The recent publicity around cuts to disability services has brought to light some of the inefficiencies involved in delivering these services which in all probability exist in delivering similar services to other sectors such as children and the elderly.
The HSE delivers a lot of its care services through “not for profit” organisations which it funds partially or wholly with very significant amounts of money. It is vitally important that a proper supervision and cost analysis of these funds is carried out to ensure that the funds are efficiently spent and that the maximum percentage is funnelled towards the provision of frontline services rather than unnecessary administration and management services.
Presently in the disability sector over 200 organisations are providing services. This means an awful lot of doubled up administration costs that could otherwise be going directly to frontline services.
Some organisations have very top heavy organisational structures with several regional chiefs and their attendant bodies.
Where organisation providing care and support are getting state funding it is very often in the absence of detailed service provision agreements. The putting in place of these service agreements would be one way to get better value for money in conjunction with proper regular tendering between services providers and avoiding long term agreements. This would ensure competition between service providers.
The Minister is making headway with these type of issues but a lot more work needs to be done to ensure in these times of economic hardship that there is minimum disruption to frontline services.
