Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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238. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform further to Parliamentary Question No. 253 of 23 May 2023, if he will provide further details on the causes of the underspend of 9.1% or €46 million below profile to date by his Department, as outlined in the April Fiscal Monitor (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25833/23]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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As set out in the fiscal monitor, the estimated underspend across the Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform Vote Group to the end of April 2023 was 9.1% or €46 million. The breakdown across the Vote Group is presented below.

V11 Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform – There was a timing difference with some grant expenditure which was expected to be paid in April but was actually paid in May. Additionally, there has been some underspend on payroll due to staff vacancies, recruitment is ongoing.

V12 Superannuation and Retired Allowances – Vote 12 end April 2023 issues spend is less than profile spend due to a timing issue when the reports were run. An April adjustment was not factored into the issues figure shown. After this has been taken into account, the remaining end April variance of €3.138m is due to lower number of retirements in the year to date than anticipated. The end April returns reflect the actual cash spend of €274.147m and this is broadly in line with profile.Furthermore, the end May cumulative issues are expected to be broadly in line with profile.

V13 Office Of Public Works – The drivers of underspends in OPW are due mainly to timing of payments in relation to capital budgets. However this spend is expected to happen later in the year.

V14 State Laboratory – Procurement delays for Laboratory Equipment has led to underspends on Vote 14. This will be spent before the end of the year.

V17 Public Appointments Service – Expenditure is currently under projected spend due mainly to variance on capital projects. Capital expenditure on Project Nova is behind schedule mainly due to the additional time needed to carry out the procurement process in line with OGP and CSSO advice.

V18 National Shared Services Office – The timeline for the deployment of the NSSO’s Financial Management Shared Service programme and the related commencement of its Finance Shared Services operations was extended from late Quarter 4 2021 to early Quarter 2 2022, as a result project expenditure was less than initially planned as payments are aligned with the project milestones.

V19 Office Of The Ombudsman – The underspend primarily relates to staff changes and a delay in recruiting staff in the first quarter of 2023. In addition, some IT projects and training had to be rescheduled, as a result of skill shortages in the ICT area.

V39 Office Of Government Procurement – OGP has experienced difficulty recruiting sourcing specialist. However, OGP is working closely with PAS and once panels are available, appointments are being made. Procurement projects commencing later than profiled are also contributing to underspends. However, expenditure is expected to increase in the coming months. Finally, the go live date of eTenders project being moved to May 2023 resulted in charges not occurring as profiled.

V43 Office Of The Government Chief Information Officer – The overall underspend is attributable to a delay in the commencement of capital projects. It is expected that capital spending will increase significantly in the upcoming quarter.

Subsequent to the publication of the fiscal monitor, final data for the month of April has become available. This shows an actual underspend across the Vote Group of 4.8% or €24.1 million against profile over the period January to April 2023.