Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Question 111: To ask the Minister for Finance his views on the recent NESF calls for the Government to regularly monitor and report on the standard of public services and to make these reports available to the public; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33096/06]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I presume that the Deputy is referring to the report from the NESF dealing with 'Improving the Delivery of Quality Public Services' which is currently at draft stage. I will be happy to give full consideration to the recommendations of the NESF on this matter when the work of the group has been concluded and the report finalised.

I should point out that for the last number of years there has been a performance verification process in place for all sectors of the public sector under the terms of various pay agreements. As a by-product of this process a large volume of information, in the form of organizational and sectoral progress reports as well as reports by the various sectoral Performance Verification Groups, is now available which sets out — often in great detail — what has been achieved over the past number of years. These Performance Verification reports were made available to the public. Towards 2016, the new agreement, continues to make provision for performance verification for all sectors, organisations and grades prior to the payment of any increases set out in the Agreement. The various reports and relevant documentation which will result from the process will also be made available to the public.

In the Civil Service sector, there are a number of mechanisms in place to measure service delivery. For example, under the Customer Charter Initiative Departments and Offices are required to have Customer Charters in place outlining service standards which demonstrate their organisation's capacity to meet the growing needs and expectations of their customers. Departments and Offices are required to report on performance against these service standards in their Annual Reports. Both Customer Charters and Annual Reports are also available in the public domain.