Mr. William Beausang:

The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform showed political leadership in equality and that there was a political commitment to the equality budgeting initiative by announcing it in his Budget Statement in October. It is also reflected in its implementation. It relates to a programme for Government commitment. The Department has long experience of this issue as we try to improve it. It is reflected in the Parliamentary Budget Office's report today on the equality information on the budget documentation. Over the years, the Department has done much work in trying to improve what we call the performance information. Something that we see, and there is much international experience in this, is that if one is very clear about what individual spending programmes are meant to achieve - and perhaps in the past we have not been - it can have a significant effect on improving and enhancing those policies over time. That is the mechanism we see working here. Articulating these objectives in the context of the equality budgeting initiative drives change. I will not sit here and claim that is across the board and that if one were to call to any random Department today and asked about the equality budgeting initiative that it would have much knowledge of understanding, but to be fair it is only a pilot at this point. Given the political mandate for it, our role is to intensify and reinforce the process and, as the Deputy says, ensure that it has a knitted-in quality.

Looking at the Revised Estimates volume and performance information over the years, it is not meaningful for monitoring performance and holding people to account for their performance, or driving change in the implementation and design of public expenditure policy and spending programmes. That is a challenge for those of us in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform or when we work with colleagues in other Departments more generally around performance information to make information relevant and impactful. On the equality budgeting initiative, we need to look in particular at the issues that have surfaced that the indicators relate to and ensure that change is taking place.