Key officials didn’t know extent of authority

KEY figures in charge of introducing PPARS did not know how far their authority stretched, with the result that important decisions were delayed or flawed.

Responsibility for the project initially lay “nominally” with the then CEO of the North-Western Health Board, Pat Harvey, who chaired a national steering committee on behalf on his own board and the four other health boards and St James Hospital, where PPARS was being installed at the time.

But in 2002, a newly-established body, the Health Boards Executive, took over nationally. By now the decision had been made to roll out the system to all 10 health boards and the individual CEOs were in charge at local level and Mr Harvey was the ‘lead CEO’.

The CAG found that “while nominally there was a single responsible owner for the project in the ‘lead CEO’, this person did not have the power to make and enforce decisions across the range of autonomous agencies.”

The project was already complicated by the huge diversity of staff, pay rates and employment conditions. While it attempted to create a standardised system, it had to contend with 2,590 variances in practice.

The Department of Health also sought to influence the direction and progress of the project by urgently seeking the compilation of data it could use to impose caps on recruitment and pay awards. “Thus, the project was driven by a desire to implement in as quick a timeframe as possible - with adverse consequences.”