NHS Highland has made progress on financial management after the public spending watchdog reported on the board five times in eight years, the Auditor General has said.

Stephen Boyle, the head of Audit Scotland, said the board has relied on one-off non-recurring savings and now needed to move to a sustainable approach.

Highland was able to break even in the 2020/21 financial year after receiving nearly £9m from the Scottish government but the requirement for this to be repaid has been suspended because of the pandemic.

One key area of progress was said to be reducing “huge” costs on locum and agency spends.

Despite improvements, the Auditor General said the board’s 2021/22 savings target of 4.8%, or £32.9m, would be “challenging.”

Responding to concerns that three quarters of the £20m savings made by the board last year were one-offs, the Auditor General said: “That historically has been an ongoing challenge…what matters is longer term service change or transformation and ending a reliance on non-recurring savings”.

Joanne Brown, partner at external auditors Grant Thornton, said the board had “typically struggled” in this area. But she said a Programme Management Office set up with the help of PwC had been a “key success factor” in the board hitting more of its financial targets.

Highland brought in PwC at cost of nearly £1m to help identify savings in 2019 due to continuing financial challenges At the time, Audit Scotland said the health board’s targets were “unrealistic”.

This week the Auditor General said “stability” among board leadership had been a key contributor in the improvements. The board had three chief executives in less than two years following the fallout of a 2019 review that detailed widespread reports of bullying.

A total of 184 former and current staff have now received payments totalling nearly £2.5m from a scheme set up to help victims, a report in December revealed. Final cases are set to be heard by March.

Read more: Highland bullying victims question ‘healing process’; Highland healing process deadline pushed back; HSCP to re-run chief officer recruitment process

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