Page 888 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 30 March 1993
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Health Budget
MRS CARNELL: My question is to the Minister for Health. In the Treasurer's quarterly financial statement of 31 December 1992, tabled last week, the total recurrent expenditure in Health for the six-month period was shown as $126.486m. ACT Health's financial performance report for the same period shows a total recurrent expenditure of $120.526m, a difference of $5.959m. I ask the Minister: Did he underestimate the blow-out in Health for the first six months of this financial year by nearly $6m, or maybe there is another explanation?
MR BERRY: I am not familiar with the - - -
Mrs Carnell: It was tabled in the house last week.
MR BERRY: It may well have been. I do not have that information in front of me.
Mr Humphries: Yes, you do. It is sitting there. I can see it. That is the information there. That is what she is talking about.
MR BERRY: This is the health activity report for the December quarter, and something that was tabled last week. The Chief Minister tells me that she can deal with that issue.
MS FOLLETT: Madam Speaker, I am happy to comment on the question Mrs Carnell has asked. First of all, we can deal with the discrepancy between the two reports for the December quarter. I think that is readily accounted for by the fact that Treasury has only just completed the work on the mid-year review of budgets, if you like. I would take it that the figures in the Treasury document are more up to date than the figures in the former Board of Health's document.
The substance of Mrs Carnell's question relates to pro rata expenditure by the Department of Health in the first half of the financial year. It is true that the Treasury report reveals that Health is ahead, on a pro rata estimate, but I would caution you very much about taking those kinds of pro rata figures and projecting them to the end of the year. It is the case that such projections are not always meaningful, and in the particular case of Health there are reasons why their first half-year's expenditure is above a strict half of their budget. For example, the Consolidated Fund expenditure to December does include moneys which were drawn down into the Health bank account to allow for payments that were due during the first week of January 1993. The December figures also include allowances for the payment in December of the first January salary payment. There is also provision of funds for other payments due in the first week of January; prepayment of salaries and leave loadings to staff who were taking leave during the holiday period. Additional funds to compensate for outstanding reimbursements from other agencies include prepayment of the January grant to Calvary Hospital, and third-quarter grants - that is, grants after the end of December - to the non-government sector.
That explains why the expenditure for the first half of the year is more than half of the budget. The December expenditure also reflects the impact of increased hospital activity, which we have debated previously, and the continuing decline in the proportion of private patients and the continuing increase in the public patients who are being treated in our health system.
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