HSE report finds pay and procurement issues at St John of God

Salaries paid to some staff at the St John of God organisation are not in line with official State pay guidelines and procurement rules are not being followed in some cases, a report for the Health Service Executive has found.

Consultants Deloitte said a review found five significant issues, including that inter-company services within the St John of God group were not subject to procurement rules and there were no contracts in place .

Deloitte said there were instances of non-compliance with public procurement guidelines and EU directives, other cases where service users were being paid for work and instances where salaries were not in line with Department of Health pay scales.

The review said third-party contractors were engaged on occasion on foot of verbal approval from the HSE. Such contractors received more than €1 million in 2015.

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The HSE appointed Deloitte in 2016 to carry out reviews of voluntary hospitals and agencies which it funded to determine if they were complying with pay policy and to assess governance arrangements. These are separate to HSE internal audit reports .

The HSE declined to published the Deloitte reports. However three reviews, dating back to 2017, were released to The Irish Times last week on foot of an intervention by the Information Commissioner's office .

Public service body

The largest review was into St John of God Community Services Limited, which provides services to children and adults with intellectual disabilities and mental health issues in Dublin, Louth, Kildare and Kerry.

It forms part of a broader St John of God group but it is a public service body. Last year, it received €138 million in HSE funding.

Deloitte said an analysis of 25 sample employees found the annual salary of a senior staff member was €125,000, which was not in line with Department of Health scales. It said this was being reviewed between St John of God and the HSE.

Deloitte said there were three instances were service users were being remunerated for gardening, housekeeping and maintenance services. It said St John of God management had advised “the remuneration paid to service users did not impact on their disability allowances”.

Deloitte said it found procurement procedures were not undertaken in relation to some inter-company transactions within the broader St John of God group. These included the provision of beds by the St John of God Hospital to Cluain Mhuire and Lucena Services (part of the public St John of Community Services Limited) which cost €3.7million in 2015.

Governing contracts

Among other areas where no governing contracts were in place was for the €8.9 million subsidies provided by the Hospitaller Order of St John of God, Western European Province to St John of God Community Services Limited.

Deloitte also said a study of 25 transactions in 2015 showed in 15 instances there were no procurement procedures undertaken. It said these contracts were valued between €25,000 and €2.5 million.

A spokesman for St John of God Community Services Limited said it had submitted an interim report to the HSE in May, “which confirms that the significant majority of the recommendations in the 2017 Deloitte report have been fully implemented and incorporated into the organisation’s governance systems.

“Work is ongoing in relation to the implementation of the remaining recommendations and this will be fully completed in the coming months.”

The HSE said it was satisfied the required improvements were being progressed by the board of St John of God.