Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Question 139: To ask the Taoiseach the benefits which accrued from benchmarking with regard to the services provided to the general public by his Department. [40877/08]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The Department of the Taoiseach does not, as a rule, administer programmes or deliver services directly to the public. The Department has a different customer base to many line Departments which deliver services to the general public.

The role of the Department of the Taoiseach is to provide leadership in the development, implementation and co-ordination of key Government policy areas including Northern Ireland, European Affairs, Public Service Modernisation and Economic and Social policy. The Modernisation Action Plans for the Department under both Sustaining Progress and its successor agreement Towards 2016 contained several commitments across a number of key areas common to the Civil Service as a whole, such as human resource management, financial management, quality customer service and technological innovation. I am satisfied that benchmarking is leading to real change and modernisation in the way the Department does its business.