Implementing Establishment Control - ESR Hub

Workforce salary costs are the largest single component of any NHS Organisation¿s budget, and unfilled vacancies have the potential to cost Organisations considerable expenditure if they cannot identify where the vacancies are needed.

Establishment Control is the formal process for matching information on funded posts within the Financial Ledger to the Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) against the Positions within ESR. Having an effective Establishment Control process in place means that an NHS Organisation can match the information from both systems quickly and easily to ensure that true vacancy data can be reported.

An effective Establishment Control process has to be underpinned by four key elements.  

These are:

• Good working relationships and excellent communication between the three main departments ¿ Finance, HR/ Workforce Planning / Recruitment & Payroll
• Workstructures must be robust and must mirror the finance general ledger as much as possible
• Smooth, speedy and accurate processes must be in place to ensure ongoing maintenance of the data
• Recruitment systems need to be robust and integrated

There are many benefits to effective establishment control, including accuracy and quality of data, finance reports to managers around costs match HR reports around sickness etc., and reduced risk of over and underpayments to staff, plus many more. 

Want to know more?

Read the full brochure about implementing Establishment Control using ESR by clicking the brochure icon opposite.  There is also a helpful Implementation Guide and other useful resources in this series specifically designed to support your implementation.