The Minister for Public Expenditure & Reform, Mr Brendan Howlin T.D., pledged today that all Government Departments would be judged on their performance from now on, and that his Department would provide the tools to make this a reality.
The Minister was speaking on the release of the Revised Book of Estimates for 2012, which sets out the spending allocations for every Government Department and Office. This year, for the first time, the Book of Estimates will include performance information on almost every Department and Office.
"Today my Department is publishing an unprecedented amount of information about what exactly Departments have achieved, and what they are aiming to achieve, with the public funds that are granted to them by the Dáil," said Minister Howlin. "It is not enough to know how much Departments are looking to spend. We need to know, and the public need to know, what exactly is being delivered."
The Minister explained that the new initiative, which introduces ‘performance-based budgeting’ to the Irish system, is in keeping with the Government Programme commitments to strengthen the focus upon performance and delivery. He added: "The Government is determined that every area of public service should be accountable for performance and results. This will apply to Ministers and their Departments, as well as to all Offices and Agencies."
The Minister noted that the new performance information gives a balanced insight into the activities and achievements of the various areas of Government.
For instance, the Department of Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation, as part of its Innovation programme, aims to support 740 companies in investing more than €100,000 in R&D activity in 2012 and to support 95 High Potential Start-up companies – higher figures than achieved in 2011, with 2% less money.
Likewise as part of its School & Early Years programme, the Department of Education & Skills will provide 128,600 places in infant classes in 2012, an increase of over 2,000 from the 2011 figure against a headwind of lower overall resources.
the total value of agri-food exports increased from €7.1 billion in 2009 to €8.85 billion (estimated) in 2011 (Department of Agriculture, Food & the Marine); and
the percentage of electricity generated from renewable resources has increased from 13.7% in 2009 to an estimated 16.2% in 2011 (Department of Communications, Energy & Natural Resources).
Equally, the new approach also highlights the challenges that must be addressed by public policy, including:
the percentage of children at risk of poverty has increased from 18% in 2008 to 19.5% in 2010 and the percentage of children at risk of consistent poverty has increased from 6.3% in 2008 to 8.2% in 2010 (Department of Children & Youth Affairs);
the number of reported property crime offences increased from 103,843 in 2008 to 105,455 in 2010 (An Garda Síochána); and
the number of people sleeping rough (as of November) in the Greater Dublin Area has increased from 60 in 2009 to 87 in 2011 (Department of the Environment, Community & Local Government).
Streamlining and Reform
The Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure & Reform, Mr Robert Watt, said that the ‘performance budgeting’ approach was part and parcel of the ‘new broom’ approach to reform, with old ways of doing business being swept away in favour of more modern approaches.
"The traditional way of presenting financial information, which originates in the Victorian era, no longer meets the needs of modern public governance," said Mr Watt. "The Government, the Oireachtas and the public need to know that the system of public administration is delivering. That is what the new approach will show."
Mr Watt added that efficiency and streamlining were also key to the reform agenda. "The public service needs to spend less time and resources in preparing documents that few people read, and fewer people understand or use," he said. "That is why the new Statements of Strategy have been re-designed from the ground up, and they also form the basis for the Book of Estimates that are published today." The Strategy Statement for Mr Watt’s own Department has been reduced from around forty pages to just three pages long, in total.
New Budgetary Process
Minister Howlin said that the new "Performance Budgets" heralded a completely reformed budgetary process that is now in place. "We now have a completely open and much more modern budgetary process, that allows for the Dáil to be fully involved in expenditure policy. Last month, I wrote to the Chairs of all of the Dáil Select Committees, inviting them to start engaging straight away with Ministers and Departments on the expenditure allocations for 2013. The performance information I am publishing today gives extra tools to the Dáil Committees to hold Ministers and public service managers to account."
The 2012 Revised Estimates for Public Expenditure can be accessed via the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform Website.