Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 and 2 together.

The management board of the Department of the Taoiseach, currently referred to as the management advisory committee, MAC, meets normally every week. It provides leadership and strategic direction in fulfilling the Department's broad range of business and corporate responsibilities.

In addition to supporting the constitutional functions of the Taoiseach and the Government and assisting the Chief Whip and three other Ministers of State, the Department of the Taoiseach is heavily involved in the formulation and implementation of Government policy across the full range of domestic, EU and international agendas.

For example, in 2014, the Department dealt with 58 Government meetings involving 952 Government memoranda, 76 Cabinet committee meetings, 20,000 pieces of correspondence, 805 parliamentary questions and 173 freedom of information requests. It also provided support for speeches, 220 functions, 190 meetings, 25 overseas trips and more than 100 press events attended by me.

The Department's MAC comprises senior managers in the Department at Secretary General and assistant secretary level as well as the Department's head of corporate services and personnel officer. The minutes of the Department's MAC are circulated to all staff and also published quarterly on the Department's website. There is also regular and ongoing interaction on management issues between me, the Ministers of State in the Department and the senior management team, including through the Cabinet committee structure and other forums.

Following the publication of the Civil Service renewal plan in 2014, the Civil Service Management Board was established. The board is chaired by the Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach and comprises all Secretaries General and heads of major offices. It is overseeing implementation across the Civil Service of all the actions in the renewal plan. The board meets monthly and the minutes of its meetings are available on the website of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has responsibility for Civil Service renewal. Last July, he published a report setting out progress achieved on Civil Service renewal in the first 200 days, including in the following priority areas. First, the accountability board has been established to bring together Civil Service, ministerial and external perspectives on Civil Service performance. It held its first meeting in July and will meet again in November. Second, a performance review process for Secretaries General has been approved and will be introduced for the next performance year, 2016. Third, options to strengthen the disciplinary code have been identified and a revised code developed, which is currently subject to the normal staff consultation process. Fourth, open recruitment campaigns have been held across most Civil Service grades. Fifth, the first Civil Service-wide staff engagement survey, involving more than 38,000 employees, commenced in September to get staff input and to provide a benchmark to measure and compare different Departments.

Work is continuing on delivery of all the actions in the three-year plan with the focus for the next 200 days on the priority areas of strengthening the performance management process for all grades; implementation of a new programme of organisational capability reviews to review the capacity and capability of each Department; publicly recognising staff excellence and innovation, including holding the first Civil Service excellence and innovation awards event later this year; expanding career and mobility opportunities across the Civil Service; improving the delivery of shared whole-of-government projects; strengthening Civil Service communications; and the roll-out of a common corporate governance standard for all Departments and offices.

As part of the Civil Service renewal plan, a draft corporate governance standard for Departments has been developed and published for consultation. Once finalised and agreed by Government, this will require each Department to produce a governance framework setting out the Department's standards of conduct, values and principles of good governance by which it operates. The governance framework will also formally document the role of the management board in Departments.

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