Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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418. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the steps he is taking to implement equality budgeting; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16949/21]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Equality Budgeting is a way of approaching and understanding the budget as a process that embodies long-standing societal choices about how resources are used, rather than simply a neutral process of resource allocation. In practice, this means that equality budgeting attempts to provide greater information on how proposed or ongoing budgetary decisions impact on particular groups in society, thereby integrating equality concerns into the budgetary process. Providing greater information on the likely impacts of budgetary measures facilitates the integration of equality concerns into the budgetary process, helping to avoid unintended adverse outcomes and enhancing the Government’s decision making framework.

A pilot programme was introduced for the 2018 budgetary cycle, anchored in the existing performance budgeting framework. A number of diverse policy areas were selected, with associated objectives and indicators published in the 2018 Revised Estimates Volume (REV). A progress update was provided in the Public Service Performance Report 2018 (published in May 2019). Due to relatively good availability of gender-disaggregated data, the initial focus of Equality Budgeting was on gender. In subsequent budgetary cycles, the pilot initiative was extended to further develop the gender budgeting elements, and to broaden its scope to other dimensions of equality; twelve departments are now reporting Equality Budgeting metrics. An Expert Advisory Group was established to guide the development of Equality Budgeting policy. This group includes members from both within and outside of Government, and has met regularly since September 2018.

In 2019, the OECD completed a Scan of Equality Budgeting in Ireland, and published their report alongside Budget 2020. The scan provides 12 recommendations on how to drive this initiative forward; implementation is currently underway, guided by an ambitious work plan. In line with the OECD recommendation to develop an equalities data strategy, the CSO conducted a data audit, in cooperation with DPER, to ascertain the availability of public service data that is disaggregated by equality dimension. This work was guided by the Expert Advisory Group and the audit findings were published alongside Budget 2021.

Another recommendation of the OECD was the development of tagging and tracking functionality for departmental expenditure. In 2020, a project commenced to create a new architecture for Performance Budgeting, including Equality-, Green-, Well-being- and SDG-budgeting; this project is funded under the EU Structural Reform Support Programme (SRSP). One key element of the project is to learn from best international practice to develop tagging and tracking of expenditure. DPER officials recently completed a two-day study visit (online) through the EU’s TAIEX programme to learn about the approach of the French government to tagging and tracking expenditure. The valuable insights gained will contribute to the development of this functionality in the context of Ireland’s budgetary cycle.

On March 9th 2021, the Government agreed several important points on progressing Equality Budgeting. A key point was the Government agreement to establish an inter-departmental group for Equality Budgeting, to facilitate the embedding of the initiative across all Government departments. The first meeting of this group is due to take place in the near future. This group, along with the existing Expert Advisory Group, will play a key role in guiding the continued implementation of the OECD recommendations for progressing Equality Budgeting.

The memo also highlighted the relevance of the equality budgeting agenda for the Programme for Government commitment regarding the introduction of a well-being framework. The introduction of this type of framework was also a key recommendation of the OECD Scan. The integration of a well-being perspective into the budgetary cycle will build upon progress to date on performance budgeting and will integrate and support the equality budgeting agenda.