Eleventh report from the Select Committee on Estimates : together with the minutes of evidence taken before sub-committee E and appendices, session 1950-1951: regional hospital boards and hospital management committees.
- Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Estimates
- Date:
- [1951]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Eleventh report from the Select Committee on Estimates : together with the minutes of evidence taken before sub-committee E and appendices, session 1950-1951: regional hospital boards and hospital management committees. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![15 February, 1951.] [Continued. with by the Ministry of Health with the Ministry of Works out of what they call their allocation. We do not know what it is. 7i1. No, but when you realise that you are going to’ lose your capital allocation if you do not in fact get your schemes through, would there not possibly be a tendency to think of them in terms of whether you in fact would get approval and a starting date?—-I do not think so. We think it is just too bad, that is all. Mr. Thomas Reid. 712. When you draft your schemes you have an order of priority?—No. Well, we have in one sense certainly, but every day a new need comes to our notice, and that need may be even more imperative than something which has already been put in. 713. Generally these schemes hang to- gether, and you would have an order of priority; A must come before B, and so on. If you break that order of priority, would that matter?—Oh, no. 714. There is no difficulty in switching over from a scheme which has been sanc- tioned to a scheme which has not been sanctioned?—-Not from our point of view. There may be from the Ministry’s point of view. Mr. Diamond. 715. They may refer to quite different hospitals in different parts of the area?— They could. Chairman. 716. Could you give us the amount which you. have lost in a year?—(Mr. Everingham.) I think we usually lose £100,000 out of an allocation of £600,000. 717. It is of the order of fifteen per cent?—It varies from year to year, but it probably does mean that in five years we are only able to spend four years’ alloca- tion. Mr. Turton. 718. If you have a system by some miracle of Treasury finance by which you are allowed to carry over, then you would be just as well off without your switching principle?—(Sir Basil Gibson.) Yes, we would be very glad to have a carry over. That is the principle for which we are ask- ing. Chairman. 719. It is a carry over in a rather pecu- liar sense of the word?—Yes. 720. It is not really a financial carry Over; it is a carry over of a sanction for expenditure on particular materials really? —You can put it that way, but we look at it as a proposal. We are unable to pro- ceed with that proposal. as we hoped we would be able to do, in one particular year, and therefore we lose the money which has been allocated to that particular proposal. If we had a carry over we should know that we should probably be able. to stati. 16. early ~in. the” next. year, and it would not interfere with the pro- gramme for that year. Mr. Thomas Reid. 721. Other areas are in exactly the same position?—It is general throughout the country. 722. Over a period of years then does it matter, because there is a ceiling to the. expenditure by the Minister? You may lose one year and someone else lose another year and so on, but the total is the same?—I should not say that. (Mr. Everingham.) 1 would say that we all lose all the time. 723. There is a ceiling placed by the Minister of Health on total expenditure?— We can never spend up to that ceiling. On the present system we can never get to it. We make up our list in the first place and that fills up the whole figure; and then because of various delays we are unable to spend it. There is no carry over of expenditure, and there is no substitution. There are many items, not requiring a starting date at all, which we could sub- stitute, items not requiring materials which are in short supply, such an item as putting in a few bedpan washers at a hospital where they are badly needed. There is no starting date required for that, and in many cases there is no shortage of materials. There is quite a lot of furniture, now clas- sified as capital, which could be dealt with in that way towards the end of each year, if we could possibly substitute it quickly. (Sir Basil Gibson.) Those are small schemes. (Mr. Everingham.) They are small schemes, but they do make up a total which may be £25,000 or £30,000, and just by doing that it would help to ease future years. Mr. Diamond. 724. To put in bedpan washers you would need a plumber and a bricklayer? —You would find they are available on the site. There are small works depart- ments belonging to hospital management committees, and they can do that work. 725. Are they unemployed then through lack of permission to do the work?—You would take them off revenue work and put them on to capital work for a short period in order to get that capital work done. 726. Then you would not spend your authorised budget approved for revenue expenditure?—There would be a slight saving on their wages on revenue.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32182478_0102.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
