Mr. J.P. Mulherin:

I will come back on the broader point about indicators. So far, as part of the public service performance report and as part of the Revised Estimates Volume, we have tried to provide indicators that link directly to the funding provided, so there is clear causality between specific amounts of funding and the output indicator or impact. I understand the need for broader indicators. It is something we need to reflect on. Those broader indicators will be influenced by lots of different expenditure across different Departments. Linking our expenditure to those outcomes might be something we need to reflect on.

We have been doing work with the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, to try to develop broad indicators at a high level that look at the evolution of our aims in community development and rural development to come up with a suite of indicators to assess that over time. That work is ongoing. A report was produced in 2021, which looked at what was done internationally. The report found that not one size fits all. This is a complex area requiring all sorts of qualitative and quantitative analysis. They are in the process of refining a set of indicators. My team is engaging with them on that at the moment. That may throw up some useful indicators for the members of the committee. I cannot say whether that will be ready for this year, but it is in the pipeline. We are aware of the need to get the broader overview of the impact. That is not just the impact of what we do, but what is being done across government under programmes like Our Rural Future and the impact they are having.