Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The establishment of the programme office was one of the central recommendations of the task force. As I said in my initial reply, I have reassigned seven officials from the public service modernisation division of my Department to the programme office. They will be supplemented by four officials, three of whom are already in place, who are to be seconded from each of the four main sectors of the public service. I have made it clear that the cost of seconding those officials is being met by their parent organisations. The final secondee will join the programme office soon. In addition there are six officials who work on the organisational review programme which involves reviewing the cost effectiveness and outputs of various programmes across Departments and agencies and ensuring that they do what they are supposed to do and whether they are part of the value for money process. The work of the programme office is supplemented by staff from other Departments working at their own jobs but in particular by their counterparts from the Department of Finance whose personnel have a strong public service remit, and designated officials charged with supporting the change agenda at the sectoral level. Some people work on this in addition to other responsibilities. The programme office works mainly in this area.

The statement on transforming public services sets out an ambitious programme of renewal for the entire service. It encompasses the whole of the public service and it is reasonable that staff have been assigned to the programme office to support that change which will lead to the real improvement in services delivered to citizens that is the purpose of the operation. We require staff to deliver frontline services and will require them to develop reform policies and to drive a transformation agenda throughout the public service. In doing so the programme office also supports the work of the Cabinet committee and the steering group of secretaries general.

The grades of staff working with the programme office are principal officer, two assistant principals, one administration officer, one higher executive officer, an executive officer and a clerical officer, while three principal officers, one assistant principal, one administrative, and one clerical officer, work on the organisational review programme. The establishment of the programme office has not led to any increase in staff costs in my Department.

In addition to staff costs the programme office has been allocated €600,000 from the change management fund to support its activities. That fund was established in 1999 for the purpose of supporting Departments and offices in their efforts to implement the strategic change agenda. The activities of the programme office which the fund will support this year includes communication of the agenda across all Departments and research to progress work on its commitments.

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