Ms Trudy Duffy:

We are in agreement that it is timely for us to look at what we are reporting on. The Senator has pointed out that some areas are very focused on inputs, what we are putting in and the bare basics of what we are getting out. As Dr. Lillis referred to earlier, we are trying to move to ask what are the results. Are we looking at outcomes and impacts? At the moment, we are taking everything that the Department is reporting on and going through it to see if we consider it still fit for purpose and whether the policy units consider it fit for purpose. We are also taking into account the sustainable development goals, SDGs, well-being, green and inclusion measures. The finance unit of the Department has already gone through and tagged our green expenditure. We are involved in the well-being interdepartmental group and we are ready to roll our well-being measures when the Department of Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery, and Reform is ready to move on the issue. We are in a good position to move quickly, particularly because we are doing this review at the moment.

The Senator covered some areas in her contribution. We want to be quite cautious about focusing on where we are getting value for money and what is actually happening, the outcomes and the impacts as covered in this report. We also deliver a report in collaboration with the Department of Education at the end of every year. It includes indicators around the numbers of people who are going through education and the numbers who are achieving qualifications. Ideally, we would like to focus the metrics on the outputs to ask what we are getting out of the system, how many people are going through it and how many institutions we have. We would like to focus on that in a statistical report. Ideally, we would like this report to focus on where we are getting value for money.

The Senator asked about cost-of-living measures. It is not my particular area but I can get more information on it. Colleagues of mine on the equity of access side publish a cost-of-living paper every year. That is to inform the work on grants and grant allocations. It could be something that I could get hold of and send to the Senator after the meeting.