NHS Fife has been slammed for failing to publish reports ahead of a public meeting where a £17.3 million budget gap will be laid bare.
The health authority normally publishes the agenda and reports five days before its bimonthly board meetings.
However, the documents for Wednesday’s meeting were not available for the public on its website until Tuesday afternoon.
NHS Fife has blamed a technical hitch for the delay.
However, former board member and Fife councillor Andrew Rodger hit out at the issue, saying people had been denied a chance to get sight of papers in advance.
He said he had complained about similar delays previously.
Mr Rodger said: “This is disgraceful. Fife health board is keeping the papers from the public.
“This cannot go on, particularly as millions of pounds worth of savings are proposed.”
He has previously accused NHS Fife of a lack of transparency.
A series of reports to be presented to the board include NHS Fife’s draft financial plan, capital investment plan and performance reports.
They set out the authority’s anticipated £17.3m budget gap for 2019/20 and state that proposed efficiency savings to try to bridge the gap in its acute services will be presented in May.
NHS Fife’s website says that board meetings are held at different venues throughout Fife in an attempt to meet local people “in the spirit of openness”, but since September 2017 every one has been at the Victoria Hospital.
It also says that members of the public are welcome to attend and that agendas and accompanying papers will be uploaded to the website five days prior to the meeting.
NHS Fife chief executive Paul Hawkins said: “The NHS Fife board papers were uploaded last Thursday.
“Unfortunately due to a technical error on the server the link did not appear on the NHS Fife board web page.
“This fault has now been rectified and the papers are now available online.
“We apologise for any inconvenience caused as a result of this technical fault.”
