PPARs Payroll, Payment and Related Systems

Background Dates back to the mid-1990s, when the chief executives of a number of health boards decided to work together to develop a common computerised payroll system. –The simple idea was to combine resources and save money and in 1998, a pilot project involving five health boards and St James's Hospital began. System was expected to deliver cost savings of €80m per year System has only partially been rolled out –still only covers 40,000 out of 140,000 staff.

Hay Management Consultants Report (2002) They found that the job was much more complicated than first envisaged and that payment rates and terms and conditions of various staff varied widely between health boards. It recommended, however, that the project should proceed, but that if it was to be rolled out to all health boards and hospitals, it would cost an additional €90 million on top of the €17 million spent to date. The money, it was claimed, would provide much more than a computer payroll system. It would be an entire system to manage the work and payment of more than 100,000 staff in the health services. It would also provide details of exactly how many people were employed in the health services, how much they were paid, and what their terms and conditions were.

System Problems Overpayments to health service staff have multiplied since the partial introduction of the new payroll system Overpayments to staff now total several million euro Efforts to recoup the money from staff have been unsuccessful in some instances. –one employee in the northwest had been paid €1million in error by the system.

Political Issue Cost of the system was originally estimated at less than €9 million To date: system has already cost €116 million –the consultants on the project, Deloitte, which has been paid €13.5 million in 2005 alone. –Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said "€150 million blown on PPARs could have delivered a brand new 600-bed hospital". There was also "no evidence" presented to them that the system, would reduce costs or provide increased efficiency