that are progressively being cleared daily. The reconciled amount is continuing to fall daily. SA Health is endeavouring to reconcile the differences to zero.

This does not affect the health year end position. It is simply about ensuring the expenditure is recorded to the correct account in the general ledger. Those questions might have been better directed to the Minister for Health, who the opposition granted a pair last week to be absent today from question time to represent South Australia's interests at the Australian Health Ministers' Conference in Brisbane.

At 18:00 the house adjourned until Tuesday 22 November 2011 at 11:00.