An analysis carried out by the National Auditing Office into the expenditure incurred by the Ministry for Gozo for the services rendered to the elderly and persons with disability revealed "weak internal controls, lack of audit trail and insufficient monitoring to ensure that the Home Help Service (HHS) was up to the expected standard."
The Care for the Elderly Section within the Customer Services Directorate (CSD) is responsible to provide community care services for the elderly and disable persons in Gozo.
The Annual Audit Report on the Public Accounts for 2017 was presented to the Speaker of the House of Representatives Anglu Farrugia by Auditor General Charles Deguara.
The report was made up of "22 separate reports on the operations of various Ministries, Departments and Government entities, including an analysis of the Financial Report 2017, together with separate financial and compliance audit opinions."
Nominal Fees
A total of 981 individuals were benefiting from the HHS scheme as at December 2017, with single persons and married couples being charged €2.33 and €3.49 respectively.
The charges remain the same irrespective of the hours allocated to those receiving assistance, which could range from 2 to 12 hours weekly, and irrespective of the individual's income and/or wealth.
The NAO recommended that a means test in the adjudication should be implemented in order to ensure that the limited resources are allocated according to one's income and/or wealth, something which was already highlighted in the 2008 Annual Report.
Management commented that the Customer services Directorate (CSD) is applying the same rates adopted by Active Ageing and Community Care Directorate.
Lack of Audit Trail
Social Assistants also failed to provide a proper audit trail of the service they provided, particularly by not indicating the name of the respective Social Assistant in terms of the beneficiary being looked after.
The NAO recommended the creation of a database containing all the relevant information and which can also keep track of any adjustments made, something that they comment will provide more transparency and effective control on the service provided by each Social Assistant.
Management commented that present records did indicate the name of the Social Assistant, but that they will be taking the recommendation and a copy of the previous week's database for record purposes.
Limited Home Supervision
Through the reviewing of six randomly selected files o elderly persons who were provided with HHS, it was observed that supervision was not being performed at regular intervals.
In one case no supervision had been carried out over a period of four years.
The NAO recommended for a formal plan to be drawn up to ascertain that inspections are carried out in every household on a more regular basis.
Salary & Vacation Leave
Attendance sheets for social assistants examined during the audit were not endorsed by senior management to ensure that they were complete, to the point that the audit confirmed that no checking was being performed over the attendance sheets before processing salaries of the Social Assistants for payment, the NAO report read.
Extra hours worked by the Social Assistants who were on reduced timetable were still being paid on the basis of the hours claimed by the latter without officially being certified correct and authorised.
Vacation leave taken by Social Assistants was not recorded on their individual leave cards, or updated accordingly. There were also instances were leave taken was not recorded.
The NAO recommended improving internal controls on attendance records through the use of automated systems, and claims for extra hours are not to be entertained unless duly approved.
A similar system was suggested as a solution to the vacation leave issues, unless a personal leave card being created for each officer was preferable.
Management took on all recommendations, bar attendance sheets which are endorsed by clients and senior management and requests claiming extra hours which are endorsed by the Director.