Mr. J.P. Mulherin:

I thank the Chair and wish everyone a good morning. I thank the committee for the opportunity to present this opening statement on behalf of the Department of Rural and Community Development. The Department has been invited to speak on the topic of the Public Service Performance Report 2022. As members will be aware, the report was published just last month and provides metrics and information for all Vote groups. The material is compiled by the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery, and Reform, which works with colleagues in each line Department, including the Department of Rural and Community Development. One of the stated aims of the report is to provide a more succinct and accessible overview than is set out in the Revised Estimates Volume. The Revised Estimates contains a greater number of metrics and is presented at a time detailed outturn information is not available in respect of performance under each of the published metrics for the previous year. As such, the public service performance report attempts to address this shortfall by providing Oireachtas committees with details as to what was achieved in the previous year.

Given the purpose of the report, the metrics tend to focus on the larger schemes within the Department while attempting to reflect the variety of measures that are seen as particularly impactful on the ground and for the citizen. The metrics presented provide a good overview of the extent of delivery and support planned and the Department’s progress in meeting those targets. In some instances, targets were not met. The continued impact of Covid-19 in 2022 slowed the delivery of larger capital projects in particular. This learning is in itself is a valuable outcome as it ensures we are more focused on progressing delivery in these areas. In other instances targets were exceeded. For example, the social inclusion and community activation programme, SICAP, expanded to provide support for people from Ukraine and those seeking international protection. This greatly increased the number of individuals supported compared with the target originally set. Further details in respect of all of the indicators are included in the briefing note provided to the committee and I am happy to explore the members' views on these.

I also note performance budgeting forms just one part of the Department’s focus on ensuring schemes are impactful and represent value for money. The Department has an inspection and compliance unit, which is a key component of ensuring projects have been delivered as agreed. Furthermore, an evaluation unit is also in place and this unit has, among other work, completed focused policy assessments on a range of schemes including the local improvement scheme, LIS, the town and village renewal scheme and the rural regeneration and development fund, RRDF. These reviews consider specific funding areas and assess the investment with respect to alignment with the original rational for funding, scheme outputs and impacts and finally scheme relevance in the context of sectoral and Government policy. The reports arrive at recommendations for improvements to scheme delivery that are fed back into policy units. All these reports are published on the Department's website.

We will also shortly publish the Department’s annual report for 2022, which I believe will provide committee members with a good sense of the breadth of activity within the Department and which goes deeper than the very specific indicators in the public service performance report.

Finally, the Department is also fully engaged with the interdepartmental work on equality budgeting and attends the interdepartmental group that is progressing this work area. The Department has equality budgeting metrics for four funding schemes in the Revised Estimates - LEADER; SICAP; the community services programme, CSP; and the senior alert scheme - although a considerable number of our community-focused schemes support wider social equity measures. We will continue to actively contribute to this work across government, which is helping to develop knowledge on how funding is impacting particular groups in society.

In closing, the Department is very much engaged in the performance budgeting process. Monitoring delivery on targets helps to ensure that we are accountable to the public and that we can address delivery issues when they arise. I look forward to the conversation today on the public service performance report, and will seek to address any questions or queries that might arise, and follow up afterwards if necessary. I note in the Chair's opening address the reference to collaborating with Departments, and we are happy to do that in the coming months in advance of the preparation of the Revised Estimates Volume in October and November of this year.