Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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512. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the competent national authority to report when public procurement procedure is not being followed by a local authority. [1500/17]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Chief Executive of each local authority is responsible for managing and controlling the administration and business of the authority; this includes matters relating to procurement. I understand that all local authorities have a designated official who plays a key role in delivering strategic procurement objectives including ensuring that the local authority complies with Procurement Directives, Legislation, Circulars and other legal requirements. The Local Government Strategic Procurement Centre, which is part of the Local Government Programme Management Office, has put in place a programme of training and education to ensure that Procurement Officers are up to date in relation to procurement rules and trends in procurement. In addition, a full list of all procurement frameworks is circulated to each local authority, to internal auditors and to the Local Government Audit Service.

The Local Government Audit Service is statutorily responsible for providing aprofessional audit service to local authorities. Section 116 of the Local Government Act 2001 provides that local government auditors shall be independent in the exercise of their functions. Where deficiencies regarding procurement practices are identified during the course of an audit, the auditor will include such detail in the audit report. In most cases where a deficiency is identified, the Chief Executive of the local authority will advise of steps that have been taken to address the identified deficiencies and this will be included in the audit report.

The audit reports of individual local authorities may be found on my Department's website at the following link:

Responsibility for public sector procurement matters rests with my colleague, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform.