John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Boland is very helpful. That is what we will do.

In terms of the use of consultants and whatever might happen in colleges, this report that you gave the committee, Mr. Ó Foghlú, was into Cork Institute of Technology. In all honesty, how do you expect us decipher all of this redacted information, page after page of it? We get complete blow-by-blow information from a whistleblower. It does not read very well. How much was spent on this?

I assure the committee that governance and accountability for the bodies under the remit of the Department of Education and Skills, including the Higher Education Authority, are of paramount importance to the Department and that is why steps have been taken in recent months to strengthen even further the Department’s role in the oversight of all institutions and bodies across the education sector.

Within the Department a committee on sectoral governance and accountability was established earlier this year and two meetings of the committee have been held since then. The Department’s role is to support the development and implementation of best practice governance arrangements across the sector through oversight and regular assessment of its approach to governance. The committee’s focus will include the non-commercial agencies under the Department’s aegis, the higher education institutions as well as the education and training boards. The committee’s membership includes the chief executive of the HEA and an external member who can provide an additional element of insight and experience in the area of governance oversight.

A principal officers sectoral governance and accountability network has also been established. Its role is to support the work of the management advisory committee sub-committee by facilitating discussion regarding compliance requirements, to provide feedback, highlighting issues arising in each sector and to disseminate best practice across the Department’s bodies. It has also been decided, in principle, to establish an internal audit sector forum for personnel with internal audit functions in the Department, its agencies, higher education institutes and ETBs.

In addition, as part of strengthening its role on governance and accountability oversight, the Department is tendering for the supply of services from suitably qualified companies for the purposes of conducting reviews of corporate governance compliance by education sector bodies with their relevant codes of practice which underpin their corporate governance frameworks. The HEA is joining the Department in contracting this service in respect of bodies for which it has responsibility.

The HEA has also introduced a number of measures recently to enhance its role further in the governance and accountability of the higher education institutions under its remit. The HEA is to brief the committee in more detail about these measures. I want to mention in particular the meetings that have taken place in recent months between the HEA, the Comptroller and Auditor General and the institution’s representative bodies which will assist, among other things, in providing an early flagging of any issues in the sector. This new collaborative approach will assist all stakeholders across the sector in delivering a more robust system of governance and accountability in higher education. The Department is committed to working closely with the HEA in achieving this aim.

I am conscious that the Department has been in correspondence in recent times with this committee on a number of issues particular to higher education. In this regard, I assure the committee that the issues raised in the sector are, and continue to be, of great concern to the Department and we are working with the institutions, through the HEA, to seek to have the issues dealt with appropriately and as efficiently as possible. I am happy to answer questions from the committee.