Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Question 35: To ask the Minister for Finance his ambitions for the next round of benchmarking assessments. [12542/06]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy is aware, a second benchmarking exercise is under way and is due to report in the second half of 2007. This process will be similar to the last exercise. It is difficult to anticipate the outcome at this stage but, from what we can see to date, there have been very few private sector settlements above the national agreement norms. There is nothing to suggest that the next benchmarking exercise will lead to increases anywhere near the level of the first exercise.

The benchmarking process offers us a way to compare public service jobs with their counterparts in the private sector, examining qualifications, responsibilities, hours worked and many other factors. I would expect that the benchmarking exercise will consider and give appropriate weighting to factors that may differentiate public sector employment from that in the private sector, such as pensions and tenure. I also believe people have to acknowledge that in return for pay increases, specific objectives for service improvements in the different areas of the public service must be set and must be seen to be achieved to justify payments being made.

For more than ten years a programme of modernisation of each sector of the public service has been under way. This process has resulted in real improvements in public services and there is now a well established acceptance by public servants of the need for active co-operation with modernisation and flexibility. Under Sustaining Progress, a verification process was set up with sectoral performance verification groups to assess periodically the achievement or otherwise of the conditions attaching to the payments, such as industrial peace, co-operation with flexibility and ongoing change and achievement of the modernisation commitments in the action plans. To date, the system has worked well. There has been a virtually complete absence of industrial disputes and disruption in the public service. The Government is satisfied that the benchmarking approach is the best way forward and should be continued.