OF THE 90 extra staff employed by Health and Social Services last year – at a wage cost of £3m. – it is a pity at least one could not have been asked to help balance the books.

As a profession, accountants suffer from something of an image problem.

Dismissed as bean counters, they are often portrayed as grey men whose exclusive interest in ‘the bottom line’ prevents more exciting creative types from getting their way.

But as Health lost control of its budget and spending rose by 14% just as the island foolishly hoped that the department was exercising restraint, it can be seen what a vital role the money men and women play.

When the minister said he did not have ‘a flaming clue’ about the extra 90 staff it was mostly because only the most basic of accounting information was being passed up the line.

A £100m. budget simply cannot be worked out on the back of a fag packet. Nor can it be a part-time occupation.

The new HSSD chief officer has recognised that and is to be applauded for not only adding a qualified accountant to the finance team but ensuring that the existing staff are no longer distracted by other tasks.

If the chief officer – an accountant himself – is as good as his word and the department’s titanic overspend veers away from the iceberg then this will be one new appointment that HSSD can be congratulated on.

Of course, the finance team can only provide good intel.

It will be up to the on-the-line managers to use it and that is where the chief officer will face his greatest task.

For it is clear from the staffing figures that this has not been an organisation focused on value for money.

With just four staff – less than half a per cent of total employed – in the finance team, only one of them a fully qualified accountant and the rest doing other jobs, HSSD’s insistence that it was being careful with our cash can be seen as just hollow words.