Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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296. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of procurement officers in each local authority charged with the responsibility of preparing, tendering and awarding procurement contracts in each of the years 2011 to 2017, inclusive, and to date in 2018. [46284/18]

Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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297. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the annual cost of procurement officers in each local authority charged with the responsibility of preparing, tendering and awarding procurement contracts. [46285/18]

Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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298. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the estimated cost of employing one specialist procurement officer within a local authority annually with the relevant and necessary qualifications and experience. [46286/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 296 to 298, inclusive, together.

Under sections 149 and 159 of the Local Government Act 2001, each Chief Executive is responsible for the efficient and effective operation of such local authority and the staffing and organisational arrangements necessary for carrying out the functions of the local authority for which he or she is responsible.

My Department oversees workforce planning for the local government sector, including the monitoring of local government sector employment levels and pay and pension costs. To this end, my Department gathers quarterly data on staff numbers in local authorities and data on pay and pension costs. However, the data does not provide details of the role and function of individual staff.  Therefore, my Department is not in a position to provide details of the number of procurement officers and related salary costs in each local authority.  This information  may be available directly from individual local authorities.

In general the role of procurement officer is remunerated at administrative officer level and a summary of the salary scale of the relevant grade is outlined in the table below.