Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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339. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform his plans to reflect and deliver on a public duty (details supplied) in his Department's statement of strategy due to be published in October 2016; the way in which his Department is engaging with the programme for a partnership Government commitment to equality and gender proofing in the departmental and budgetary processes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28407/16]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The development of a three-year Statement of Strategy is a requirement of every Government Department under the Public Service Management Act, 1997. Under this legislation, a new Statement of Strategy must be submitted to a Minister within six months of their appointment. Therefore, the process to develop a new Statement of Strategy is well underway in my Department.  This work will, of course, be informed by the priorities set out in the Programme for a Partnership Government (PfPG) and the overall economic, budgetary and fiscal context. In addition, my Department is aware of the statutory Duty referred to in the Deputy's question and is currently examining how this legal requirement might be reflected in its new Statement of Strategy.

As set out in the Deputy's question, the PfPG contains a commitment to developing a process of budget and policy proofing as a means of advancing equality, reducing poverty and strengthening economic and social rights.  

There are currently a number of established procedures in place already supporting the delivery of this PfPG commitment, including the requirement that all Memorandums for Decision submitted to Government set out the estimated impacts of the proposal across a range of areas including gender, social inclusion and people with disabilities.  

Furthermore, at Budget time the current practice, carried out by the Departments of Finance and Social Protection, involves the ex-post impact assessment of the main tax and social welfare measures introduced in the Budget.  These exercises use the ESRI micro-simulation (SWITCH) model to assess the impact of these policy measures across different household types based on a large-scale nationally representative survey.  

A new initiative currently underway in response to the commitment in the PfPG commitment in relation to equality budgeting is the undertaking of Social Impact Assessments of public expenditure policies to help examine the targeting of public spending. In this regard, in order to facilitate a more comprehensive assessment of the impact of budget expenditure measures on household living standards, my Department is developing a new Social Impact Assessment Framework designed to focus on policy areas that cannot easily be incorporated into the existing SWITCH model, specifically the impacts of public expenditure on recipient households.  Depending on the available data, the impacts of expenditure in certain policy areas may also be examined with regard to certain group characteristics e.g. age, gender, regional spread. In the future, the aim will be to expand the assessment, in so far as is possible within the available data constraints, to encapsulate the impact of a particular policy measure on other identified groups.

The framework aims to complement the existing process that takes place each year with additional information on where Government resources are spent and who the key beneficiaries are.  The Social Impact Assessment Framework will play an important part in delivering the PfPG commitment to develop a process of budget and policy proofing as a means of advancing equality, reducing poverty and strengthening economic and social rights.