The Welsh Government has been criticised for how it appointed and paid top civil servants as well as not having a handle on how much public money was lost to fraud through Covid business schemes.
The Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee in the Senedd, which scrutinises how the Welsh Government uses public money, has strongly criticised the Welsh Government in its report on the accounts from the financial year 2020-21. It claimed there was a "lack of transparency" high level appointments as well and expressed their ""concern" about "deficient record-keeping" in addition to a lack of knowledge about fraudulent Covid business claims.
Read more: Welsh Government told to apologise for 'lack of transparency' over appointments
The three main criticisms of the Welsh Government are:
The Welsh Government doesn't know exactly how much Covid grant money has been lost to fraud
The committee looked at the money paid by the Welsh Government to businesses during the Covid pandemic. At the time the government in Wales was scrambling to get businesses money asap to safeguard jobs. To do this, part of the assessment for whether businesses were eligible for money was done before the money was given out but a key part of the assessment was the "post completion monitoring".
However the committee found that much of this monitoring hadn't been done and was haphazard between local authorities with some finding lots of examples of fraud and some finding none at all.
The report said: "Specifically, we are concerned about the inconsistent application of the amended guidance issued in relation to self-catering businesses. This resulted in support being paid out to some businesses even when they did not meet the set criteria, while in other local authorities, which strictly applied the criteria, some businesses did not receive the support they needed. It was not clear from the evidence provided to us the degree to which discretion had been applied and what redress is available for legitimate businesses who were denied support to which they were entitled."
So how much fraud was there? This is a good question and it forms the basis of the committee's criticism because of the sheer range in the estimates between the higher and lower figure. In the accounts for 2020-21, the Welsh Government says: ”Overall, from the reported incidence of fraud and PCM post completion monitoring] completed a range of fraud and error of between 0.08% and 4.17% has been assessed.”
This suggests that the potential range of risk of fraud and error from £0.7m to £37.2m on the allocation of £893m. It notes this was “well below the threshold for materiality [relevance] for the Welsh Government Accounts”.
Lack of explanation for payments to Wales' former top civil servant Dame Shan Morgan
WalesOnline has previously reported concerns about how the top civil servant in the Welsh Government was paid. The committee reported highlighted that decisions regarding Dame Shan Morgan's pay, working patterns and leave entitlement were essential signed off by a member of staff subordinate to her (rather than by her line manager the cabinet secretary or the First Minister). The committee claimed there was "deficient record-keeping about how important decisions were taken" which made it hard to properly assess the merits of the payments made to Dame Morgan.
The bizarre and opaque recruitment process of highly paid staff
Other areas for scrutiny included the appointment of Dr Andrew Goodall to the role of permanent secretary. Dr Goodall was working as the chief executive for Aneurin Bevan Health Board but was seconded to be Director General of Health and Social Services and Chief Executive NHS in 2014. He was then seconded to be the new permanent secretary in 2021. Despite now being Wales' top civil servant, he still is technically seconded from Aneurin Bevan Health Board.
The committee said that they found some of the arrangements around his appointment "confusing and unclear". One of these issues was the fact Dr Goodall kept his £200,000-£205,000 a year salary for this role despite the fact the "the salary payable to the former permanent secretary was, at this point, in the band £155,000-£160,000". The committee suggested that the fact the job was advertised for possibly £50,000 less than Mr Goodall was paid on recruitment may have meant the caliber of candidates was lower the it could have been if had been advertised at the higher rate.
It said in its report: "Given the seniority of these posts, and the need for stability within the organisation they lead, these arrangements should be transparent. Evidence heard confirmed that the Welsh Government advertised the role of permanent secretary at a specific pay scale and then appointed at a higher pay band. This raises the question of whether the Welsh Government may have attracted different candidates had the post been advertised at a higher pay scale.
"We are concerned that such arrangements expose the Welsh Government and NHS Wales to risk. The evidence provided to us would suggest that, should Dr Goodall’s secondment to the role of permanent secretary to the Welsh Government come to an end, NHS Wales would be required to continue to remunerate Dr Goodall on his existing pay scale without a commensurate post to take up. We question whether it is appropriate to have such open ended secondments for such senior roles."
This comes just weeks after the Welsh Government was forced to apologise for failing to declare the clear political allegiances of members of a board assessing their performance.
A Welsh Government spokesman said: “We welcome the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee’s ongoing scrutiny from of the Welsh Government’s 2020-21 Annual Accounts. We continue to work constructively with both the committee and Audit Wales, and will respond to their recommendations in due course.”
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