Evaluation of Professional Development Funds for Medical Officers

Summary

In the body's own words

1. Conclusion

   There is a need for clear definitions, policies and procedures to reduce discretion and to guide decision-making.

   here., page 30

2. Recommendation

   Review and improve the capability of the electronic reimbursement system, MOPDRS to detect duplicate claims.

   here., page 33

Findings, opinions and statements

Allegations are not findings. A commission's finding or opinion of corrupt conduct or misconduct is not a finding that a person is guilty of a criminal offence, and the commissions say so in their reports.

No findings are reproduced in this record. This does not establish that the report contains none.

Recommendations 8

1. Recommendation 1

   Review and update the Department’s policies and procedures (including fact sheets and other relevant guidance material) to include a clear description of the purpose of professional development and set out the types of expenses considered appropriate for reimbursement.

   here., page 32

2. Recommendation 2

   Incorporate into the Department’s policies and procedures for professional development some agreed principles for the value and frequency of expenditure on information technology devices, and guidelines for what is considered reasonable travel and accommodation expenditure. Refer to the New South Wales and Victorian models as examples.

   here., page 32

3. Recommendation 3

   Review and update the Department’s policies, procedures and related guidance materials for professional development to ensure it is clearly set out that all claims must be submitted within six months from the date of the expense being incurred.

   here., page 32

4. Recommendation 4

   Review the functionality of the electronic reimbursement system, MOPDRS, to ensure that: • the ‘justification’ field is mandatory and has character capacity to ensure sufficient information can be included • receipts must be added for each expense item in a claim, and • claims submitted more than six months after the date of the expense being incurred are flagged for the approver’s attention.

   here., page 32

5. Recommendation 5

   Review and improve the capability of the electronic reimbursement system, MOPDRS to detect duplicate claims.

   here., page 33

6. Recommendation 6

   Develop an audit program for local health networks to regularly review a sample of claims data for the purpose of identifying irregular patterns of reimbursements, repeated or multiple purchases and duplicate claims.

   here., page 33

7. Recommendation 7

   Review the systems used for recording professional development leave approvals and ensure the approval process requires verification that sufficient leave balances are available.

   here., page 33

8. Recommendation 8

   Review and update the Department’s policies and procedures to include expectations of direct line managers in approving professional development claims.

   here., page 33

Published responses

No published response was found.

Coverage

This publisher

• Office for Public Integrity: publishes only its annual reports (excluded); no OPI report or statement records.
• Since October 2021 the Commission does not make findings of corrupt conduct; most records have no findings.
• Government and agency responses are recorded only where the Commission's page links them or the report reproduces them; implementation status is not published by the Commission as structured data.
• Scanned reports without a text layer are not read (no OCR); their recommendations stay not_extracted.
• Recommendations are extracted only from numbered 'Recommendation N' lists; reports that set out recommendations in prose, tables or unnumbered lists keep recommendations_status not_extracted.
• Findings are extracted only from investigation reports that state them in the Commissioner's own words (Oakden 2018, Gillman 2015); public statements are not read for findings.