THE latest revelations about the Health and Social Services Department’s spending and Treasury’s concern – denied by HSSD – that it has taken on an extra 90 staff will do nothing to improve public confidence in government’s ability to manage its affairs.

The point is that whether Health has taken on 90 or 19 staff, there should not be any doubt about it and islanders will wonder, whoever is right, just how two departments can be so vague about something as important the number of people being employed.

Treasury, however, is clear. In piecing together its all-important annual accounts, HSSD’s lack of grip on its expenditure and its fast and loose approach to hiring has only just come to light.

With each public sector employee costing the taxpayer an average of about £35,000, the 90 extra posts represent an additional £3m. on payroll costs, which is a further indication why rigorous control on recruitment is essential.

No private sector operation could – or would – be so lax in accounting for its largest single area of expenditure and what is doubly worrying is the Treasury minister’s statement that ‘it is very difficult to get information on staff numbers in the States’.

His frustration is evident and it is hard not to have sympathy for T&R, attempting to contain costs and reduce the States’ budget deficit, but taxpayers will not see it that way.

They expect every penny of their hard-earned cash that is taken off them by the States to be accounted for and to provide absolute value for money.

Can they have any confidence that is the case?

HSSD, it will be remembered, squandered hundreds of thousands of pounds on childcare for a handful of staff and, since the new political board took over, has been dogged with issues that question its capability.

The Treasury minister’s comments indicate that he, too, has doubts about whether the department really is in control of its finances, and that is particularly worrying.

It is now time for the Health minister to demonstrate that he really is in charge.