Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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5. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will outline the planned reform to the public spending code, outlining how said reforms will achieve greater speed and efficiency; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22175/23]

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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I ask the Minister of State to outline the planned reforms to the public spending code and explain how these reforms will achieve greater speed and efficiency. In November 2021, the then Department of Public Expenditure and Reform introduced an external assurance process, EAP, for major public capital projects. There is a mandatory requirement for funding Departments to participate in the EAP for Exchequer-funded projects with an estimated capital cost of more than €100 million, which has now been increased to €200 million. Can the Minister of State tell us where the efficiencies will be?

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for her question. The Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery, and Reform, and the Department are responsible for the public spending code which sets the value-for-money requirements and guidance for evaluating, planning and managing Exchequer-funded capital projects. In March this year, the Minister informed the Government of a package of significant actions aimed at enhancing project delivery under the National Development Plan, NDP. The package represents a fresh approach to securing delivery as part of the Department's enhanced remit around the NDP. The actions include significant changes to reduce the administrative burden for Departments and public bodies developing capital projects.

Some specific changes designed to streamline the project life cycle and approval process include: an increase in the general threshold for major projects from €100 million to €200 million, allowing for projects below this limit to progress more speedily through the appraisal and evaluation process; a reduction of the number of approval stages prior to implementation from five to three, reducing the administrative burden on Departments charged with developing and delivering projects; and the removal of the requirement for a project to prepare a separate strategic assessment report, SAR, at the start of the process. Instead, all the requirements previously required as part of a SAR must now be completed and incorporated as part of the preliminary business case at the first approval stage.

These changes have already been implemented through Government circular 06/2023. Further appraisal guidance will be published shortly, known as the infrastructure guidelines, as part of the capital project development that will replace the existing public spending code.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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As the Minister of State knows, the new process consists of independent expert reviews. These reviews have replaced the technical reviews previously conducted by the Department for business cases. Independent reviewers seems to mean consulting firms and for large EAP contracts, this seems to mean the large, generalist consultancy firms. What I am concerned about is that these consultancy firms would actually be driving Government policy. Does the move towards an EAP represent an outsourcing of a process previously conducted by the Department? What is the justification for this outsourcing? It is claimed that this is based on the report by the International Monetary Fund, IMF, but I could not see any clear recommendations in that report to outsource this work. In fact, the report recommends a stronger role for the Department in approving non-major projects. I ask the Minister of State to explain that.

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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To go back to the earlier question posed by the Deputy in relation to my responsibilities, for the Office of Public Works, OPW, which is a capital-led body, the changes to the public spending code that have been announced could not come fast enough. I am sure that if I asked the school buildings unit in the Department of Education or other bodies, they would agree, purely on the basis of the time that it was taking to go through each of the steps that had to be adhered to under the code in order to deliver capital projects.

In tandem with changing the spending code itself, there has also been a major change to the NDP delivery board. The Minister is now chairing that board and while not all Secretaries General will be members of the board at all times, they will come in and go out as needed. The board also has external resources from people outside in the real world, that is, the world outside of politics. They will cast an eye over things as well, in the context of the enhanced importance of the delivery board. From a holistic point of view, the changes to the spending code and to the NDP delivery board will improve the situation.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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I would appreciate it if the Department would provide a note indicating exactly where the IMF made the recommendations for the change. It remains unclear if these reforms will make any substantial difference to the speed of project delivery and this is what concerns me. The then Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath stated in January 2022 that the timelines associated with public spending code compliance "are a fraction of the time required for compliance with the range of statutory requirements...". Suddenly, one year later, this is being presented as a solution to the Government's failure to delivery an array of capital projects. Will the recently announced reforms to the public spending code substantially increase the speed of delivery and reliability of capital projects? Has the Department done any research to demonstrate this? I cannot join the dots here in terms of how things are going to be streamlined and speeded up.

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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That is no problem at all. I will get the information the Deputy requires. On the reforms that are necessary to make things happen faster, another element is the planning Bill that is proposed to come before the Dáil. Again, going back to the previous question the Deputy asked, if I sat down with any delivery body or project management team in any part of the Government, whether it is Transport Infrastructure Ireland, the Rail Procurement Agency or whomever, they will all attest to the issues relating to planning. Taken in the round, it is not the question of money, ironically, because the thresholds have been raised. We will be requiring our Accounting Officers to do far more than they have been doing heretofore. We will also be requiring the Committee of Public Accounts and the Committee on Budgetary Oversight of the Oireachtas to do more in making sure we do not get back into a situation where value for money all of a sudden slips down the pecking order and it is all about delivery. It cannot be about that either. We will have to pull together on this to make sure there is proper oversight and governance and that, when it comes to the reform that is needed of the planning Acts in particular, we get an Act fit for purpose to make sure that all this stuff can be delivered.