Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 8 February 2023
Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach
Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 11 - Public Expenditure and Reform (Revised)
Vote 12 - Superannuation and Retired Allowances (Revised)
Vote 14 - State Laboratory (Revised)
Vote 15 - Secret Service (Revised)
Vote 17 - Public Appointments Service (Revised)
Vote 18 - National Shared Services Office (Revised)
Vote 19 - Office of the Ombudsman (Revised)
Vote 39 - Office of Government Procurement (Revised)
Vote 43 - Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (Revised)
Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source
The data being collected needs to be relevant to the goal trying to be achieved with the function of the office. The principal responsibility for expenditure will still lie with the contracting authority. The Department taking out the contract and spending it should be collecting the data. It is important for us see whether the frameworks we make are being used and the degree to which we have compliance with the spending.
In other words, we get a report back from the Comptroller and Auditor General every year to say to what extent each Department or each procurement officer has been running competitive procurement over different contracts. That is the proportion of the contracts that went through a competitive process, so that we can rank and see which Departments are doing well and which are doing badly. We do not just gather data for the sake of it but we should be collecting anything that is relevant on a regular basis.
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