A missing fact
March 29th, 2012 at 10:00 am by David FarrarStuff reports:
Canterbury health staff are owed 528 years off work.
A report presented to the hospital advisory committee yesterday showed Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) staff are owed 1,099,936 hours of leave.
Nurses have annual leave totalling almost 600,000 hours, which equates to 75,000 eight-hour work days.
Senior doctors are owed 259 hours of annual leave.
The board is the largest employer in the South Island with about 9500 staff.
The 528 years sounds a lot. Turning it into 1.1 million hours makes it sound even worse.
However dividing by the number of staff they have, it averages out to just under 15 days per staffer. Less than the minimum annual entitlement of 20 days a year.
Tags: dodgy stats
March 29th, 2012 at 10:05 am
Could it be that some have none owing and others have weeks? That would be the real story wouldn’t it, the people who have got a few months leave, cos they will be tired, stressed and probably unwell.
Vote:March 29th, 2012 at 10:29 am
Appalling reporting.
Whilst any employer should declare (outstanding) entitlements as a contingent liability, these numbers are simply an attempt to sensationalise.
Do the math – it works out at an average of less than 15 days per employee. Indeed, the article is silent on the issue and it may even include current entitlements! (that include the current year).
The thread is titled: ‘A missing fact’. Perhaps it could have said: ‘Many missing facts’… because it proves again that our media ‘standards’ (oxymoron) are terrible.
Vote:March 29th, 2012 at 10:34 am
The problem for the Board is that it has to carry 528 years at 40 hours per week at average pay as a ‘liability’ on its books. At say an average pay of $60,000 per year (noting that lower paid anciliary staff generally work for contractors), this comes to a cool $32M which is not a figure to be sneezed at. A profit making organisation has to put aside such sums from ‘after tax’ profits. Accountants do not like carrying this sort of liability hence heavy corporate pressure to make staff take leave when due. An organisation such as a DHB with chronic skilled staff shortages is between a rock and a hard place since they have difficulty covering for leave and some staff like to accumulate big chunks of leave for ‘sabbaticals’.
Vote:March 29th, 2012 at 10:38 am
Typical beat-up of public servants.
Surely they would work out a rough total cost of employment for their staff before they go around hiring people, and would make sure that they don’t hire anyone they can’t afford to pay.
Vote:March 29th, 2012 at 11:37 am
I absolutely hate this “reporting” technique.
Another example is “the men have over 50 years combined experience…” as if the ability scales with the total number of years doing something. A class of 30 five-year olds has 150 years of life experience, but we don’t go asking them about how to handle marital problems!
I’m confident to say that Stuff has made thousands of spelling mistakes over its existence. I’d guess there are many inaccuracies due to malice, probably tens of thousands due to incompetence. Stuff’s CEOs have been paid tens of millions of its history.
Vote:March 29th, 2012 at 11:38 am
Usual media beatup.
Vote:Don’t let the facts get in the way of a story.
March 29th, 2012 at 11:53 am
Knowing nothing about accounting myself, why is it bad to have a “liability”?
Couldn’t an organisation simply keep savings to counteract the liability of those taking leave? So if an employee doesn’t take all his leave in a year, the equivalent money is put into a special account to use when he does take leave.
Surely it’s better for a company to have their employee’s leave accruing interest in an account, than go up “in smoke” when they actually take leave.
Vote:March 29th, 2012 at 12:44 pm
The accrual is shown in balance sheet as Holiday Pay owing. The Holiday Pay has been accrued but not yet paid out, it is an actual expense, and the Nurses are actual creditors. I dont think it would be wise for the DHB just to use cash accounting.
Most accountants dont like it because it is not tax deductible unless it were taken 60 days (I think) after balance date, however this is Public Sector reporting and the Hospital doesnt have any choice in it, just as a Full Reporting entity doesnt have any choice. Its about being Accountable to the Government just as Full Reporting is accountable to the shareholder.
The figures do seem reasonable though, Ive never known a Nurse to take four weeks off a year
Vote:March 29th, 2012 at 2:31 pm
Christchurch is dying
Vote:day by day this City fails us
March 29th, 2012 at 2:32 pm
Christchurch is dying
Vote:day by day this City fails us,the inner city will never be until two generations
March 29th, 2012 at 4:07 pm
“it averages out to just under 15 days per staffer”
Not too bad on the face of it, however I think you’d expect around 50% of staff to have used most of their leave over summer / xmas. To have this number of staff still carrying over 15 days as they start to accrue more leave in the new year would suggest under staffing. (Note I am assuming 20 days leave)
Vote:March 29th, 2012 at 10:09 pm
Well, on the other hand if you look at the POL dispute, even if the unions take 10 years to bust, the port’s savings (once successful) over the next infinite number of years add up to infinity.
Wow.
Vote:March 29th, 2012 at 10:38 pm
Actually there is a real hidden problem with leave at all Dhbs caused by…. Unions. The unions have negotiated leave entitlements that would make private sector eyes water. My wife is a surgical nurse and accrues leave at an astonishing rate. Firstly she gets 5 weeks per year for being there for 5 years then as she does elective surgery she works office hours but they have at a minimum have 3 nurses on call (for which you are paid $6 an hour regardless ). 24×7. If you get called in you get double time minimum of 3 hours + expenses (like taxi chits etc). Triple time if it’s a pub holiday even if the call in is 5 mins. Al lthrough this being on call you accrue annual leave at your normal rate so if you are on call for a weekend since its 24×7 it’s like working a full week and you get annual leave accruing for all that. If you get called even for 5 mins on a public holiday you get a lieu day and if called at say 5am you get a min of 9 hours break so basically get the day off always accruing leave. It’s a nice scheme for the employee as such there are no shortage of volunteers and you have dozens on call across all the skills (surgeons, anesithtists, techs, orderlies ) all on the same deal the costs must be horrendous and she is in one speciality there are dozens of specialities. So even thou she only works 2 days a week and has only been back a year from maternity leave where she used all her leave down to zero and we have had holidays enough to wipe all my leave out she is currently owed about 40 days leave so at 2 days a week about 20 weeks off. One surgeon who is in her dept has an outrageous 4000hours accrued and is in his late fifties and gets 6 weeks a year + being on call so he has worked out he can do 5 day weekends till the end of his career and still not run out of leave on senior surgeon pay but they hardly let him have a day off due to shortages. So he keeps on accruing. Tell me this is all not a big problem for the future. In our business if Every employee had 3 weeks leave owing we would be very worried so I think yeah typical crap reporting style but actually there is a real issue here.
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