Worcestershire Acute £5.5m overspent on pay

There are a number of factors which have contributed to this position. Firstly, the month by month budget provision assumed a greater level of cost improvement delivery throughout the year than contained in the actual savings plans from divisions.

In practice, staffing levels have remained relatively constant throughout the year to date.

It should be noted however that manpower budgets have not been increased in year to reflect the costs of delivering the extra elective and non elective activity.

These costs are therefore refLected as part of the overspending.

There remains however a significant overspending, assessed in the order of £3.6m to date, which has arisen from the slippage in the delivery of workforce related cost improvements.

The scale of workforce cost improvements is however due to increase significantly for the period December 2010 to March 2011 in accordance with the savings plans.

In December there has been some slippage on achievement of the savings plan, in part linked to the inclement weather.