Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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99. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the reason his Department requires State bodies to disclose more comprehensive information on the remuneration of their CEOs than it does of the Accounting Officers of Departments and Government offices. [56395/22]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The reason for the different disclosure requirements is due to the different evolution of the rules in which Voted entities and non-Voted public bodies and companies report their accounts and the fact that the standard Secretary General salary scales, along with scales for other Civil Service grades, are regularly published on Gov.ie whereas the remuneration of CEO positions in non-Civil Service public sector organisations can diverge from Civil Service salary scales. The most recent circular in relation Civil Servants’ pay was published on 12 October.

Unless otherwise provided for in the establishing legislation of a State Body, guidance on the format and structure of some notes to the financial account within the annual reports of both commercial and non-commercial State bodies is provided for in the Code of Practice for the Governance of State Bodies2016.This guidance is based on the Financial Reporting Standard FRS102 terminology. For bodies that are not Vote funded, the Code standardised and increased transparency in the accounts of public bodies across the State sector.

As the Deputy is aware, the legislative basis for the annual appropriation accounts is the Exchequer and Audit Departments Act 1866 and in the interest of transparency and accountability each year my Department considers requirements for more enhanced reporting in the Appropriation Accounts while also considering any legal constraints on disclosing information. Any extra information disclosed in the accounts is in the form of notes to the accounts. These notes to the accounts aid the reader to better understand the expenditure and receipts for each Government Department and Office of Government.

In that regard, in March this year, my Department issued an instruction to all Accounting Officers requesting additional reporting requirements including the disclosure of the Accounting Officer’s salary in the appropriation accounts for each of the forty five Vote holding Departments, Offices of Government and other entities. This additional reporting requirement commenced with the 2021 appropriation account. These audited appropriation accounts were published by the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General on 30 September 2022. My Department is considering further enhancing the information in the salary note for this year’s appropriation accounts. The enhancements being considered include provision of salary band data as well as further information on the gross remuneration of Accounting Officers. The provision of information in relation to gross remuneration reflects that decisions regarding voluntary deductions from salary are a personal matter.