WHEN the Health and Social Services minister demanded – and got – a right of reply last week to comments from the chief minister suggesting the department had massively overspent its budget, he doubtless anticipated being able to close down the row.

His detailed statement to the States was designed to make it clear that there had been no overspend and that HSSD needed no extra taxpayers’ money to balance its books in 2009.

Yet while that might have been the intention, the reality was that the speech, whether it was prepared by the minister or one of his officials, gave the impression that the political board really was not in control of its finances.

Firstly, for the minister to claim that he did not know what his budget for last year actually was simply not credible.

When he said, ‘the total authorised budget for 2009 has not yet been formally notified to HSSD but we expect it to be £105m.’ no one in the Assembly would have been able to accept that as fact.

Why? Because every department is given a cash limit during the annual Budget debate, which is held in December, and as we said last week, the minister would have known what he spent in 2008, what he had for 2009 and what he has for this year.

So why was his statement so bafflingly misleading? Well, for two reasons. Firstly, departments have been able to make fast and loose with islanders’ money by not returning unspent money and this blurs the actual financial picture.

Secondly, it is an indication of how desperate HSSD is to control its own department – as the minister was claiming he believed his budget to be £105m. he went on to say they had spent £2.5m. more than that.

For this year, HSSD has been granted £103.33m. but it spent £4m. more than that last year and, again in the minister’s own words, is under ‘great pressure’ for 2010.

For islanders, possibly bemused by the way the States looks after taxpayers’ money, there is a simple way of looking at this: is anyone actually in control of HHSD’s spending?