Mr. Fred McBride:

I thank the committee for giving us the opportunity to address it today to discuss Tusla's annual financial statements for 2016. As mentioned, I am accompanied today by my colleagues, Ms Helena Hanna and Mr. Gerard Hughes from the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. Mr. Alan Breen is my head of communications and Mr. Peter O'Brien is the senior accountant.

I will not go over all the history of the agency. Most committee members will be familiar with it. Tusla was set up in 2014. It is just slightly over three and a half years old, and it brought together a number of services from the HSE, the National Educational Welfare Board and the Family Support Agency as well as some services related to domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. Suffice to say, the establishment of the agency was one of the largest and most ambitious programmes of reform undertaken by Government and the most comprehensive reform of child protection, early intervention and family support services ever undertaken in the country. We have 4,000 staff and in 2018 we will have an operational budget somewhat in excess of €700 million. The 2016 outturn for Tusla was a surplus of €626,000 for pay and non-pay, and a capital surplus of €1.88 million, less than 0.1% of our total budget.

We have been undertaking a very ambitious and far-reaching transformation programme affecting structure, processes, practices, policy, methodology and, of course, organisational culture. We are leading an organisation whose staff are trying to deliver supportive, co-ordinated and evidence informed services to positive outcomes for children, young people, families and communities. Our staff have an appetite for change. As I go round the country, the level of enthusiasm and commitment for change is very encouraging. They have embraced that positive approach and that is being captured as we move into the next three-year corporate plan, which starts next year.

I would say, and my colleague from the Comptroller and Auditor General mentioned it, that when we were set up, most of our corporate functions were very heavily dependent on the HSE through a memorandum of understanding, including some of the areas the Comptroller and Auditor General have drawn to our attention around procurement and the management of grants. It is our intention to become as fully self-sufficient and independent from the HSE as is possible while at the same time still taking account of the Government's shared services agenda.

We have embarked on this transformation programme. We have had additional investment over the past two to three years and I would say that we have unapologetically used most of that investment for front-line development to try to make our front-line services more robust and responsive. We have an opportunity to develop our capacity in some of these corporate areas, especially finance, HR, estates, ICT and areas around freedom of information, health and safety, data protection, etc., because we cannot continue to be dependent on the HSE on an ongoing basis. We need to be independent and we have begun to invest in these corporate functions as well as, not instead of, I hasten to add, continuing to invest in our front line with the advent of mandatory reporting.

I have mentioned in the statement that one such programme is our child protection and welfare strategy which is underpinned by a national practice approach called Signs of Safety. We have been giving political parties a briefing on these as we move forward. They are fundamentally aligned to the principles of Children First, which, as the committee will be aware, is due to be commenced on 11 December. Children and families will very much be at the centre of our assessment and decision-making and the approach will be strengths based, evidence based and outcomes focused.

On some headlined progress to date, as we have highlighted in our annual report, we have managed since establishment to achieve a 38% reduction in cases awaiting allocation. There were some signs that was beginning to taper off and that the graph was going steadily downwards. It has begun to plateau a little and further work is being done to keep that on a downward trajectory. Within that, there has been a 77% reduction in cases that were deemed to be a high priority. More than 2,000 inspections of early years services were carried out in 2016 and there were 432 new registrations-notifications in 2016, which was a threefold increase on 2015. Educational welfare services worked with an additional 3,700 new children in the 2015-2016 academic year, and 31,000 children and 23,500 families were referred to family support services, also in 2016. A total of 155 family units of accommodation were provided, including 147 emergency refuge and family units, in domestic, sexual and gender-based violence services.

There are a range of additional improvements and enhancements within financial governance and controls which cover a range of expenditure areas. These are referred to in the background information that we have provided.

I acknowledge and welcome the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and its findings. I and the agency value the process the Comptroller and Auditor General undertakes which highlights the areas that need change and improvement. The independent audit process also identified areas of strength and showed where good and tangible progress has been made year on year. I am aware of the current weaknesses within the agency regarding procurement and grants in particular. Alongside the senior management team, I am leading on the implementation of specific and relevant programmes to address these weaknesses and bring about improvements. As these long-term solutions are in the process of being introduced, some of the same issues might come out again in 2017 but I am confident the Comptroller and Auditor General will see clear plans and actions in place to address these issues.

The specific issue of non-competitive procurement has been raised. We selected procurement as a priority area to be addressed. The steps we have taken thus far to address these issues include the implementation of a three-year procurement plan which will address the short and long-term needs of the agency. The plan identifies the priority procurement categories for the next three years, emphasises the need to improve collaboration and recognises that continued training and communication with all relevant staff is a key task to sustaining the changes made. We have established a team dedicated to procurement which will be its sole responsibility. That is another example of us using the additional investment to become as self-sufficient and independent as possible.

On the specific issue raised of the monitoring and oversight of grants to outside agencies, as was mentioned, the agency funds in excess of 900 separate organisations to the sum of approximately €144 million.

As part of our transformation programme, a dedicated project working group was established to develop and implement a programme of governance and compliance for the section 56 and section 59 grant-funded agencies.

The objectives of this programme include the creation of a new section 56 and section 59 contract, which has now been completed - our corporate solicitors have finalised that - with an accompanying governance framework and an internal governance model. The internal governance model includes a standardised process and structure for the review and monitoring of service deliverables. It will be further supported by the introduction of a commissioning unit and a compliance unit whose focus will be on the governance and oversight of those grant-funded agencies.

Obviously for any programme of change of this magnitude to be effective, it must commence with knowing where the weaknesses are and knowing what needs to be changed; we know that with the help of the Comptroller and Auditor General. I and my senior management team were acutely aware when Tusla was established that there were significant areas to be improved. I knew this would be a difficult challenge to undertake but we believe it is not insurmountable and we have already made very significant progress on all the areas that have been highlighted.

In order to build upon and continue with developing Tusla as the agency which provides the best services we can for children, young people and families, we need to be given some time. We have been given additional resources. We believe that some further additional investment in years two and three of our new corporate plan for 2019 and 2020 is necessary. The additional investment we have had has been hugely helpful in allowing us to make the improvements we have made so far; there is still more to do.

I thank the Chairman for inviting me and my colleagues to appear before the committee to present and discuss our annual financial statements for 2016.