Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Question 367: To ask the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism the benefits which accrued from benchmarking with regard to the services provided to the general public by his Department. [40865/08]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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Under the terms of the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness, the social partners agreed that 'benchmarking' would be an appropriate way of determining public service pay rates in the future. The process allowed for the evaluation, by an independent body, of public service jobs and pay by reference to comparable jobs in the private sector.

The report of the first benchmarking exercise was published in June 2002 and recommended varying levels of pay increases for the grades examined. It also recommended that, apart from the first quarter of the award, the payment of the recommended pay increases should be dependent upon real and verifiable outputs from modernisation, flexibility and change. This approach was endorsed by the social partners in Sustaining Progress. The pay increases provided for in Towards 2016 are also predicated on co-operation with change and modernisation initiatives and on improvements in productivity.

Critically, a mechanism was established for the verification of progress at sectoral, organisational and grade level in the public service. In the case of the Civil Service, the Civil Service Performance Verification Group (CSPVG) was agreed by the social partners under Sustaining Progress, and the Group continues to function under Towards 2016.

The Department has been co-operating fully with the CSPVG in its work of verifying or otherwise sufficient progress at organisational and grade level to warrant the award of the phased pay increases. In this regard, the Department's Action Plan and Progress Reports to the CSPVG are publicly available on the CSPVG's website at www.cspvg.gov.ie. In addition, since the commencement of Sustaining Progress, the actions to progress modernisation, flexibility and productivity within the Department have been incorporated into its business planning processes, including in its successive statements of strategy, annual business plans and annual reports, which are publicly available on the Department's website at www.dast.gov.ie.

The most significant of the many benefits accruing from the benchmarking process in the Department include:

the development of a more performance-oriented culture at both an organisational and individual level, with business planning initiatives to increase the focus on performance and accountability;

the preparation of Annual Output Statements which are submitted to the Oireachtas along with the annual estimate aimed at clearly linking resources with outputs and outcomes;

the development of a more customer-focused ethos involving the setting of demanding quality customer service commitments in the Department's successive customer charters and customer service action plans; the achievement of increased efficiencies and effectiveness in the Department's core business functions, in particular, in the administration of grant schemes in the areas of arts, culture and sport.

the introduction of a performance management and development system which integrates the system of performance assessment of individuals with the award of increments and eligibility to apply for promotion;

the greatly increased proportion of promotions (almost 100%) made on an exclusively competitive basis;

the more direct responsibility and accountability for the management of staff by the Secretary General underpinned by legislative changes and, in turn, by line managers in the Department; and

the realisation of economies of scale by shared approaches to common infrastructures, systems and services between the Department and other public sector organisations in the areas of finance, information systems and procurement.

In this regard, I would reference the response of the CSPVG to the Department's fourth progress report under Towards 2016, in which the Group states that 'the implementation of the modernisation agenda to date has resulted in real improvements in public services as well as in the management of civil service organisations both in terms of improved efficiency and effectiveness'. The Group goes on to note in particular 'the progress in the area of competitive merit-based promotion and the continued emphasis by organisations on the importance of the improvement of customer service generally'.