Throwing money at problems was no solution to a lack of overall control, writes Martin Wall.
Senior Government figures believe the findings of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report on the PPARS project fully justify the decision to abolish the former health board structure last year and replace it with a centralised Health Service Executive.
Indeed the picture painted by the Department of Health of the former health board system for the C&AG was one where central government had effectively lost control to a large extent over how services were being administered locally.
The Department of Health pointed to a chaotic system where health boards and local agencies were interpreting national rules on pay and conditions in their own way.
It was totally unlike the situation prevailing in the Civil Service or the Garda Síochána, where there is a uniform approach across the State.
The department said a situation had developed throughout the health boards where there were different applications of the rules for calculating pay and overtime.
The level of absenteeism was unclear and, the department believed, even the apparently basic issue of how many staff were employed was being underreported.
The C&AG found that 2,590 separate variances relating to staff working hours, leave and expenses had been identified.
The report says that the Department of Health told the Department of Finance last year that the rapid implementation of the PPARS system was central to the success of the overall healthcare reform programme.
PPARS aimed to provide the uniform payroll and personnel system the Department of Health so badly wanted and which it believed was absent under the health board system.
Ironically the report of the C&AG found this desire to implement the project as quickly as possible led to some of the adverse consequences.
It said resources were overstretched and that this resulted in a failure to complete two pilot programmes before moving on to new ones.
The PPARS development team said there was pressure from the Department of Health to have the system go live as soon as possible.
However, the Department said that it did not give any instructions that corners were to be cut in the process.
Whatever the background, the implementation of the programme left much to be desired.
Nominally there was an overall project team. However, this had no power over the local implementation groups in the autonomous health boards.
Things may even have got worse following the abolition of the health boards and the transition to the new HSE structure.
Consultants Deloitte reported that, as the layers of management began to be dismantled, there was a slowing down of decision-
making and of problem resolution.
The answer to many of the problems seemed to have been to throw money at them. The Department of Health funding committee determined that spare resources up to €10 million should go to PPARS.
As a result there appeared to have been an over-reliance on external consultants.
The report concludes that many of the functions and staff savings envisaged at the start of the project have not materialised.