Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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381. To ask the Minister for Finance the total spend on consulting services and on ‘business-as-usual’ outsourcing, as differentiated under the Code of ‘Practice for the Governance of State Bodies 2016’ for each non-commercial public body under the aegis of his Department for the year 2022. [27962/23]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Code of Practice for the Governance of State Bodies 2016, Business and Financial Reporting Requirementsprovides that “State bodies should disclose details of expenditure on external consultancy/adviser fees in their annual report and/or financial statements for each accounting year for each entity”.

The Code states that for the purpose of disclosure in financial statements/annual report, ‘consultancy fees’ means fees paid to external parties providing advisory services of any nature. The 2017 Guide to the Implications for the Annual Financial Statements and the Annual Report defines consultancy as "where a person, organization or group thereof is engaged to provide intellectual or knowledge-based services (e.g. expert analysis and advice) through delivering reports, studies, assessments, recommendations, proposals, etc. that contribute to decision- or policy-making in a contracting authority". The engagement should be for a limited time period to carry out a specific finite task or set of tasks that involve expert skills or capabilities that would not normally be expected to reside within the contracting authority. While the Code provides suggested categories for consultancy expenditure, this should be amended to suit the requirements of a State body. The suggested categories are Legal, Financial, PR/Marketing/Business Improvement/Other.

For the purposes of disclosure in the annual report and/or financial statements, fees paid to external parties for the provision of a service that does not fit within the definition of consultancy as outlined above, or is not included in any of the above consultancy categories, is considered 'business-as-usual'.

The table below provides total spend in 2022 on consulting services and on ‘business-as-usual’ outsourcing, as provided by the non-commercial State bodies under the aegis of my Department. In respect of the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman, it should be noted that details of all expenditure incurred will be included in its Annual Financial Statements 2022 and published to its website, once certified by the Comptroller and Auditor General, submitted to the Minister for Finance and laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas. Accordingly, the information provided by the FPSO must be considered draft until this process is complete.