Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The question of the structures we are putting in place for transforming the public service is the subject of a joint memo from my Department and the Department of Finance. I have appointed the Minister of State, Deputy Calleary, to both Departments to pull this together. I chair the Cabinet sub-committee which oversees this work. I have outlined the composition of the sub-committee.

On the question of providing people to the chief information officer, public procurement issues and the shared services issue, the appointments will be made by the Department of Finance and will operate from the Department but they will have a system wide remit to make sure we get full implementation, if one likes, of the potential savings that have been identified, particularly in the shared services area.

The board to be established, which will have a majority of outsiders on it, will drive the implementation of the transforming public services paper. It will be chaired by the Minister of State, Deputy Dara Calleary and overseen by a Cabinet committee chaired by me.

The implementation body has a specific remit or function under the public service pay agreement. In respect of the transformation areas, the transformation agreements which form part of the public service agreement will be implemented and where issues arise that need to be resolved, they will be resolved through the implementation body procedure which will short-circuit, if one likes, normal IR, Labour Relations Commission and Labour Court arrangements which have developed over a longer period. As an indication of everyone's intention to implement as quickly as possible, there are time limited periods under the agreement whereby the implementation body will make decisions on any issues referred to it within six weeks.

The implementation body is specific to the public service agreement and the transformation agreements that arise out of it in the various sectors. The overall drive for public service transformation has been outlined in the OECD report and the task force which produced the plan for implementing that. This will be done under the Civil Service board. The implementation body has a specific remit and does not feed into other issues. It deals with the specific issues under the public service agreement. The chairperson of the implementation body will be appointed by the Government. He or she will be a person who is acceptable to all and well got with everybody to do the job.

The Deputy also asked whether the remit of the implementation body was wider than the public service agreement. That is not the case. The body is there for a specific purpose, that is, to implement the agreement. Obviously, we will work in partnership with the unions in terms of the wider transforming public services issues that have to be addressed.

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