ACT Health will recruit a new deputy director-general of data and performance after years of issues, Health Directorate director-general Nicole Feely has revealed.
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The directorate will also hire four new junior executives to help senior executives roll out its reform agenda, Ms Feely told budget estimates hearings on Tuesday.
The Canberra Liberals' health spokeswoman Vicki Dunne questioned how hiring of new executives squared with Health's bid to cut costs and reduce wastage.
Job advertisements on Seek revealed each of the junior executive positions could command up to $237,994.
The deputy director general role will pay up to $327,383, according to the advertisement on JobsACT.
Ms Feely argued the positions were "very important for the business".
"The organisation at a total level has gone through a total - at the DDG level - has been renewed through an open and transparent process of advertisement," Ms Feely said.
"We have put in place some new positions which didn't exist and ones I'm prepared to argue are very important for the business.
"For example I've put in place a new director of quality so I've moved that out from the hospital to be more system wide so that's a DDG position.
"I've also put in place four 1.3 or more junior executives positions for a couple of years and we call them innovation partners to assist the operational executives to keep them focused on the delivery of the performance required to move through …."
"Professional whip crackers?" Mrs Dunne interjected.
"It's very easy to get pulled into day-to-day operational issues," Ms Feely explained.
"Those four people are there to make sure the reform agenda his moved though and the executive directors have been asked to keep a focus on it."
Ms Feely said the new deputy director-general of data position would also mean she had someone reporting to her at a senior level on the issues which have plagued the directorate for years.
Earlier this year health minister Meegan Fitzharris ordered a root and branch review of ACT Health's data problems and the office of the Auditor-General is considering launching its fourth audit in seven years of the "data integrity".
Ms Feely also addressed the findings of the Pegasus report into the 2017-18 ACT Budget, which found the government was splashing cash at inefficient health and education systems.
"There's an element of cost in the ACT system that is not readily attributable to an inefficient service, there are costs that have been built up over years that over time we'll continue to look at," Ms Feely said.
She said there were other costs the executive was clamping down on, like poor governance and management issues, but said ACT residents were being provided with a service a catchment of 400,000 people would not normally have.
"The level of service provided here is above and beyond what you'd see in any other catchment of 400,000 people. We take in people from outside, it could be up to 800,000 but even then, the level of service provision in the ACT is top-notch across the board and that also has a cost to it which the government has committed to providing," Ms Feely said.
