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It’s been a while since we have seen one of the papers covering the “scandal” of £1000+ / day interims working across the NHS, but The Telegraph obviously has information from some “NHS Accounts” (how about that for a spurious source). The article covers 14 temporary executives, most of whom have worked in the NHS on a permanent basis, left through retirement or redundancy and then returned to work for the NHS on an interim, day rate basis.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8857511/NHS-fatcats-take-pay-offs-then-come-back-for-more.html#disqus_thread
As at lunchtime today there were 187 comments in response, the vast majority vitriolic.
To my mind it is distinctly unfair to level criticism wholly at this group; the more serious problems are in the system. Interim Chief Executives don’t force their way into roles, it’s a demand lead market. If your local trust appoints any interim executive board member, it means they generally have a leadership problem, poor succession planning, or they have a gap they cannot fill on a substantive basis. If your trust appoints someone who “presided over a hospital whose own doctors said some of its services were worse than the Third World” then that is a whole separate issue, but the onus lies of the board of the trust to make sure references and reputation of any potential interim appointment check out. And the board should be using an interim as a short term solution, and getting a substantive recruitment campaign under way as soon as possible. A good interim will not try and draw out a role, most are looking for the exit point and want to help an organisation get onto a more stable footing.
At executive board level, the number of instances of candidates deliberately leaving permanent employment in the NHS specifically to go interim is very rare. Early retirement or redundancy is often the catalyst, and often because it provides candidates with the financial cushion to set up a limited company and to sit on the sidelines for up to 6 months to await the right role. Any permanently employed candidates making enquiries to Interim Partners about coming onto the interim market are given fairly frank advice, the market is improving but is certainly not booming and very few interims can rely on being consistently engaged on an ongoing basis.
Steve Melber is Head of Healthcare at Interim Partners.
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November 11th, 2011 at 8:01 am
I have until recently been a £1000 day interim, not in the NHS but similar high profile public sector service provider. I was appointed to implement commercial and performance management across a number of operational contracts where as deputy commercial director I was able to unlock multi-£m’s of cost efficiencies across a range of PFI, Life Cycle and Competitive Dialogue contracts. When asked to reduce my day rate at contract renewal, I suggested working a 9 day fortnight, a rolling 5 day week, working 25 out of 30 days, saving, 10, 17 & 20% respectively and giving me more flexibility in my working arrangements. These were declined in favour of a straight 10% reduction. This was due in part to a FOI request on the number of Interims on £1000+.
The market place is limited for £1000 day interims; with interim agencies and clients negotiating day rates of upto 50% less before even introducing a candidate. As long as the interim manager is adding (considerable) value the day rate should be relative to the added value an interim brings and should not be restricted by budgets alone.