Mr. Paul Reid:

A question was asked about senior responsible owners and whether they were new people. The approach we are taking to reform is rather different. We are driving reforms throughout Departments. For example, the human resource shared services must be driven across 40 public service bodies. In that case we need one accountable person and one senior responsible owner. We have assigned people who have senior responsibility to lead and drive the reform throughout 40 public service bodies. In general, the senior responsible owners are from within the system and the senior management have responsibility and accountability to drive change across the systems. We have had limited recruitment of specialist skills. We brought in one person to work centrally in the reform office on shared services. That person has global experience of implementing shared services. We supported the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, which has a large local government plan related to driving shared services. It is in the process of recruiting a similar person to help the Department drive that agenda. There has been limited recruitment. Overall, our governance structure is strong. We hold each Department and each of the large sectors accountable for the reforms in their area.

As the Minister said, this morning we presented to the Cabinet committee a single view of reform. We are now in a position to outline a total suite of reforms that encompass the public service reform plan, the programme for Government reform elements driven in each Department and sector and the Croke Park elements of reform that have industrial relations implications. We have an overarching reform and each of the major sectors must put in place and is putting in place the equivalent of what we have done centrally, that is, a central governance structure. Overall it is strong. It is a programme management discipline that has strengthened our approach to reform. This has probably not been traditionally a skill. We used to lean harder on policy but now we have strong, disciplined programme management and we hold Departments and sectors accountable. This morning was our fifth Cabinet committee meeting in the course of this year since we launched the plan. Overall there is a strong governance structure.