NO FINANCIAL records for travel or hotel costs were kept for overseas health service staff training trips, a confidential audit report has revealed.
The trips, involving civil servants, HSE officials, trade unionists and others, were funded in a non-transparent manner that obscured the expenditure from scrutiny, the report found.
The training programme trips were to the US, Australia, Hong Kong and the UK.
The HSE internal audit report, carried out into the Skill training programme, which has been referred to the Garda by the board of the health authority, found that travel expenditure was processed outside of the programme’s official books of account.
It is understood the report maintained that one trade union employee arranged and paid for overseas travel for public officials and others and subsequently either claimed back unvouched and unspecified costs from the Skill programme or funded it through a grant that the union received from the Department of Health.
Highly placed sources said the report criticised this practice for undermining transparency and accountability obligations and negating proper accountability and governance.
The sources said last night that the HSE internal audit report also found:
The training programme did not record any travel, hotel or other expenditure in relation to trips.
There was a lack of compliance with HSE national policy on foreign travel.
The level of co-operation provided by some associated with the Skill programme to the audit investigation fell short of the standards expected of State officials and those working with public bodies.
Separately, it is understood the internal audit also maintained that there were breaches of official public service and HSE recruitment policy.
It maintained that relatives of personnel associated with the programme were directed to a recruitment agency, which then placed two people on temporary contracts with the Skills office.
Informed sources said the internal audit report also contended that a relative of one person associated with the programme was subsequently given a full-time job in the HSE without either an internal or external competition taking place.
The HSE’s Skills programme was aimed at upskilling support staff and line managers across the health service in non-clinical services such as portering, house-keeping and catering.
The project received nearly €60 million in State funding over recent years.
However, the HSE internal audit has raised concerns about weaknesses in governance and control of the funds distributed.
It has particularly highlighted the payment of more than €2.3 million, which was made by the Department of Health, through the HSE, to the trade union Siptu over recent years under the overall heading of the funding for the Skills programme.
Siptu has said in recent days that it never received such funding.
Highly placed sources have maintained that the money concerned was paid to an account controlled by a unit of Siptu.
Sources close to the Department of Health said yesterday that there had been “study visits” organised as part of the Skills programme to Australia in 2005, to New York in 2006, to Boston in 2007, to Savannah in the US in 2008, and to New York in 2009.
Other sources said that there was also a trip to Hong Kong in 2008.
It is understood that two officials of the Department of Health and an official who subsequently joined the Department of Health took part in some of these trips.
Sources close to the Department of Health said the bulk of the money allocated to the Skills programme went on the provision of training courses and on paying for staff to replace those on training courses.
Some of the money also went on administering the scheme.
The money given to Siptu, which formed part of the strand of the Skill’s allocation, was aimed at “supporting Siptu human resources-personnel development schemes and the development of union-management partnerships of best practice in health enterprises”.
Sources close to the Department of Health said that the decision to make the payment in 2002 was taken against a backdrop of a series of industrial disputes in the health sector.
It is understood that Siptu had argued at the time that arrangements for career development and progression were being made for other health service groups but not for its members in areas such as catering, housekeeping and portering.