Ms Hilary Murphy-Fagan:

Having implemented two of the three major programmes, we have learned and done well with strong governance for the programmes and delivery of the change. One of the biggest lessons was the impact of the change and the requirement to support the change management in each public service bodies, PSBs, and to support users with the system. While we have communicated and developed communication materials that were disseminated in various PSBs, we have learned that we need to do even more of that in the future. We have taken that lesson as it relates to financial management shared services and really increased the level of engagement, communication and awareness for financial management. That has been a big lesson because there is an impact on the end user when one moves to a shared services model, particularly with the difference in responsibilities and accountabilities because they change when one moves to a shared services model.

The second lesson is that we have robust business cases in every case. That was a requirement for the Government to make a decision to implement this change. We did not start the benefits management and tracking as early as we could have. We now track our benefits which I was able to insert into my opening statement. When it comes to financial management, we will have a benefits statement which will be signed and agreed with each Accounting Officer before we start the transition to the final shared services. We will make sure that we monitor that. A last point, despite the best attempts, efforts and experience of my staff and the competencies and capabilities they have gained in the past year, is that with any large-scale transformation programme, while there are significant benefits, there are also risks. We have to consider how we manage those risks and look for certain risks that maybe, with the wisdom of hindsight, we could have dealt with sooner. We will certainly look at that in the future.