Treasury scathing of Canty DHB
The competence of Canterbury District Health Board’s management has been called into question by Treasury, in scathing advice that warns ministers of tactics to ‘‘leverage’’ more public funds and board members unable ‘‘or unwilling’’ to bring management into line.
Officials also levelled serious concern over the performance of the CDHB acting chair, Sir Mark Solomon, who had ‘‘not proved effective’’.
The Treasury documents lay out a series of advisories to the minister of finance and his associates ahead of the May Budget.
‘‘Appointed board members have not been able (or willing) to get the management team and clinicians to adopt adequate management disciplines, leaving the responsibility for holding the line with the partnership group and the ministry.
‘‘The learned behaviour at the DHB is not to make significant trade-offs, but rather to use public pressure and media channels to back ministers into a corner,’’ officials advised former finance minister Bill English in October last year.
As late as April – just over a month before Finance Minister Steven Joyce delivered his first budget – Treasury officials were advising him and Health Minister Jonathan Coleman to hold a special meeting over how to improve the DHB’S financial management.
‘‘A recent financial review by Pricewaterhousecoopers (PWC) indicated that the DHB should be able to achieve a break-even position with improved financial management.
‘‘The CDHB management team has shown little sign of being willing to respond to the situation and board governance has been and remains ineffective.’’
Officials go on to suggest two ‘‘interventions’’ available to the Government but the options they detail were redacted.
Going on decisions by previous governments, the appointment of a Crown Monitor is one option.
Board members’ public claims that the DHB had been shortchanged under the populationbased funding formula were not based in sound statistical analysis, Treasury said.
‘‘Our high-level analysis indicates there is no evidence that Canterbury is underfunded for the population it serves. Populationbased funding has continued to increase each year.
‘‘The fact its share of national population-based funding has tracked down since the earthquake mainly reflects its declining share of older New Zealanders; the rest of the country is ageing faster and older people have much higher health costs on average.’’
Further, the DHB had managed to capitalise on the lack of an analytical response from the Ministry of Health, its claims inadequately challenged in the media.
‘‘We recognise that there is likely to be mental health service need associated with the earthquake but SIU analysis shows that people in distress in Canterbury are more likely to receive care than elsewhere in the country.’’
The documents are unlikely to broker peace with the DHB, which has been at loggerheads with various branches of the Government over its funding. Its inability to rein in deficits have been of concern to public officials since before the Christchurch quakes of 2010 and 2011.
But the financial position of the DHB did not warrant another capital injection.
‘‘Canterbury DHB is not projecting a cash deficit in either the current or the next financial year. It is projecting an accounting deficit, due to depreciation costs. There is no need for the Crown to fund this,’’ officials said.