152. The launches were underutilized not only because of the repair work, but also because the Director of Marine failed to the recruitment of the crew for the boats to coincide with the dates of their delivery. It was not until October 9, after all the boats had been delivered, that approval was given to employ the crew and there was then a delay of between eleven and fifteen months in fully mobilizing the vessels because of the time needed to recruit and train the crew. During that period the new launches were used occasionally but only by taking crew from other boats.
153. The underutilization and unnecessary extra cost indicate that full value for money has not been obtained from the purchase of the four launches. The Director of Marine has expressed his regret at the delay in recruiting the crew for the boats which he said was due partly to financial constraints. Whilst accepting that the performance of the water-jet propulsion system had been below expectations, he did not concede that there was a lack of foresight or a failure to fully investigate the advantages and disadvantages of the system at the pre-tender stage because he was confident that the known problems could be overcome. He explained that the professional staff of the Marine Department had to rely on published technical papers rather than engaging in expensive and time-consuming test and evaluation programmes.
154. Head 102 – Medical and Health Department. Subhead 700 General other non-recurrent. (502). Scheme for private dental treatment for civil servants. In their Sixth Report issued in December 1983 the Public Accounts Committee expressed great concern over the abuse by a number of civil servants of the scheme for private dental treatment which was set up in 1981 to assist civil servants and their dependants. The Committee regarded the abuse as an extremely serious matter which needed to be dealt with seriously, noting that the Secretary for the Civil Service was investigating cases of suspected abuse and that it was the Secretary's intention to take disciplinary action against individual civil servants where appropriate.
155. The Secretary for the Civil Service provided the Public Accounts Committee with an interim report in May 1984 and a full report in January 1985. He stated that initial clinical checks of about 6 000 claims were made in 1983 relating to work done by 295 dentists. It was noticed that claims involving certain dentists among this group had given rise to certain problems. All claims relating to these dentists were therefore singled out for further examination, and a total of 4 128 were investigated in detail. The outcome of the investigations was:
---claims in order
1 359
-claims not in order from the procedural point of view (for example, claims submitted for reimbursement before treatment had been completed or before the dentists had been paid)
754
-claims not fully in order from the treatment point of view (for example, all or part of the treatment recorded by the dentists had not been done, or not done sufficiently)
2015
4 128
The irregularities concerning the claims not in order related to a very small number of dentists.
156. With regard to the 754 claims not in order from the procedural point of view the rules of the private dental treatment scheme required officers to complete a course of treatment and make full payment to a dentist before submitting a claim for reimbursement. However, out of these 754 claims, officers in 385 cases had in fact sought reimbursement before they had paid the dentists. Officers in the remaining 369 cases had sought reimbursement before completion of the course of treatment. The Secretary for the Civil Service commented that the officers involved in such cases were almost entirely at the junior level, and that it was possible that they lacked full understanding of the rules.
157. The Secretary for the Civil Service went on to state that he adopted a strict approach to all such cases and the officers concerned were admonished under civil service disciplinary procedures. In certain cases, where reimbursements had not yet been made, the claims were rejected. In other cases where it was found on clinical examination that treatment had not been completed, the officers concerned were being required to refund the money involved. However, the Secretary considered there was no evidence to substantiate any suggestion that the officers concerned were deliberately trying to cheat the Government although it seemed fairly certain that a small number of dentists assisted officers to complete reimbursement forms before treatment had been completed or, in a few cases, even begun. This was in contravention of the rules of the scheme, which had been drawn to dentists' attention.
158. With regard to the 2015 claims not fully in order from the treatment point of view, it was discovered through the clinical examinations that, in a number of cases involving complex work, certain treatment specified in the claims required the prior approval of the Director of Medical and Health Services, but that such approval had not been sought. In other cases, the clinical examinations revealed that particular items of treatment had not been satisfactorily completed. A number of errors were also found in the treatment forms which dentists were required to complete. Such errors involved, for example, claims for more fillings than were actually done, for two surface fillings when only single surface fillings were done or for more teeth on a denture than were actually present.
159. The Secretary for the Civil Service considered that, as a general rule, officers could not be expected to have known precisely what dental work was performed on them and that it would therefore be wrong to hold them personally responsible for errors which were found as a result of clinical examinations. Consequently, the Secretary did not
29
Page 240Page 241
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.