ANY ordinary islander reading how Health and Social Services has thrown nearly £1m. at a handful of staff will be deeply perplexed by what is going on.

According to the chief executive of HSSD, the expenditure was a sound business decision. According to the Treasury minister, as we report on page one today, it represents a lack of financial management.

Even the Health minister, whose relaxed attitude to his department’s budgeting is well documented, was moved to admit that it was possible to describe the spend as ‘a waste’.

The reality is that HSSD, which until now operated on the basis of getting more and more money each year, was happy to throw taxpayers’ cash at staff because it made life easier.

While there might have been a glimmer of logic in trying to hold on to nurses through improved childcare, there was none for the civil servants who also benefited from around £7,000 a year’s-worth of support. Unlike nurses, they are not difficult to recruit.

And the HSSD officials also attempt to justify the exorbitant cost of reserving spaces on the grounds that, because they were in short supply, they had to pay hugely. Other organisations, which have to earn the money they spend, would have looked at the problem in a different way, refusing to be ripped off.

HSSD believes the childcare subsidy was good value because it spared them from employing agency nurses at greatly inflated cost.

What that means is that nurses will work here if the money is right. But rather than pay nursing staff the going rate, HSSD preferred to use a back-door subsidy, just as it does with locums.

The blame for a one size fits all pay groups policy initially rests with the Public Sector Remuneration Committee but also with departments like Health and Social Services for letting them get away with it.

While workarounds could be put in place, why worry if that was achieved at the expense of bucketloads of taxpayers’ cash?

Regardless of who is responsible for the department – minister or official – it is clear that the prevailing culture running it is hopelessly inadequate for today’s needs.