Accused fraudster Joel Barlow had 'meteoric rise' in health service

FRESH questions have emerged about accused Queensland Health fraudster Joel Barlow's meteoric rise in the public service.

FRESH questions have emerged about accused Queensland Health fraudster Joel Barlow's meteoric rise in the public service, after former workmates revealed he had jumped five pay grades in six years and was knocking on the door of senior ranks when the alleged multi-million-dollar scam was exposed.

Mr Barlow, who is in custody after being charged this week with stealing $11 million from Queensland Health on November 17, told colleagues that he held a double university qualification in law and economics when he joined Queensland Health in 2005.

This set them wondering why he had taken a relatively modest AO3 position, on a salary of about $52,000.

He called himself "Hoh" -- an abbreviation of his Maori name Hohepa -- and was quickly promoted in the department that funded community-based service providers, many of them under the state Home and Community Care Program.

A business allegedly operated by Mr Barlow, Healthy Initiatives and Choices, received more than $4m in payments from Queensland Health, departmental records show, before last month's alleged $11m transfer, investigators believe.

At the time of his arrest, Mr Barlow, 36, was on a public service pay grade of AO8, earning $105,000 a year and stamping him as a fast-riser in the state bureaucracy.

His next promotion would have been to senior officer, after which the top rungs of the senior executive would have beckoned.

The Home and Community Care Program, which he administered, funds home nursing services for elderly and disabled people and their carers through NGOs such as Blue Nurses and St Vincent's Nurses, as well as a variety of other home-help programs.

Generally, the grants Mr Barlow was involved in administering are paid to charitable groups and service providers on a quarterly basis.

According to information made public by the government before his arrest this week, the $11m payment went through after Mr Barlow allegedly forged the signature of a deputy director-general of Queensland Health.