Ms Colette Drinan:

Yes. It is performance audit.

Financial audit involves the annual financial audits of almost 290 clients. All financial audit staff from the auditor grade upwards are qualified accountants. Audits are carried out in accordance with international standards on auditing. To manage peaks in demand during the calendar year the office contracts out a number of these financial audits annually. A key objective of the office is to advance the timeliness of the completion of financial audits. The committee will be aware of the progress made on this over recent years. At the end of 2018, eight sets of financial statements relating to 2017 or earlier years had not been certified. This compares with 13 arrears for 2017.

The output of the reporting programme comprises the report on the accounts of the public services, which issues at the end of September each year, and special reports. In 2018, a total of 29 reports were issued. This was made up of 22 chapters in the report on the accounts of the public services and seven special reports. The figure compares with 26 reports issued in 2017, made up of 24 chapters and two special reports.

Support services comprise a number of business units covering human resources, finance, information technology, good practice, business improvement, training and development and corporate services.

I will now set out the financial position. In 2017, the office operated an administrative gross budget of €12.64 million, nearly 82% of which was allocated to salaries. During 2017, actual expenditure was approximately €11.9 million, which was €720,000 or 6% below budget. This was primarily due to savings of approximately €500,000 in salaries. There was a further saving of €291,000 in subhead A7 because our requirement for external assistance for examinations was less than budgeted for.

On the receipts side, audit fee income was up by over €300,000, reflecting the earlier completion of the audit programme. This trend continued in 2018. The savings in salaries have arisen mainly due to turnover of staff and the carrying of unfilled vacancies. Vacancies arise due to staff departing and due to an increase in the overall staff complement in recent years. There is currently a shortage of qualified accountants in the Irish market as a result of the recovery in the economy. This has created a demand for experienced accountants and we see the impact of this on our turnover rates. We recruit actively. In the past three years we have made 125 staff appointments, including 64 recruits at entry level. The environment continues to be challenging and we keep this issue under constant review.

This is a brief overview of the office and its work. I thank the Chairman and committee members for their attention and I welcome the opportunity to engage further on specific queries that committee members may have.