Martin Mansergh (Tipperary South, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Acting Chairman. I also thank Members for their kind remarks and contributing to the debate. Every Member paid tribute to the outgoing Comptroller and Auditor General and spoke highly of him. I would like to be associated with their remarks in paying tribute to Mr. Purcell who has played a defining role. The Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General has an outstanding reputation for the quality and rigour of its work. As a former civil servant, I know that Departments will go to some lengths to avoid attracting its attention.

As Deputies are aware, the effective and efficient management of resources by Departments and agencies, including greater accountability to the Oireachtas and the people for what is being achieved with public money, must be a priority for the Government, not least in the challenging financial conditions we now entering. There is always scope to do better and achieve more efficient use of public resources. There is no doubt that the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General performs an important public service as part of a system of accountability. It is needful to achieve the most efficient use of public resources, particularly when they have expanded, one might almost say exponentially, in the past ten years or so.

A number of points were raised in the debate with which I will deal briefly. As regards the need for a greater link between performance indicators, on the one hand, and the Estimates allocations, on the other, this issue has been raised by the OECD in its recent review of the public service, which I look forward to studying more closely. This will be a priority in the ongoing process of budgetary and Estimates reform, building upon the significant advances and reforms of recent years, as the OECD has recognised.

The new annual output statements represent a major shift in the direction of focusing on performance in delivering public service outputs; traditionally the emphasis was solely on financial inputs. It is a matter for the relevant select committees of the Dáil to avail of these output statements to the fullest degree when considering the annual Estimates. I note that the role of the select committees in considering the annual output statements has now been written into their orders of reference. While it is valid to point to performance as a key consideration in assessing how the public service does its business, we should recognise that significant progress has been made in this area and that the building blocks are in place to allow for continued progress on this front into the future.

A multi-annual capital investment framework was introduced in budget 2004 which allows a carryover of expenditure, not what was referred to as hurried, wasteful expenditure to keep up budgets. The issue of multi-annual budgets for current spending is being kept under review within the Department of Finance. Recent years have seen some far-reaching reforms. The fundamental issue is whether these reforms should be allowed to bed in and develop further or whether there are advantages to be gained in introducing further more radical measures.

Deputy O'Donnell raised the question of more transparent accountability systems. We should work towards more transparent accountancy systems throughout the public sector, including and, perhaps, especially in the HSE and local government. One should not have accountability systems which only experts in particularly arcane forms of accountancy are able to follow or critically judge.

Deputy Fleming spoke about the lack of sufficient commercial expertise within the public sector. This can lead to the spending of vast sums on consultancies. This is a problem that needs to be addressed. I sometimes wonder whether one of the problems with the PPARS project, as with many computer projects not just here but in other countries, was that people piled wish lists onto a public project that were more than it could bear.

I agree with Deputy Crawford on the value of the local improvement schemes. The Government has implemented a comprehensive value for money framework for capital expenditure. Departments verify compliance by means of spot checks of a proportion of the capital spend each year. As an additional control, the evaluation unit in the Department of Finance may also carry out its own checks of a small sample of projects across Departments each year. To date the spot checks have encompassed projects in the Departments of Transport; Health and Children, including the HSE; the Environment, Heritage and Local Government; Enterprise, Trade and Employment; Education and Science; and Arts, Sport and Tourism. The comprehensive framework in place applies to all capital expenditure programmes, including the NDP. NDP expenditure is also subject to ongoing programme evaluation, including a mid-term review overseen by the central expenditure evaluation unit. Two such programme evaluations have commenced. One is an evaluation of local and community development programmes, while the other is an evaluation of the science, technology and innovation programme. The findings of all NDP programme evaluations will be published and submitted to the relevant Oireachtas select committees.

The value for money and policy reviews form an important part of a broader approach to move resource allocation away from a narrow focus on financial inputs to a broader consideration of performance and the delivery of outputs and outcomes. A total of 82 of the 91 reviews scheduled for the 2006-08 round of reviews have either been completed or are under way. Of these, 54 have been completed or are almost complete, with 37 fully completed. This represents significant progress, given that there are almost eight months remaining of the 30 during which the reviews were scheduled to be completed. The then Tánaiste and Minister for Finance introduced the requirement that reviews should be published and presented to the relevant select committee of the Oireachtas in order to facilitate greater engagement with the process by the Oireachtas and its select committees and to further enhance the impact of reviews. In this regard, he wrote to the Chairmen of the select committees in February to encourage them to ensure time was scheduled to consider the reviews in detail and, where appropriate, to discuss them and their conclusions and recommendations with relevant Departments.

As Members have mentioned, it is particularly important that the Comptroller and Auditor General is independent. In addition to supporting the Oireachtas in holding the Government to account, his office contributes to the public service through objective reporting, on the basis of which the Committee of Public Accounts can make recommendations to improve the management of public services. The constraint on the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General in commenting on Government policy is crucial to the independence of the office and the cycle of accountability for public moneys. While the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General may touch on issues the subject of public controversy, the independence of his office and accountability requirements demand that policy be the preserve of the Government and that the relationship between the Department of Finance and the Committee of Public Accounts be characterised by co-operation in accounting for the efficient use of public funds and the effectiveness of management systems in the public sector.

I wish Mr. Purcell a happy and active retirement. I also wish the incoming Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Buckley, every success.

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