The following appeared today.
Health minister Lawrence Springborg reveals cost of fixing QH payroll issue will top at least $1.2 billion
- by: Koren Helbig
- From: The Courier-Mail
- June 06, 2012
THE cost of Queensland's disastrous health payroll system is set to top $1.2 billion by 2017.
But Health Minister Lawrence Springborg has warned that estimate is a "bare-bones price" that does not include any contingency funding should anything go wrong.
Contingency provisions for repairs could add an extra 30 per cent to the $1.253 billion cost.
It also fails to include the impacts of Fringe Benefits Tax payable on wage overpayments, which could be as high as $110.4 million.
Even more concerning, the Workbrain and SAP systems will no longer be supported from 2014-15 and the former Bligh government failed to set aside any cash for the needed upgrade or re-implementation.
That cost has not yet even been quantified.
The shocking cost is detailed in a wide-ranging audit tabled in State Parliament this afternoon which has, for the first time, given the true picture of the bill taxpayers face to ensure health workers are paid properly.
Since March 2010, Queensland Health's payroll fiasco, one of the Bligh government's biggest disasters, left thousands of health workers underpaid, overpaid or unpaid, often for weeks on end.
The system was originally expected to cost about $40 million to implement.
Lots more with links to other articles here:
I am sorry - this debacle really does leave me just open-mouthed in amazement!
The cost blowout has clearly meant health services in Queensland have been curtailed as a result of the vast an inexcusable overspend. I know setting up a payroll system in a complex Health Bureaucracy can be hard - but surely not this hard.
As far as the NEHRS is concerned what is shown is just how useful a proper Audit can be to sort out what is what and just how exposed everyone is.
If ever there was a program in need of the same sort of review it is the NEHRS!
David.
Keep in mind, this is a cost over 8years and includes mostly paying 1,000 payroll admin staff (up from 400 with Lattice payroll).
ReplyDeleteSo this is a great outcome? I don't think so.
ReplyDeleteDavid
there is some deja vu here - Lattice was purchased in the mid-nineties and Mincom then promptly "sunsetted" the application about 2 years later. QH was left with having to support a "dead" product themselves. The Bligh government was told in no uncertain terms that the SAP system would not work for Qld Health - they chose for political expediency to ignore that advice and look where we are now. Will we be looking back in 10 years and saying the same thing about the NEHRS? History does seem to repeat!
ReplyDeleteAnd before Lattice there was dear old HOSPAY bureau service....and of course it was always a good idea to bang the new SAP system into production without running a test environment...fail Project Management 101.
ReplyDeleteWe won't even mention the $88m black hole affactionately known as HBCIS.
Agree it's a stuff-up of monumental proportion but if you follow the link to the article comments, it seems even the readers of the courier-mail don't buy the $1 billion figure. Neither do I
ReplyDeleteSo you know better than the Auditors Anon @01:39pm.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you could let us know where they are wrong - or is it that they have been misquoted?
David
at least HBCIS works - it ain't pretty and is probably bordering on being unsafe these days. Just what the heck are they going to replace it with. there was even talk a while ago about QH buying the source code and just keep on running it!
ReplyDeletenow I see they are going to spend $35M of federal money putting in an EMR to Cape York - how on earth can they spend that much on what could not be more than 300 users and maybe 200 beds? I'll do it for about $1M over 5 years! happy to split the rest with you guys! :-)