Ms Jacinta Stewart:

I welcome the opportunity to attend before the committee here today and to assist in its consideration of the Comptroller's special report. I am accompanied by Mr. Alan Murphy, Head of Operations at SUSI and Ms Mary McGrath, assistant principal officer, CDETB Budgets and Finance.

The City of Dublin Education and Training Board was selected by the Department of Education and Skills as the preferred deliverer of the transition from 66 grant awarding authorities to SUSI, as a single national authority. From the selection of the CDETB in April 2011, to the planned go-live date for the new service in May 2012, there were just 13 months in which to meet the challenge of transforming the student grant delivery model for Ireland.

In taking on responsibility for this task on a public service and not-for-profit basis, CDETB had a track record as the deliverer of major projects in the education sector. In particular, and as one of the largest and high-performing former awarding authorities, we had developed and rolled out an online grant application system and back office processing systems to many other authorities. We thus had the relevant experience and expertise to perform strongly in the transformation of student grant administration under a single national authority.

Given the particular complexities of the existing regulatory system of student grants in the Irish education sector, there was no reliable baseline for how a single grants awarding authority might perform at a national level. Ultimately, our experience and expertise and the optimism of our proposal were insufficient to overcome the significant unforeseen challenges of limited time, and of securing the resources necessary to ensure the timely and effective delivery of the project, in the early months of SUSI's first year of operation.

As the special report has clearly identified, the implementation phase of the project during 2011 and 2012 was characterised by a series of delays that exposed planning and resource deficiencies and, ultimately, led to uncertainty, difficulty and distress for many students and their families. I apologised for this at the time and I do so again today. We moved quickly at the time to rectify the situation. We have worked very hard at all times to improve and enhance our services to students and other stakeholders.

Notwithstanding the acknowledged under-performance in terms of service delivery in SUSI's first year, the key change objectives of the overall transformation were met. In particular, the transition from 66 individual authorities to a unified national service; the migration to a fully online grant application system; the outsourcing of appropriate functions; the substantial automation of application and document processing; the electronic payment of maintenance grants to all students in monthly instalments; and, a seasonally flexible staffing model were all achieved in SUSI's first year. In its subsequent two years of operation, SUSI has continued to build on this achievement through a programme of continuous service improvement, both internally and externally. The challenges and achievements of our early experience, and the lessons learned from the project as a public service delivery transformation, are the subject of a recently published implementation case study which I understand has been submitted to the committee.

The CDETB has noted the conclusions of the special report. The board has accepted and implemented its recommendations in the areas of procurement, staff training and quality control. As requested by the committee, I have submitted a briefing paper in advance of this meeting. It identifies key issues for the CDETB and SUSI, arising from the special report. My colleagues and I are available to advise and assist the committee in its consideration of the special report and on any matters arising for the CDETB and SUSI.