Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The purpose of the OECD study of the public service is to examine how integrated and relevant is the service and the extent to which we can get people to work across organisational boundaries to improve the service to citizens and to examine the question of how we make it more citizen friendly. The idea behind setting up some of these agencies was to grant a specific remit in terms of the delivery of specific services to the public. It is timely that we have a review of the issue. The flexibility required, which spawned some of the establishment of agencies, was in order to overcome the constraints of departmental delivery systems, so that people could get out into the community and deliver services ascribed to the various organisations being set up.

The next phase of public service reform must examine how existing agencies are governed, the dialogue and accountability arrangements in place between parent Departments and their agencies, whether there is scope for agencies to merge with others and whether there is an ongoing need for the service they provide. The real issue in respect of agencies is guaranteeing better outcomes for the public. The task force on the public service will examine that issue and how best to implement the recommendations of the OECD so that we do this in a proper way. The OECD report indicates that progressing the reform and modernisation agenda for public service lies not solely in changing the institutional architecture or the allocation of responsibilities between Departments, agencies and offices or between different levels of Government but in getting the different parts of the system working differently, with greater focus on collaboration in achieving wider societal goals and in assuring that reforms introduced are appropriately sequenced. That is the challenge I set for the task force and it will report on the matter shortly.

With regard to the specific matters, I do not want to discuss individual organisations or circumstances. Of course there is a need for us to reflect on the fact that taxpayers' money must be seen to be spent to the best possible value. Sometimes certain issues are raised as if they were symptomatic of a wider problem within the public service. Where there are difficulties and problems these must be addressed and we must see that the public service ethos is prevalent and prominent in respect of how we conduct our business in these agencies.

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