Ms Caroline O'Loughlin:

With regard to the process, within the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, there are dedicated Vote sections, that is, there is a unit working specifically to each Department. We in the central performance budgeting unit provide guidance on what information should be collected and we help Departments with capturing it. Things therefore have to go through a number of filters before being included in the report.

Ultimately, because it is the Departments' work and because it is the Departments themselves that will be answerable to Oireachtas committees, they must retain ownership of what goes in. However, we can influence that in that we provide guidance, as I have said. The information comes back directly to the individual Vote sections first. These sections have in-depth knowledge of the work that goes on in the Departments. The role of the Vote section is to make sure the right information is captured and to give constructive feedback to the line Departments to ensure the right metrics are being captured in the right way.

As I mentioned before, we make sure the information is very accessible. We do not want a load of technical jargon in the report that nobody can understand. It has to be done in a way that the general citizen can understand. As I have said, there are a number of filters to go through but ownership ultimately remains with the line Department.

To go back to the feedback, the dialogue with line Departments and the different Oireachtas committees, when an issue comes up and a committee tells a line Department during a meeting that it wants something changed or something included in the report, it always comes back to us. Unfortunately, that does not happen too often. If there was more dialogue in that regard, it would improve what is captured in the report.