Health Board finances

A little light has been shone into a dark corner by the recent statement from the Health Board regarding the finances.

But to understand just what it really means, you have to cut through the jargon.

Crucial to the strategy is a promised £ 3 million loan from the Scottish Government to "clear" the accumulated deficit.

Translation: we are turning our overdraft into a loan. Doing so does not get rid of losses, it just simplifies the repayments.

But Scottish health minister Nicola Sturgeon has imposed a condition against the loan requiring satisfactory progress from the health authority board and its commitment to pay it back in the future.

The lender has told us to make cuts to be able to afford the repayments.

Though the body believes it will break-even within the last accounting period it faces more financial woes by having to make £2.9 million of savings and cutbacks in the new financial year to cover an immediate funding gap in its £68 million allocation from Government.

On top of the cuts that we are going to have to make in the current year, due to a reduction in budgets.

£100,000 savings are to come from better use of locums while freezing 27 vacancies is expected to win £610,000.

27 staff are not to be replaced. If they are not important, then why are the posts not deleted? If they are important, why are the posts remaining unfilled?

The last information I had was that at any point there were unfilled vacancies with total salaries of £1m, and that a strategy of delaying filling the posts to save a few months here and a few months there was being deliberately pursued.

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Congratulations to Angus MacCormick on his rapid rise through the ranks of the Board. Thinking about the background to his appointment, I recall the wise words of Lyndon B Johnson:

It’s probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.