Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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377. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will provide in tabular form the partial year and the full year monetary effect of his Department's budget 2014 reductions to expenditure. [47082/13]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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As indicated in a previous response PQ 215 of 22 October 2013, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform’s budget and staffing allocation reflects its strategy of delivering well managed and well-targeted public spending, delivered through modernised, effective and accountable public services. While savings have accrued due to the transfer of certain functions and pay reductions across the group, these are offset due to the significant start-up costs of the shared services and the transfer of maintenance service costs to OPW.

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, together with the Shared Services and Office of Government Procurement functions, continues to deliver key outputs set out in the Public Service Reform Plan which was published in November 2011. This investment in the Government’s reform agenda will yield longer term cost savings and facilitate service continuity in a smaller and leaner Public Service. When these centres are fully operational, annual savings targets are estimated as follows:

- Office of Government Procurement - The procurement reform programme is targeting up to €500m of much needed savings for tax payers over the next 3 years.

- Peoplepoint (transactional HR) - €12.5m

- Payroll Shared Services (transactional payroll and pension services) - €5.6m.

My Department has also collaborated with the Department of Finance to achieve administrative efficiencies within our shared facilities, particularly in the accommodation footprint.

My Department is targeted with driving a very ambitious Public Service Reform Plan, which requires initial investment in order to achieve longer term efficiencies and cost savings. Notwithstanding this, my Department continues to seek savings and, in 2014, we will fund a number of new projects while achieving a 4% reduction in Gross Expenditure. The details on the funding reductions by Programme and Administrative Budget subhead are set out in tabular format in the Budget publication which is at the following link, Appendix 1.