Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party)
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270. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the number of secretariat staff provided to the Standards in Public Office Commission by the Office of the Ombudsman in each of the past ten years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2790/23]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) is funded as part of the Vote for the Office of the Ombudsman (Vote 19). The activities of SIPO represent one of the programmes making up the overall Vote (the others are: Ombudsman, Commission for Public Service Appointments, Office of the Protected Disclosures Commission, Office of the Information Commissioner, Commissioner for Environmental Information and Referendum Commission). The table shows details of staff who are directly assigned to SIPO but does not include staff in the shared services area of the Office of the Ombudsman, who provide an extensive range of support services to SIPO.

The support services of the Office of the Ombudsman are included in full in the Ombudsman programme (which also includes the Director General and Private Secretary). The staffing support provided to SIPO includes the following:

- Provision of ICT services,

- Provision of Finance services,

- Human Resources services,

- Facilities Management services,

- Provision of in-house legal support,

- Provision of in-house communications services,

- Reception/Service officers.

Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party)
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271. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the amount of funding provided to the Standards in Public Office Commission in each of the past ten years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2791/23]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) is funded as part of the Vote for the Office of the Ombudsman (Vote 19). The activities of SIPO represent one of the programmes making up the overall Vote (the others are: Ombudsman, Commission for Public Service Appointments, Office of the Protected Disclosures Commission, Office of the Information Commissioner, Commissioner for Environmental Information and Referendum Commission).

The following funding has been made available through the Estimates Process for SIPO, including its functions concerning the Regulation of Lobbying. However, these figures do not include rent or the salary costs of the extensive shared services provided by the Office of the Ombudsman which are detailed below.

The figures in the table above do not include the cost of staff who work in the support services of the Office of the Ombudsman. These staff costs are borne in full by the Ombudsman programme (which also includes the Ombudsman’s salary and travel costs, and the salaries of the Director General and Private Secretary). The staffing support provided to SIPO includes the following:

- ICT services,

- Finance and Procurement services,

- Human Resources services,

- Facilities Management services,

- Legal Services Unit,

- Provision of in-house Communications services,

- Reception/Service officers.

Cost of premises (rent/rates, etc) is also not included. This is paid by the OPW.

The figures in the table do include direct expenses of SIPO (payroll costs of staff assigned full-time to SIPO activities, external legal representation costs for any cases involving SIPO; consultancy costs; T&S; report design and printing. The costs of shared non-pay expenses incurred by the Vote (e.g. incidental expenses, cleaning, utilities, office machinery) are apportioned between programmes based on fixed percentages and are included in the above table.