Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Question 66: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills the number of proposals contained in the Cromien Report from 2000 that are currently under consideration for implementation by her Department; the number that have already been implemented; in respect of both sets of proposals if she would identify same; the other measures she will implement to improve the operational effectiveness of her Department; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41280/10]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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While the Cromien Report contained a wide range of recommendations it is important to stress that the report was discursive in nature and in some instances presented a range of options for further consideration. For this reason defining the precise number of recommendations is not a clear cut task but it would be fair to say that there are in the order of 80 recommendations and my Department has in whole or in part implemented 60. That is not to say that 20 remain to be implemented. On the contrary many of these have been overtaken by events or in some instances rejected by my Department in favour of alternative approaches.

In June 2001 the Government approved a programme of structural reform of the Department arising from some of the recommendations in Mr Cromien's report. The main elements of this structural reform were: i. The establishment of the State Examinations Commission. ii. The establishment of a National Council for Special Education. iii. The establishment of a framework of regional offices of the Department of Education & Science. iv. The enactment of legislation, to extend the remit of the Higher Education Authority to co-ordinate and fund the Institutes of Technology. A network of 10 regional offices was established under the auspices of a Directorate of Regional Services. However, following a review of the Regional Office operations in 2009 it was decided to cease the service in early 2010 and to re-allocate staff to priority work in the Department.

Officials are allocated work in their current offices and deal with certain priority issues such as the National Drugs Strategy, Limerick Regeneration and Dormant Accounts as well as other priority areas. The Department continues to be represented on key strategy national committees such as the Rapid Programme.

In addition to the reforms approved by Government arising from the Cromien Report, the Department has introduced regulatory reform and appellate processes to under-pin key allocation functions that are in line with the tenets of the Report such as:

The establishment of an independent Appeals Boards in connection with teacher allocations at primary and post primary levels.

The establishment of a School Transport Appeals Boards.

The establishment of the National Teaching Council to promote and support teaching as a profession at both primary and post primary level.

The establishment of the National Education Welfare Board in 2002.

The Student Support Bill 2008 which when enacted will provide for an appeal process to enable students/parents that are dissatisfied with the outcome of an application to appeal the decision.

My Department in recent years in order to achieve greater efficiencies has set up a Central Payroll Division, catering for approximately 70,000 school based employees, along with a web based on line claims systems for primary and second level schools.

These measures represent the main structural reforms made by my Department in the last ten years. My Department has submitted an initial "Action Plan for Change" to the Department of Finance with modifications to certain areas of operation in accordance with the terms of the Croke Park Agreement.

In addition to this my Department is currently participating in the third phase of the Organisational Review Programme (ORP). The ORP is a public service modernisation initiative under the auspices of the Department of the Taoiseach.

The purpose of the ORP is to review the current and likely future capacities of individual Government Departments and major Offices in the three key areas of developing strategy, managing delivery and conducting evaluations.