Colm Keaveney (Galway East, Labour)
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Question 429: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government if he will provide details of all local authorities that plan to advertise for the position of procurement officer in the future. [27972/12]

Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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Given the imperative to reduce costs and to increase efficiencies across local authority operations, local authorities are reducing the costs of goods and services to the sector by using the most advanced methods of procurement available through appropriate national and regional frameworks supported by ICT reporting systems. In this regard, local authorities reported savings in terms of procurement of over €26 million under the first report on the Public Service Agreement (PSA) and further significant savings will be reported in the second report on the PSA, which is due to be published soon.

In order further to improve the procurement function in the sector local authorities are establishing national and regional procurement structures to ensure that all opportunities for economies of scale and efficiencies in terms of procurement are exploited. Furthermore, I understand that each local authority has a designated person with responsibility for procurement.

Under the terms of the on-going moratorium each local authority requires sanction from my Department to fill any vacancy. I understand that procurement officers are being sourced from within existing local authority staffing resources and my Department has received no requests for the filling of these posts.