Mr. John Kinnane:

With regard to the demands for increased services, as I outlined previously, this is one of the reforms being introduced on the expenditure side. The Ministers for Finance and for Public Expenditure and Reform at the 2016 budget announced the three-year expenditure review process. This was completely different from the spending reviews that would have been carried out in 2011, where the focus was on delivering expenditure reductions to meet a fiscal target. The focus now has Departments systematically looking at the money being spent on delivering services. Part of this considers the demand on services and whether they are being delivered efficiently and in the most effective way. This is a more detailed investigation through the spending review process.

For example, in 2017 the spending review looked at approximately 20 different areas right across Departments. During the course of 2018, the spending review looked at approximately 30 different areas of Government expenditure. The detail in this will be published alongside the mid-year expenditure report.

The idea is to address some of the issues. Obviously, we are measuring what has been delivered in the performance report but it becomes very difficult to measure and identify the demand on the service. A more detailed look at value for money and how effectively services are being delivered can provide that information.