The Comptroller and Auditor General will introduce the report.
Report on Value for Money Examination - Met Éireann, Department of Public Enterprise.
Acting Chairman
Mr. Purcell
The report is the result of an examination by my staff primarily of how well Met Éireann discharges its functions in terms of accuracy and timeliness of its weather forecasts. It also considered how its performance is managed and measured. On the basis of findings, I conclude that, by and large, Met Éireann is providing accurate forecasts backed up by improvements in recent years in the quality of the output from the weather prediction model that it uses.
We are all familiar with the general forecasts that are issued through the broadcast and print media but Met Éireann also provides specialised weather forecasts for aviation services, shipping and local authorities, among other things. Clearly, the accuracy of these forecasts is important from a safety point of view and there is evidence to suggest their quality is good. We examined in detail one of the specialised forecasts that would have direct relevance for most members of the public, road ice warnings, taking the winter of 1998-99. It was established that ice on roads had been forecast, on average, 71% of the times it occurred but had, obviously, not been forecast the other 29% of the time. Looking at forecast accuracy in this area in another way we found that ice did not occur on 16% of occasions it was forecast by Met Éireann, what we call the false alarm rate in the report.
We also looked at the accuracy of severe weather warnings for the same period - here we are thinking of storms and so on. Of the 62 occasions when extreme weather occurred, warnings had been issued for 57 with no warning for the other five. There were only four false alarm weather warnings or alerts over that period. However, we could not establish the timeliness of the warnings, which would be important in terms of preparedness, because this information was not systematically recorded at the time in Met Éireann.
Many of the services provided generate revenue, the principal one being the civil aviation sector which contributed £4.6 million of the £5.6 million generated in revenue in 1999. The accounting system in use is not capable of producing information on attributable costs. This means the charges are based on estimates of time spent on services and an ad hoc apportionment of overheads. The Department and Met Éireann were very positive about the examination we carried out and set about implementing improvements in the areas of performance measurement, role definition and commercially provided services along the lines suggested in the report. Some moves were already in place within the Department and Met Éireann to bring the service up to what we would regard as an optimum level.
Acting Chairman
Thank you. That is a very positive report. Would you like to comment, Mr. Tuohy?
Mr. Tuohy
We welcome the report on Met Éireann. It is an integral part of the Department but we run it - Declan Murphy is the director - on the basis that I have an agreement signed by him under the administrative budget agreement on outputs, service levels and so on. We set it up and gave it independence to operate. It is different from the rest of the Department and in the sense that it operates almost as a separate entity. There is a formal contract between the director and me.
Four broad issues arose, one of which was verification - when you forecast that these are verified. A computer system has been put in place to check this and collect verification statistics for the main weather forecasts. That is up and running and will be formally running from 1 January. The other one on severe weather warnings will be developed in the coming year and will be up and running, we hope, by the end of next year or the beginning of the following year, depending on how we succeed.
The second issue that arose was the service level agreement between the Department and Met Éireann. We formally signed an agreement on that on 13 September incorporating many of the issues the Comptroller and Auditor General raised in the report and some that we wanted to do. The third issue was a clear definition of public service obligation for Met Éireann and to split it up. That has been developed within Met Éireann and is being presented to the partnership council today. When the partnership council, which is the staff, goes through that it will be presented to the Department and we can sign off on it.
The fourth issue was the breakdown of Met Éireann's operations. We commissioned Deloitte & Touche which presented a report in June. The new system is up and running and will be fully operational at the beginning of next year. We very much appreciate the Comptroller and Auditor General's inputs. They have helped us to clarify our own thinking. We have taken on board the comments made and have found them useful.
What are you doing with the weather? The least we could expect is good weather or at least its prediction. It used to be said about some unfortunate television weather presenters that it was always either good or bad depending on the presenter. I compliment Met Éireann on the extent of the services it provides and I appreciate the unpredictability of some kinds of weather conditions. That was a contentious issue in 1986, for instance, when it was felt that adequate warning of severe weather was not given. Hurricane Charlie appeared on the scene with the minimum of fanfare but with a great backwash in its wake.
Would it be advisable to increase the areas of responsibility? I presume Met Éireann has weather monitoring stations and technical equipment throughout the country. Would it be possible to include in the service the monitoring of air pollution etc.? The problem is that currently various agencies carry out surveillance and monitoring under different headings, which is fine, but it appears that there is often a duplication of equipment and technology. The EPA has responsibilities in that area and it in turn has the work carried out on contract by the various health authorities. I am not sure that I would be entirely happy with the results from that quarter on every occasion, not due to any blame on the part of personnel but due to the use of the technology, hence my query. Is that an area in which Met Éireann can become involved?
Ice on the roads can have a serious impact on the quality of life for people, particularly those driving long distances. I would rather have a false alarm in relation to ice on the road than to have no warning because somebody driving 20 miles can experience vast variations in road conditions and unless there is a device in the car which indicates freezing conditions, that person may come upon ice totally unexpectedly and it may be too late at that stage to do anything about it.
Mr. Tuohy
That is a good question.
Acting Chairman
May I add a question? I was amazed to discover you have responsibility for Met Éireann. I would have presumed the Office of Public Works would have that responsibility. Is there a historical connection? Why are these services not linked together?
Mr. Tuohy
To answer the first question, there are 13 synoptic stations, that is, stations around the country which provide the detail. There would be a high level of expertise at all the airports, as one can imagine. One can see the automatic systems on the sides of the new roads and motorways, and they are all linked back to Met Éireann headquarters. As we roll out the national development plan, we will see more of that so the ice problem Deputy Durkan talked about will be picked up and automatically referred back to a central station. That is called telematics, and it allows for greater and more accurate information at a point in time. As the technologies evolve over time, we will see that integrated into the traffic announcements. It is already happening but we will see it on the Internet and so on.
The second issue is that many of those stations already do the monitoring jointly with the EPA so the facilities are being shared. There is sharing of facilities and collection of information but it would not be appropriate for the meteorologists to do the work of the EPA because they have very specific requirements in regard to what they want. We would use the co-locations and share the facilities. They are all doing the same work, which is extracting air and doing something with it, but the sites tend to be developed together and the use of the sites shared.
The third issue is the ice problem raised by Deputy Durkan. Part of the problem - I can check this with the director - is that we do not have enough locations countrywide to provide the level of detail the Deputy is seeking so we try to extrapolate information in between disparate locations and inevitably we will not always get it right. That is why we end up with the inaccuracies.
On the issue of the weather generally, the people outside tell me that because we are an island location, slight temperature differences can have a huge impact on the weather. Most of our weather comes in from the Atlantic and we do not have many stations between here and the United States. We use the high level, HIRLAM, system, a satellite based system, which is improving all the time, but inevitably we will not have the level of accuracy as, say, on mainland Europe where there are many stations between it and the weather.
On the final question raised by the Chairman, the met office was always seen as part of the communications-aviation sector because it is very much linked to aviation. Originally the office provided information to the aviation sources and then it expanded its public service role. Because aviation is under the remit of the Department, the met office tended to be part of the Department as well. It gets a lot of its revenue - over £5 million - on recoupment from the Irish Aviation Authority so as met services go on a European basis, it manages to generate an amount of revenue and in that sense it is not a major draw on the Exchequer for the service that is provided.
Acting Chairman
Will there be a challenge to that, Mr. Tuohy, with the availability now of other national services? We can now get a whole variety of services on the television. Obviously the aviation people will tend to stay in a direct service?
Mr. Tuohy
The issue the Comptroller and Auditor General raised in his report is the idea of having information on the public service obligation of the met service. We will define that and as well as that the accounting systems will allow us to separate what they do on a commercial basis and what they do as a public service. Obviously they cannot cross subsidise. You cannot have a situation where the met office is competing with people and getting unlimited Exchequer resources or whatever. There is an agreement across the various met agencies throughout Europe to share information - at one stage that was being shared on a "I don't pay you, you don't pay me" basis, but because of the availability it was being fed over to the United States and being put back on the Internet. It was distorting many of the agreements that were in place in that people who had not invested in the infrastructure were gaining access to the information without contributing to it. That is an issue that will be worked out over time but the key aspect, as we see it, is the provision of the service and not cross subsidisation between the commercial operation and the public service obligation.
Acting Chairman
I join Deputy Durkan in complimenting Met Éireann and indeed the Comptroller and Auditor General and his staff on the report, which highlights the effectiveness of value for money examinations. Invariably people have told us how helpful they were and that they were able to apply outside expertise.
Mr. Tuohy
You know, Chairman, that the director is also a Corkman?
Does that mean that we have accurate predictions in Cork?
Acting Chairman
It reflects the efficiency of the service.
Will we have a white Christmas, Chairman?
Acting Chairman
All I will say to you, Deputy Durkan, is that you complimented him very graciously before you knew he was from Cork. That concludes the examination of the Department. I thank in particular Mr. Tuohy, the Secretary General, and his staff.
The committee went into private session and adjourned at 1.10 p.m.