Speech regarding amendment to change MTFP. it passed.
Sir, This amendment, is supported by Committee for Health and Social Care and if successful will replace amendment 20. It is intended, as with amendment 19 which is closely linked to it, to give some clarity around expectations both to the Committee for Health and Social Care and the States as a whole and deals with the treatment of the savings to be made by the Committee.
Members will recall that in the 2017 budget which this Assembly approved last October, P&R said that they did not think it appropriate or realistic, to set a budgetary target for tactical productivity and efficiency savings for 2017 given the significant political and civil service changes during 2016, the delay in the transformation programme and financial pressures being faced in 2016. Rather it believed the 2017 budget should be set at a realistic level to deliver the current service model and to allow further time for planning and commencing delivery of transformation and change activities. That made a lot of sense given recent history.
As I set out last week when we debated the 2016 accounts, HSC made a headline saving of £600k. Given HSSD also managed to make £750k of self-imposed savings, this represented a total of £1.35m. These efficiencies resulted from better financial reporting, controls and management of agency staff. It is now a year since the programme of system grip was brought in and we are seeing a consistent level of expenditure month on month that demonstrates the savings made are recurrent.
HSC is therefore in a position to improve the bottom line of the States and return part of its budget to the Treasury a year ahead of expectations helping to offset pressures elsewhere.
The purpose of the revised amendment laid by P&R is to provide clarity and acknowledge those savings as part of the wider savings target rather than result in them being forgotten and the Committee having to start from scratch.
In the last couple of years there have been a number of different figures bandied around in relation to the savings expected from HSC. These include £8.2m, £7.4m, £5.2m and even £24m per annum. At the same time we have had various expectations as to when savings will be made, with the MTFP causing more uncertainty. We therefore think it important that, at this time clarity is given both to the Committee and this Assembly. Amendment 19 will deal with the former aspect, this amendment deals with the latter.
It is worth pointing out that the Committee is now focusing on investing in those areas identified by BDO that comprised the £2.2m additional recurring expenditure it stated would be required to begin to enable service improvement and more effective provision and, as the P&R President mentioned in his opening speech, we will work with P&R to agree the best mechanism of doing so.
Sir, the Committee for Health and Social Care has been able to demonstrate that, with support, continuity of personnel and a will, that savings are possible without cuts. However, as I said before and as stated in the Committee’s P&R Plan, this is not sustainable in the medium to long term without a restructuring of our model for health and social care and that it what will be addressed later in the year when we present our policy letter to this place. In the meantime we will continue to think differently and work differently to ensure best value for money under the system we currently operate.