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Minister McGrath publishes the first tranche of the Spending Review papers for 2021

The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Michael McGrath TD, today, Friday, published the first tranche of Spending Review papers as part of the 2021 Spending Review process.

The spending review is a key platform for generating evidence for policy making across the Civil Service. Supported by the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service (IGEES), the process has become a focal point for the broad range of analysis ongoing across Government Departments.

Welcoming these reviews, the Minister stated: “The Spending Review process is critical to ensuring that vital public services and policies deliver for those who need them and that value for money is achieved for the taxpayer. Ensuring that Government expenditure is being put to its best use is crucial to keeping the public finances on a stable footing. "Through an evidence based approach, the Spending Review reports offers Government and other policymakers a key insight into how various programmes work, their efficiency and effectiveness and their sustainability.

"I would like to commend all those in the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service who have worked on these valuable reports.”

In total there are 11 spending review papers for publication over the summer months covering a diverse range of policy areas such as health, business supports, education and social policy, among others. An additional tranche of spending review papers will be published in October.

The papers published today, in addition to the spending review papers published in previous years, are available on the Spending Review website .

 

Summaries of Spending Review papers:

IntroductionExecutive Summaries – Tranche 1 Publications This document sets out the executive summaries for the first tranche of 2021 spending review papers.

 

Trends in Public ExpenditureThis paper provides an overview of the key trends in public expenditure over the last 10-year period for each Vote Group area. This report provides a context for the more in depth spending review papers. It is published each year as part of the spending review process.

 

Education Trends in Teacher Substitution This paper explores trends in teacher substitution, its drivers and the costs arising from these drivers.

 

EnterpriseCapital Expenditure Review 2006-2020 This paper thematically analyses the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment’s capital expenditure over the period 2006 to 2020.

 

HealthImpact of Demographic Change on Health Expenditure 2022-2025 Building on previous IGEES work, this paper provides updated estimates of the funding required to maintain ‘Existing Levels of Service’ out to 2025 when considering only demographic change. 

 

Pay and Pensions PolicyChallenges and Strategies for Reforming Publicly Funded Pension Systems Informed by the increasing incidence of international sustainability-improving pension reforms, this paper summarises the challenges associated with implementing such reforms and the strategies identified in recent academic literature for overcoming these.

 

ENDS

 

ContactClaire Godkin - Press Officer, Department of Public Expenditure and Reform - 085 806 3969, pressoffice@per.gov.ie