Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 5, inclusive, together.

In December 2006, the Government approved a major review of the public service, which is being undertaken by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD. Its two main objectives are to benchmark the public service against those in other comparable countries and to make recommendations on future directions for public service reform.

The review's terms of reference have been published and are available on my Department's website. For the OECD to develop this systems level approach and to apply it in the first instance to Ireland, we are increasing our contribution to the OECD on a once-off basis by €490,000. I expect the review to be completed by the end of 2007.

A high level steering group of senior officials, chaired by the Secretary General of my Department, is overseeing the review. There is a consultation dimension to the review and appropriate arrangements will be put in place to allow stakeholders and interested parties to contribute their views.

While the review is not a detailed audit of individual sectors, such as health, education, local government, it is examining the effectiveness of arrangements through which Government objectives are translated into outputs and outcomes. It is focussing on the connections between the different sectors, including the links between Departments, offices and local government, the health and education sectors, with a particular focus on delivery of quality public services.

Since the introduction of the strategic management initiative in 1997, significant change and modernisation has already taken place in the public service. It is timely to begin to map out a new phase of the change and modernisation programme, building on the significant change that has occurred.

Work is continuing on change and modernisation and ongoing improvements are being made through the quality customer service initiative. Considerable progress has been made in this, including the development of core customer service principles, development of action plans by each Department and office, and improvement of complaints procedures and clearer appeals systems. I accept further improvements are needed. Public service organisations must constantly respond to and anticipate the needs of an increasingly diverse and demanding customer base, who as citizens, rightly expect, that they will receive the highest standards of service from their public servants.

Several groups are actively working in this area. The quality customer service officers' network continues to work intensively on the development and promotion of the customer charter initiative, including its extension to bodies under the aegis of Departments and offices. The charter process is an important initiative whereby public service organisations are asked to publicly commit to service standards and report on progress made. To ensure the charters are being adopted and used consistently across Departments and offices, an independent assessment is being undertaken by external consultants. A report is expected in the coming weeks and this will inform the next phase of the customer charter process and help to embed it further in public service organisations.

The quality customer service research group was involved in the commissioning of a major survey of customer satisfaction levels and attitudes towards Departments and offices. The results were published in 2006 and are available on the change and modernisation website, www.bettergov.ie. Further surveys will be undertaken as they provide important information about the levels of satisfaction and the quality of services being delivered.

Awareness of the importance of better customer service is increasing across the public service. For example, last year in Dublin Castle, I presented 20 public service excellence awards to projects that made a significant contribution in this area. These awards are made every two years and submissions for the 2008 awards will be invited from across the public service towards the end of this year. The winning projects last year were selected from more than 150 applications, almost all of which were making a real improvement to the services being delivered on the ground in key areas such as health, education and local government services.

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