Mr. John Kinnane:

Let me outline the key point. Over the past number of years we have developed what we call a whole-of-year budgetary process. The revised Estimates volume, REV, is now published in December of each year. That allows Oireachtas committees, during the first quarter of the year, to engage in detailed discussions with the line Departments on expenditure allocations for the current year and on the outputs that are to be delivered with those expenditure targets. Also, the context and a series of impact indicators are set out in the REV. There is a series of outputs for each programme within each Department but there is also a series of impact indicators that are designed to measure whether the programme has delivered the impact for citizens.

Due to the change in the budgetary timetable we now have the following issue. If we did not have the public service performance report, the earliest time that the output information would have been published for each Department would have been in the REV in December. Obviously that is far too late for a timely consideration of the output and the performance of Departments. An opportunity for meaningful dialogue has now been created by publishing the information at the end of April because the committees, after giving detailed consideration to the Estimates and targets for this year, now have an opportunity to look back and assess what happened in the past year. The targets for each Department will have been out in the REV last year. The public service performance report allows the committees to have a detailed discussion and compare performance with the targets.

On a broader level within the budgetary process, the mid-year expenditure report sets out the baseline for expenditure in advance of the budget. Tied into the publication of the mid-year expenditure report is the spending review process. From January of this year, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has carried out a detailed analysis of large areas of expenditure across all Departments with a view to making the information available during the summer in advance of the budget, and in advance of the budgetary decisions being made.

The performance report does not exist in isolation. It is one of a number of measures in place to assist all stakeholders and, in particular, the Oireachtas in considering departmental performance and budgetary options for subsequent years, a key element of which is an examination of the effectiveness of the current spend of over €61 billion across all Departments and the impact and efficiency of service delivery. The performance report assists this process but on its own does not provide the information. It must be viewed alongside the spending review, the revised Estimates volume and the mid-term expenditure report.