Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Question 226: To ask the Minister for Finance the role of CMOD in his Department; its responsibility in relation to the purchase of information and computer systems; its advisory role in relation to other Departments; the number of persons employed in this section; their relationship with consultant advisers on such systems; the computer systems and consultancy projects they have advised on in relation to each Department for each year to date; the cost of such projects and the annual cost of CMOD; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28418/05]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The Centre for Management Organisation and Development, CMOD, is part of the organisation management and training division of the Department of Finance. Its function is to provide a number of advisory land support services to the Civil Service in the areas of information technology, staff development and management, and organisation systems development. It aims to support and improve public service management which includes, inter alia, the improved management of resources and ensuring Departments and offices achieve better value for money in the development of human resource management, financial management, e-Government initiatives and information management generally.

As the computing needs of organisations across the Civil Service differ widely, responsibility for the delivery of most computing services rests with each organisation. In this regard, individual organisations operate under a delegated arrangement which incorporates a number of centrally imposed controls and constraints such as: compliance with standard governance and technical principles; the use of project boards and formal project management techniques in their internal ICT projects; compliance with competitive procurement procedures; use of common infrastructures and systems; and accessing common central procurements, where applicable etc.

In operating the delegation arrangements, Departments and offices are required to submit a broad value for money justification for each of their major ICT project proposals. This justification has to receive my Department's approval prior to any commencement. The delegation arrangements also require Departments and offices to report on an annual basis their progress in relation to projects in the previous year.

CMOD retains a number of computing functions where they are substantially common to all Departments-offices, for example, HR and payroll, or where bulk purchasing advantages arise from common procurements, for example, telecommunications services. Accordingly, CMOD has no direct responsibility for acquiring or managing consultants other than for projects that it is managing itself, that is, for cross-departmental systems such as HR and payroll and for telecommunication services.

CMOD's full complement of staff is 96. The annual cost for CMOD as a whole is €7.5 million. CMOD provides advice and guidance on a range of IT projects and across a whole range of IT issues from telecommunications to maintenance and it is not possible to indicate the specific costs of projects for which advice is given.