Internal Support Unit releases first report

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s finance department on Tuesday released the first progress report of its Internal Support Unit (ISU), established to resolve public sector reform challenges including problem solving, quantitative analysis, delivery and communication in different public sector departments.

The unit, established in October 2019, provides operational support to public sector departments, an official document released by the finance department revealed.

The improvement in key indicators of K-P was witnessed through institutional reforms, and rigorous monitoring and in-depth data analysis.

The year 2019-20 progressed as a year of record revenue growth of 65 per cent with Rs17.2 billion collection for the provincial exchequer.

ISU also developed a new ADP release policy that was approved by the cabinet, resulting in an increase in budget release from Rs24 billion in December 2019 to Rs72 billion in January 2020.

The identification of Auqaf properties and proposed business plans to increase annual revenue from Rs15.6 million to Rs231 million and identification of Rs200 billion share of K-P in the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP).

ISU's key indicators had played its role in improvement of different sectors of K-P health department such as increase in medicines budget for secondary and primary healthcare facilities from Rs2.5 billion to 4.5 billion for year 2021-22, increase in operational budget from Rs8.7 billion to Rs13.2 billion and Rs36 billion to Rs42 billion increase in MTI's grants.

Similarly key milestones achieved during fiscal year 2019-20, 20-21 and 21-22 in the finance department included approval of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Revenue Authority (KPRA) incentive plan and institutionalised the first performance-based incentive programme in government departments.

It developed and launched a new Integrated Budget Call Circular that provides greater integration of the budget formulation process and enabled the departments to have greater flexibility to appropriate additional funding.

The unit also reinvigorated the accelerated implementation programme (AIP) by an in-depth review of schemes by department, identification of high impact projects and increased the pace of project design by supporting the preparation of 54 numbers of PC-1.

According to the report, with regards to the K-P health department, its achievements included "Sehat Card Plus Programme under which Rs1 million health coverage was ensured to each of all 7.5 million households in K-P, primary care transformation improving service delivery to over 1.2 million patients a year in 100 revamped facilities through improvements in inputs.

Revamped secondary care facilities impacting over 2.5 million patients visit a year due to improvements in staff presence, medicine and equipment availability and improved infrastructure, the document revealed.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 15^th, 2022.