Mr. David Moloney:

I am not aware of an external review of it. A lot of the time when we look at accountability issues in the Civil Service, it is centred around the exercise of the discretion within the Carltona doctrine and the relevant and appropriate division of responsibilities between Ministers and Secretaries General. The role of Departments and Ministers is set up under the Constitution and provided for in the Ministers and Secretaries Act 1924.

Part of what the 1997 Act did was to try to provide further clarification around some separation of those responsibilities within the overall context of the delegation of authority, notwithstanding the Carltona principle. What the Act really tried to do was to separate the day-to-day issues of running a Department, move them away from being a direct responsibility of the Minister and make them more the responsibility of the Secretary General. While the Minister would retain policy responsibility, he or she would not necessarily be dragged into the minutiae of day-to-day issues. That is the thinking behind the Public Service Management Act.