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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-04-05 Daily Xml
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HEALTH DEPARTMENT

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite) (16:00): My question is to the Minister for Health. Is poor management and financial mismanagement referred to by the Auditor-General in his report tabled today in parliament the cause for an increase in full-time equivalents in the Department of Health from 1,273 people in 2010 to 1,859 people—an increase of 586 FTEs in the past 12 months? The Auditor-General, in confirming an almost 30 per cent increase in FTEs in the Department of Health states on page 79 of his report, 'The increase in the Department of Health FTEs is mainly attributable to the workforce and finance integration across SA Health.'

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts) (16:01): That is absolutely true; what we have done is to bring—

Mr Hamilton-Smith: What a mess!

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Waite, behave.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: I find it hard—I get one sentence out and I actually agreed with the comment made by the member, and I still get an interjection, but it is his spin on the question that really needs to be addressed, because it's true—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Norwood, leave the chamber for the rest of question time.

The honourable member for Norwood having withdrawn from the chamber:

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: It is absolutely true that, as part of the process of reforming the health service, we brought together the finance and management control measures into the Department of Health. We have taken them out of the regions, where those employees used to be, and we brought them together into the head office. There has not been a growth in the Public Service; there has been, in fact, a consolidation so that we can reduce the number of public servants we have who manage the resources, who manage the finances, who do procure—

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Well, it may not sound like that to you, but that's unfortunately the case—

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. HILL: It may not sound like it to the member for Unley, and I am sorry if he does not understand it, but part of the reform process is the consolidation of management services in head office and the reduction of those services elsewhere. So, for example, the Department of Health in 2010-11, in terms of the number of executives in the department, there were 59, and in 2009-10 there were 56. But, if you go down the track and you add up all of the departmental officers in each of the various regions, you find that in 2010-11—this is one example—there were 121 executives who were being paid over $103,600 a year, whereas in the previous year (2009-10) there were 128 executives being paid $101,000. There were fewer executives in 2010-11, but if you only looked at the Department of Health you would think there were more, because we are consolidating those jobs so that we can reduce the number of positions that are required to run those kinds of management services across the health system.

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