Committee on Budgetary Oversight debate -
Wednesday, 28 Jun 2023

Public Service Performance Report 2022

Ms Caroline O'Loughlin

I thank the Chair for the invitation to appear before the committee and for the opportunity to discuss the Public Service Performance Report 2022 and answer any questions the committee may have in relation to performance budgeting and its role within the overall expenditure framework. This is the seventh edition of the performance report, with the first report published in 2017. As previously recommended by this committee, public financial performance should be assessed through the principles of performance budgeting, focusing on what is being delivered with resources and how this aligns with the programme for Government and departmental statements of strategy. The purpose of the performance report is to increase transparency and accountability and ensure every citizen can see clearly how public funds are being utilised. The information is deliberately presented in a clear and accessible way to ensure that everyone, not just those with financial expertise, can fully understand how public money is being used.

The report builds on the existing elements of the performance-based budgeting initiative, and creates a space in the budget process for examination of how Departments performed in relation to the delivery of outputs and achievement of targets. While performance information is provided alongside financial information in the Revised Estimates Volume, REV, each December, outturn information for the current year cannot be provided due to the timing of REV publication. This means that committees may not have the relevant information to allow them to assess performance for the most recent year in a timely fashion. The performance report addresses this by providing timely quantitative information on what was delivered with public funds in the previous year. This creates an opportunity for meaningful dialogue between Ministers and the relevant sectoral committees on Government performance. The information provided in the report will assist the relevant sectoral committees in tracking progress in relation to the outputs and outcomes of key governmental strategies.

The committee’s 2021 final report on the framework for parliamentary engagement proposed that sectoral committees meet to consider the chapters of the performance report relevant to their areas of oversight. The performance report is designed to support such an enhanced focus on performance and delivery by committees. Relevant performance indicators are presented in a dedicated, focused document in an accessible manner. This approach seeks to enable sectoral committees to make best use of the time available for reviewing performance and achievement by Departments and agencies.

The overall purpose of the public service performance report is therefore to increase the level of transparency and accountability about the use of public funds, and to help strengthen the link between funding allocations made in the budget, the delivery of public services and, ultimately, improvements in the societal outcomes that these services aim to bring about. The report is broadly divided into two substantive sections. The first provides a summary of expenditure for each Vote in 2022, along with detailed information on the activity or outputs supported by this expenditure, as well as broader outcomes targeted by these activities, or impacts. These output and impact metrics are selected and reported by each of the Votes, based on their knowledge and expertise in each policy area. While reporting of this information is designed to provide a starting point for examining delivery against predefined targets, interpretation of changes in these metrics, particularly the interaction of outputs and impacts, may require more detailed analysis.

The section on overall performance metrics is followed by a more detailed examination, in the section on equality budgeting, of how performance may vary across different groups within society. This includes a set of high-level equality goals identified by Departments and corresponding performance metrics and impact indicators for each of these. The identification and selection of these goals, metrics and indicators is again led by each Department and is subject to continuous revision and refinement on an iterative basis each year.

One of the main new developments in the public service performance report for 2022 is the inclusion of a statement from the Secretary General of each Department commenting on their performance results from 2022, which adds a valuable narrative element to the numerical data provided and offers an opportunity for each Department to provide any important contextual information for the performance results for the year.

The performance report is just one element of a suite of measures to increase evidence-based decision-making and improve how we monitor and oversee expenditure on policy issues that cut across multiple Departments and policy areas. This wider performance budgeting framework includes a number of different work streams such as green budgeting, well-being budgeting and sustainable development goal, SDG, budgeting, along with a range of other processes for generating policy-relevant information, such as the spending review process that supports policy analysis and evaluation across all Departments. Updates on the spending review process and each of these performance budgeting initiatives are also included in the report.

An ambitious work plan for performance budgeting policy is in place for the coming year, which aims to continue the momentum achieved to date and further advance this work. A pilot project was launched earlier this year to tag expenditure against equality and well-being dimensions. Returns from each Department are currently being examined and will inform how this work is integrated into the budgetary cycle. Work is also under way to strengthen the tracking of climate-related expenditure across all Departments and we have also committed to developing a methodology for improving how expenditure on SDGs is tracked and reported.

The performance budgeting framework is kept under constant review by the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform to ensure it best serves the purpose of increasing transparency and accountability. Feedback from stakeholders is an essential part of this, and we particularly value feedback from this committee as a cornerstone of that. It is clear from the committee’s 2021 final report that the performance report is a source of information that can be further utilised by the sectoral committees in their engagement with Ministers and Departments. Such engagement would, in principle, allow the sectoral committees to consider, with the relevant line Departments, any issues regarding performance against target, with the specific indicators selected for inclusion in the report. The recommendations contained in the committee’s final report were quite thoughtful in this regard.

I thank the committee for including this document on the agenda and look forward to hearing its feedback. This engagement with the committee in relation to the overall format of the report and its positioning within the budgetary cycle is very important to the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform as we continue our work in enhancing the overall performance budgeting framework and the performance report in particular.

Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh took the Chair.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh)

I am just stepping in for the Cathaoirleach while he is out of the room. I thank Ms O'Loughlin for her statement. This is a very important document, which I have read with interest. I will ask questions first. The first thing that strikes me is that there is significant variation between the different Departments in terms of the quality of the information that is being produced. There are some very good examples. For instance, the Department of Social Protection looks at the poverty rates as being a key variable in measuring the effectiveness of social protection spending. If we compare that with the Department of Education, where we are just given basic statistics, these figures provide no real measure of educational outcomes for a Department with annual expenditure of €10 billion. That is completely unacceptable.

The housing performance-based information does not include a figure on unmet housing need or detail on whether that is being met. The information provided by the Department of Transport does not mention built rail or road infrastructure in any way either. What explains the variation in quality from Department to Department, and what role does the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform have in setting the performance-based indicators? Do Departments choose their own targets and benchmarks?

Dr. Patrick Moran

I might answer that one. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of Departments to select and report which metrics they are going to include because they have policy responsibility and the expertise in the policy. We review the reports when they come in and work with the Departments to try to improve them over time.

In terms of the process around working back from the overarching policy goal that needs to be achieved, what sorts of outcomes you can measure that through and what outputs or lower level metrics give a sense of how those outputs are shaping up, it is something that every Department has to do itself. The process around Oireachtas scrutiny, through the sectoral committees, is instrumental in bringing forward a conversation around how good or bad the metrics are and whether they really reflect and characterise what the core outputs of the Department should be. It is meant to be an iterative process so that every year, they are revisited again in terms of improving. I take the Deputy's point around the variation across the different Departments.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh)

I welcome the opportunity to discuss this matter and the Department's openness to taking on suggestions. We want to bring this report to a place where it really serves people and we have good information. As Dr. Moran knows, the problem is we have lots of information but having good quality information that allows us to measure is the only way to make progress.

What would stop a Department choosing indicators that show it in a good light? If Dr. Moran asked me to choose indicators related to me, there are certain ones I would choose. That is just the way it is. Have there been any internal discussions in the Department about the varying standards of performance-based information? That will have a key role in trying to get consistent uniformity and accountability across the Departments.

Dr. Patrick Moran

I will address the first point around what guidance or structure is in place regarding the metrics the Departments choose to report and why they do not just choose the metrics they know they will be able to meet. The structure of the performance report is based on the budgetary structure for the Department in question, as outlined in the Revised Estimates Volume. The Department's budget is broken down by programme heading first, and then by subhead. The metrics are supplied in line with that structure, so each of the programmes in its budget has certain policy goals and then those metrics have to be selected on the basis of what they tell us about the achievement of those policy goals. There is a structure around how the metrics are decided or selected and it maps back on to the various functions of the relevant Department. It is, as I said, a continuing goal of the Department to make sure all the Departments improve over time and the gap created by those variations between Departments is closed over time as well.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh)

The Department can play a key role here in bringing simplicity to the situation to make it more transparent and to be able to measure. If we are looking at housing, for instance, one could say we have delivered, through a local authority, "X" amount of housing, but that does not tell us if we are making progress with regard to how many are on the housing waiting list and what the unmet need is there. In the same way, one could go across other Departments, rather than just stabbing the dark with a figure. It is what is often not measured that poses the difficulty, rather than the measurements that are provided.

How does performance-based budgeting impact on resource allocation to Departments? I will give an example. Despite the current level of Department of Social Protection expenditure, figures released last week show an alarming rise in the increase of retired people at risk of poverty in 2022. It is useful to have that measurement, albeit it is a stark one. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, one in ten people was at risk of poverty, and in 2022, that spiked to one in every five people. This means that many elderly people now live in a very precarious situation, with all the stress and anxiety that brings. We have seen a similar increase in the number of retired people living in consistent poverty, which is now close to one in 20. That is also a substantial increase on pre-pandemic levels, which is deeply concerning. How does that feed into the budget process and the evaluation within the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform? This is a case, in my opinion, of a lack of sufficient resources. In other instances, that might not be the case but in this one, it is a matter of resources. How does the Department address that in its resource allocation and what it signs off on?

Dr. Patrick Moran

The primary aim of the public service performance report is to increase transparency and accountability around the delivery of the outputs that were intended to be funded through the budget allocations the previous year. That is then supposed to feed into discussions for the following year, with the various Vote sections in the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, around whether those targets were being achieved, if they were not being achieved, why not and how come the resources that were assigned for that purpose did or did not result in their delivery. The transparency and accountability piece provokes those discussions and also gives a really broad but not very deep insight into some of those issues.

There are a lot of other performance budgeting and evidence-based policymaking processes over the course of the year that are supposed to build on that. An example is the spending review process, where Departments and Vote sections can pick up on issues that are uncovered in the true performance budgeting reporting, and do a deeper dive into them using a lot of the data we will have collected. The other benefit of performance reporting like this is around budget time, when naturally enough much of the discussion and focus is on the additional funding and new measures, whereas 95% of the expenditure is on established programmes and measures that are already funded. Looking at the overall performance draws attention to where there might be opportunities to use the existing or base allocation better, so it rebalances that discussion as well. That is the root with which it is supposed to influence-----

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh)

I am watching the clock and I do not want to go over time. I do not want to pick on the Department of Social Protection, as I think it is one of the few examples in this document of a Department in which genuine performance-based budgeting is taking place. That Department sets a real target for poverty reduction and measures itself against it. However, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications will tell us the number of retrofits but not the overall figure for carbon emissions from buildings. Should all Departments have such high-level targets that measure the more tangible outputs? How can Departments be instructed to deliver that kind of information? Who would instruct Departments to do that? That is very important.

Ms Caroline O'Loughlin

I will talk the Acting Chair through the process, going back to the start and explaining the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform's involvement. First, it would start with a guidance note, when we request this information from Departments. Then, as Dr. Moran mentioned, there are particular Vote sections within our Department that would have a much more in-depth knowledge of the work of each Department. They will work with the Departments to identify the most suitable metrics. In our section, we then provide capacity building within line Departments. If we feel that a Department does not fully understand or has some kind of capacity issue, we provide training or guidance, ad hoc and whenever it is needed, to the Department as a whole or to individual sections. We work very closely with them when that is requested.

The final piece of the puzzle arises when the information is used in Oireachtas committees and when Departments are challenged on the metrics they have selected. As the remits of Departments are so varied, there is no template we can provide that will say this is what a Department has to follow. In the examples the Acting Chair mentioned, the Department of Social Protection may have quite specific metrics, whereas other Departments may have more difficulty, depending on their individual remit. A key time to make sure the right information is provided would be during meetings with Oireachtas committees. We see that when Deputies challenge or question the information that is provided, the information provided the following year will change. We are very open to feedback. When that takes place, we can see that the information is changed so that it does best serve its purpose.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh)

Okay, so it is an evolving situation. My time is up. I thank the witnesses for those answers.

Deputy Aindrias Moynihan

I thank the witnesses for the presentation and the report. There are two areas on which I will focus. The first is the earlier part of the report. The Acting Chair picked up on the wide variety and range of data being brought forward by each of the Departments. What role does the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform have in validating that information when it comes in? Will the witnesses briefly talk us through the engagement the Department has with the different Departments? Would it have to seek changes?

Would it have had to seek improvements to the data it gets in?

Ms Caroline O'Loughlin

I will take that question. There are a couple of layers to the answer. As I said, it is the Vote section in our Department. Because it has indepth knowledge of the work and policies in each Department, it would be the first port of call to make sure that the appropriate metrics are being selected. In our own section in performance budgeting, our role, as we said in the opening statement, is to ensure the information is clear and accessible to everybody. When information comes to us, if we do not understand it, we send it back and say it needs to be made more accessible. That would happen if there were acronyms or specific language that somebody without an indepth knowledge would not understand. Those are the different layers of quality control. Ultimately, it has to be the case that each Department has ownership of, and responsibility for, selecting its own indicators. We make sure they are informed as to the purpose of performance information and because, as Dr. Moran said, they own the policy and have the most knowledge of it, ownership has to be retained by them. They are the ones answerable to the Oireachtas committees.

Deputy Aindrias Moynihan

Does the Department have to ask them to make any refinements or present it differently in many situations?

Ms Caroline O'Loughlin

That definitely happens every year. We go back and suggest that a particular metric would be useful. There would often be quite extensive dialogue as to whether something can be changed to a different aspect.

Deputy Aindrias Moynihan

Would those other Departments refuse?

Ms Caroline O'Loughlin

It is not that they refuse. It is usually the case that the information is not available or that there is a specific reason they cannot use information in a certain way. It has never been the case that a Department has refused.

Deputy Aindrias Moynihan

Later in the report, there is reference to the well-being framework, which is being developed with a view to measure performance in future and also to allocate budget resources. There are two issues in that regard. How does the Department see that shaping future budgets? Will it replace a lot of the indicators or will there be duplication of the indicators the Department is already gathering?

Dr. Patrick Moran

The development of the well-being framework overall is being led by the Department of the Taoiseach. It has published the framework with a list of the different well-being dimensions that are included. In our Department, we are applying that in the context of the budgetary process.

Deputy Aindrias Moynihan

There are two big standout features of that framework where, for example, in respect of biodiversity and climate there would be a negative report, and in housing equality. Perhaps we could focus on those elements. How would those indicators influence budgetary options or the various reports, going from there?

Dr. Patrick Moran

The high level indicators included in the framework are limited enough. They give a good snapshot of where the overall country is in terms of those dimensions. For formulating policy or informing budgetary decisions that correspond to specific policy questions, one would have to go beyond the 35 metrics included in the framework. Each Department would have to try to identify the well-being metrics or outcomes that the policy is supposed to impact. It would be going to a more granular level in that regard.

In terms of how it affects-----

Deputy Aindrias Moynihan

Would the Department pursue the Departments on those metrics?

Dr. Patrick Moran

We set out the guidance and framework for doing that. We also support the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service, IGEES, units in carrying out spending reviews to examine them in more detail and to use that information to inform policy development within Departments and, by extension, the budgetary allocations. What we in the Department are doing specifically to track expenditure across all the different dimensions is that, as Ms O'Loughlin said, we are implementing a tagging system on the expenditure management system so that each of the different subheads, which are the lowest level of granularity in the Revised Estimates Volume and shows where all the budget allocations are going, will be tagged against those dimensions in the well-being framework. That will allow us to look at overall public expenditure through the lens of well-being. Instead of looking at it through Department allocations, it will look at what those allocations are designed to do in terms of the different outcomes in the well-being framework.

Deputy Aindrias Moynihan

There is an indicator in respect of biodiversity. I am afraid I do not have a total grasp on it all. Will Dr. Moran translate how that will impact forthcoming spending?

Dr. Patrick Moran

After the tagging programme is implemented, we will have visibility on where the expenditure is that is directed at improving biodiversity outcomes across all the different Departments and what programmes are included. That improves the transparency around the allocations of public funding.

The Deputy asked earlier what impact it will have on the outcome metrics and the metrics we are reporting. It will require Departments to define metrics that can capture the impact of those programmes that are spending money on improving biodiversity outcomes if they are going to examine value for money or how effectively that expenditure is being used. From our perspective, the first step is getting more clarity and visibility on where the money is being allocated and how it is being spent over the course of the year. The responsibility will then be more on Departments to demonstrate that the expenditure is having the intended effect.

To the Deputy's earlier question, it is all part of the refinement or iterative process of improving the metrics we report and the level of detail of those metrics. Departments will have to be more specific about what metrics are measuring the things they want to do. That will influence the public service performance report. However, the public service performance report will never be able to capture all of the different metrics across all the programmes that people are interested in. It will be a matter of integrating that into each Department's policy development cycle so there is knowledge of how much is being allocated and whether or not it is having the intended effect.

Deputy Aindrias Moynihan

The Department has been up and running over a good number of years with the current report. Departments will be more familiar with what they are presenting. The well-being framework is a newer yardstick being rolled out. Is it up and running in all Departments? Are they all participating at this point or is that still being rolled out? Are they all reporting at this stage or are only some doing so?

Dr. Patrick Moran

All Departments are engaging with us on the tagging exercise. For budget 2024, we should have visibility across expenditure on the different well-being dimensions across all Departments. We are also working with the central section of the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service, IGEES, unit in our Department to raise awareness of the well-being framework and try to get it utilised more in the work that Departments do in terms of their spending reviews so that they integrate that into their own work. We can provide the framework and track the expenditure data but for it to have a meaningful impact on policy development, it has to be embraced by Departments. We are pushing that.

Deputy Aindrias Moynihan

Dr. Moran mentioned the need for it to be embraced by Departments. I understand this is new. Is it being resisted or is it just that people are not aware of the measure?

Dr. Patrick Moran

I would not say it is being resisted. There is an appetite for it there and there are a number of spending reviews this year that use elements of the well-being framework. It is about raising awareness of it and sharing, providing and generating the data that Departments will need to use it and use it properly.

We are trying to push it forward on both those fronts.

Deputy Ged Nash

I welcome Ms O'Loughlin and Dr. Moran. This is a process that I am interested in. A long time ago, I was persuaded that the best way of managing and understanding performance is not measuring GDP alone. GDP is practically irrelevant in any kind of metric that we might deploy to measure our own success or otherwise. It is very limited and always was. This is really about impacts, not outputs. The first question I would ask is about the culture shift that is required across the political system and Civil Service and public service about how we measure impacts. Do the witnesses believe that, since we embarked on this process a number of years ago, there has been a discernible cultural and attitudinal shift in Government Departments about this process and the value and utility of a process like this in measuring success, in its broadest definition?

Ms Caroline O'Loughlin

The Deputy is absolutely right that it is a cultural shift. I think since performance budgeting was introduced in 2011, post the crash, the demand is there. People want to see what is being done with money. It is all about value for money. Since our Department was created, the focus has always been on value for money. There has definitely been a shift. An enormous amount of work has been done on performance budgeting to make sure that it is not seen as a propaganda exercise or a pass or fail. The key part is transparency and accountability. It is trying to capture the reality of what was intended and what was delivered. That has certainly been a shift for the Civil Service and probably for the political system too. It has come an awfully long way. As Dr. Moran said earlier, it is an iterative process. Every year, we try to make sure that the quality of the metrics is improved and that the performance information best serves its purpose. We can see we can provide evidence of how it has changed year on year because the demand or requirement has shifted. Specifically, we have an example of a recommendation from this committee on how we change the format of the report. So the answer is yes, very much so, but I believe that every year, the standard is becoming higher.

Dr. Patrick Moran

There is strong political support for it in the programme for Government. It has been growing over the last number of years. The Deputy's point about going beyond is GDP is increasingly gaining traction too. There are many different streams of this going on at the moment. We have green budgeting, sustainable development goal, SDG, budgeting, equality budgeting and performance budgeting. They are all different ways of looking at the same kind of problem. There is a growing realisation that these things represent a potential solution to a problem that already exists and that all Departments have. Even the public service performance report represents much work from civil servants and Departments in all corners of the public service. They have fed in all that information and engagement levels have been really good.

Going forward, one of our priorities is to make sure that we can integrate all those different things. Many of the different budgeting initiatives grew up in different places and are spearheaded by different groups. Integrating them all so that everybody can see they are a cohesive move forward is important for us.

Deputy Ged Nash

I introduced legislation in this space a number of years ago, building on legislation in the last Oireachtas from Deputy Brendan Howlin on well-being indicators. It is good to see progress that is now embedded in the system. It is clearly working. From my personal perspective, I would like to get to a point over the next few years where this is how we monitor and measure outcomes in our annual budget process. Rather than looking at the quantum of resources allocated by the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform to respective Departments, Votes and so on, we can actually look more at genuine output and impact and measure it differently. I would like to get to the point where, some day, we are celebrating a reduction in the budget of the Department of Social Protection for jobseeker's supports and so on because that would be a measure of our success with sustainable employment and other aspects of policy. We can look at budgeting and public investment in a much more holistic way and this allows us to do that.

I have a couple of questions in the time I have left. I know the OECD has been supportive of the development of this process over the last few years. In their earlier contributions, the witnesses mentioned the introduction of equality and well-being tags in the context of the 2024 budgetary cycle. What will that look like?

Dr. Patrick Moran

Tagging is really a way of mapping out where the money is going. Increasingly, many of the policy challenges the Government is trying to deal with are not confined to one Department. They are cross-cutting, whole-of-Government problems. The idea behind tagging is that one can track and monitor the flow of resources against those policy goals and societal challenges, so one can have more confidence that our resources are being employed in the best way possible, in line with Government priorities. On a practical level, it means tagging each of the subheads, which they are called in the Revised Estimates Volume, REV, which is the lowest level of detail one can get about where money has been allocated across Departments using these tags. It allows one to look at the totality of public expenditure through a different kind of lens, so one will be able to say that a certain percentage went to the mental and physical health dimension of well-being and a certain percentage went to safety and security.

One would be able to cross-reference those too because much of the spending is on multiple goals, or is not just confined to one. The insights which that gives are supposed to quantify how much expenditure is going towards a particular goal and that can then be used in combination with metrics and performance to look at the issue of value for money and also to make sure the priorities of Government are reflected in the budget.

Deputy Ged Nash

I have a final question. The response might take some explaining. A point that stood out for me on page 173 of the report relates to green budgeting. It states that to date the Department has taken a conservative interpretation of the definition of green budgeting. Will the witnesses elaborate a little more on what is meant by that and why a conservative approach to the definition of green budgeting has been taken?

Dr. Patrick Moran

Green budgeting in its broadest interpretation includes all the different elements of green expenditure or climate action, which are usually defined in a thing called the EU taxonomy, where there are six different dimensions to it. There is mitigation, which is the primary focus of the climate action plan, to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. There is also adaptation, reducing pollution, the circular economy and a few more too. To date, our green budget tagging has been primarily around mitigation. It has been primarily focused on measures that decrease the amount of greenhouse gas emissions into the environment. We are working on a programme to expand that to track spending on adaptation measures, both positive and negative measures to do with restoration of biodiversity, and all the other six in the EU taxonomy.

Deputy Ged Nash

The EU taxonomy includes fossil fuel subsidies as well. I referenced that. I assume that would be captured in a different way in future and its impact properly measured.

Will that be captured in a different way in future and its impact properly measured?

Dr. Patrick Moran

We will track favourable and unfavourable expenditure across each of those six categories in the taxonomy. At present, as I said, it is mostly around mitigation. We report green budgeting, which is the positive expenditure in the Revised Estimates. We published a paper in January this year, which is the first attempt to track potentially harmful climate expenditure and is focused on those fossil fuel subsidies and public expenditure that have the effect of increasing emissions.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

I have not studied the whole report yet, but it is very useful and helpful in trying to quantify the impact of expenditure allocations and targets. Until we had this document, we did not really know what the outcomes were. It is extremely helpful in assessing whether targets set and moneys allocated are actually delivering what they were intended to deliver. It is extremely useful and contains some very useful information. Some of the housing stuff, for example, is extremely interesting on the percentage difference in the net number of households that qualified for social housing since 2016. It is a fascinating figure. This is more down to the Department than the officials, but it is interesting that it has dropped by 32%, 35% and 36%. That is incredible. At a time when more people are unable to afford market prices or rents, fewer people, by a significant margin each year, are entitled to social housing support. That is a shocking fact but it is very helpful for the report to detail that.

There are a lot of useful figures that will be very helpful for us in raising questions and so on. Maybe it is too much to get this information given the nature of the document, but if we take the section on housing, there is a major debate about what social housing actually is. How much of it is delivered by local authorities and approved housing bodies? How much of it is leasing and acquisitions? There are different subcategories of social housing. It would certainly be helpful for me, and maybe the committee generally, to see that broken down in a little more detail. I am interested to know what the officials think about that. Is it just too much for them to break things down to that level of detail, where there are particular controversies and where establishing the facts is helpful? Often, these things are disputed, as the officials know. Will they comment on that?

Dr. Patrick Moran

This is a huge area for us every year when we look at it. There is such a degree of complexity behind an awful lot of these metrics around the issues the Deputy mentioned, for example, what the denominator is or how something is being defined. There are whole programmes of research in respect of, probably, each one of these metrics. When we get the information in, as Ms O'Loughlin said, we review it to make sure that it makes sense and people are able to interpret it. However, the detail around the definitions and the level of granularity they are broken down into is something, in reality, that rests with the Department at present.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

The relevant Department decides what the officials get to put in this report.

Dr. Patrick Moran

The way it works is the Departments have responsibility for reporting metrics at programme level within their budgets. The programmes are expressed as policy goals, and those policy goals are then broken down into output metrics and metrics on the outcomes those outputs are supposed to improve.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Does that give Departments the opportunity to flatter to deceive, or whatever that expression is? They choose what information to give rather than what we might want to know.

Dr. Patrick Moran

There is the possibility that people pick the metrics that will make them-----

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Flatter.

Dr. Patrick Moran

-----look the best. It is within the context, however, of having to represent metrics that are relevant to the major programme-level outcomes. That structure is around it. The other point, which Ms O'Loughlin made, is that the sectoral committee process by which these results are interrogated is crucial to driving that improvement over time. If Departments are reporting metrics that do not really capture or do not do a good job of characterising the major outcomes or policy impacts they are trying to have, then that should be squeezed out over time as they are scrutinised every year.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

I am sorry if I am asking dumb questions, but did the committees look at the drafts of what is to go in the report and the metrics being used in each Department?

Ms Caroline O'Loughlin

We do not provide drafts to committees. What we hope and expect to happen during the year is for the committees to use the information. We try to promote the use of this information as much as we can. Every Deputy and all the committees get the report. We have separate, private sessions where we explain the layout of it through the Parliamentary Budget Office and all that. What we hope happens is that when different sectoral committees meet, the information is used. As we said, if it is not serving its best purpose, we take the feedback and-----

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

The officials will go to private session meetings of every single committee.

Ms Caroline O'Loughlin

If it is required, yes.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

If the committees look for it.

Ms Caroline O'Loughlin

We offer it. Through this committee, if there is another committee that states it would like to know more about the performance report, then yes, we will. As I said, we have an open door for capacity building across both the Civil Service and the political side. There is an open door for anybody who requires that from the performance budgeting unit in the Department.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

As a matter of interest, to see how that works in practice in the past few years, how long have the reports been going on?

Ms Caroline O'Loughlin

This is the seventh report.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Have committees come back to the officials and discussed with them what is in their particular section?

Ms Caroline O'Loughlin

It is not that they talk about the exact metrics. They talk about the format of the metrics.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Right.

Ms Caroline O'Loughlin

As we said, we only have responsibility for the format and then we provide guidance to the Departments when there. Ultimately, however, the Departments have to retain ownership of what metrics they select.

Having said that, we see that a committee will say to a Department, or to us, that it would be very helpful to the work of the committee to have certain information. Indeed, the Deputy said to us a couple of years ago that targets were not included in the report. We took that on board for the next year and we now include the targets. We have gone so far as to include the little bar in the report so that it is very clear.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Yes, percentages.

Ms Caroline O'Loughlin

We try to make sure the report does exactly what it is supposed to do and is used as the tool it should be.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

I am just picking this out as an instance but affordable housing, for example, is not included as a metric, which is an important one. Nor is the subdivision of social housing and now we also have cost rental and affordable purchase. If we take that as an example, we could definitely do with a little more detail in that regard.

These issues are my hobby-horses, but I am quite interested in the area of film. I note that the report states how many feature film projects are delivered with funding from Screen Ireland but the biggest source of funding for film comes through finance under section 481. Is that covered in the finance section under tax expenditures? I have not had a chance to look at that.

Ms Caroline O'Loughlin

Off the top of my head, I am not sure.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Maybe tax expenditures is a more general issue.

I am just looking at it now. Do tax expenditures get covered?

Dr. Patrick Moran

No, they do not. It is just the public expenditure. It is the breakdown of the budget allocations that are presented at the start of the chapters. If the metrics are brought about by tax expenditure then we should be able to see the impact of it.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Perhaps it is something that might be for the committee to consider. We have been discussing tax expenditures generally and we have looked at some of them specifically. We have characterised them to some extent as a shadow budget, in that they are directed towards certain policy objectives but they are treated differently from direct expenditures. We have questioned them and suggested there should be a hell of lot more scrutiny of them. Is there any good reason they should not be included in this? They are large amounts of money that are spent to achieve certain policy objectives and yet, because they are not scrutinised, we do not really know whether they actually deliver their policy objectives. Our committee has been pushing that they should be more in the spotlight during the budgetary process so that the Government should have to justify the rolling over of certain tax expenditures, introducing new tax expenditures or deciding to get rid of certain tax expenditures that may have outlived their usefulness or are not achieving what they supposed to achieve. What would Dr. Moran think about us trying to bring tax expenditures into all of this?

Dr. Patrick Moran

I certainly take the point. When trying to relate the delivery or achievement of goals, and the difference that public policies have made on the ground, if we relate how much in resources was allocated to them it would paint a better picture of it. It is certainly something we will consider.

Ms Caroline O'Loughlin

The challenge we have always had with this report is that we want it to be accessible. We want it to be something that somebody with no financial background can pick up and, at a glance, read.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Yes.

Ms Caroline O'Loughlin

We have had issues previously where we have been asked whether we would include something. It is trying to strike the balance with accessibility.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Yes, I get that and we do not want to have it so dense with detail, fine print and what not that it becomes unreadable. I definitely think tax expenditure is a significant area. In the case of film, for example, the biggest source of funding is not direct expenditure through Screen Ireland; the biggest expenditure is a tax break. There may be other instances of this. I am sure there are. In forestry, for example, there are tax reliefs that are a significant part of trying to deliver forestry as well as the direct expenditure by the Department. It would make sense that we see them all altogether.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh)

Deputy Boyd Barrett needed his ten minutes after all.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

I thank the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh)

This is a very valuable suggestion coming from the committee, that we have tax expenditure evaluation. Is it possible to do this in the context of the public service performance report? It could be an extra chapter.

Deputy Michael Healy-Rae

I had a bit of difficulty earlier tuning in but I was eventually able to do so. I do not have any questions at this time and I thank the witnesses for coming before the committee. I appreciate their knowledge and I appreciate them giving us the benefit of it in the report.

Deputy Patricia Ryan

I thank the witnesses. I will come from a different angle. My brief is older people. According to page 19 of the report the target for delivery of intensive home care packages was missed by an incredible 66%. Only 80 of the targeted 235 home care packages were delivered. Will the witnesses advise me on what needs to be done and what measures the Government needs to take to ensure these targets are met in future?

Dr. Patrick Moran

The delivery of the targets is really a matter for the Department of Health. When we are collating the data and reporting it we do not have a lot of visibility on the underlying reasons for the failure to achieve a target by such a wide margin. Where we fit into the discussion is that we bring it to light and make sure there is transparency where a Department is doing well and where it is not doing well.

Deputy Patricia Ryan

It is certainly not doing well. That is my opinion from reading this. I was quite shocked to see the targets being missed by 66%. I also see in the report that almost 40% of the targeted number of home support hours in 2022 went undelivered. What measures must the Government take? I suppose the witnesses will tell me we need to go back to the Department of Health on this also.

Dr. Patrick Moran

Yes, I suppose the discussions held on the Vote section at budget time about the performance, financially and against targets, would feed into this. It would have to come from the Department of Health in terms of explaining why it did or did not meet targets. It might be that the target set was wrong or that there was under-delivery.

Deputy Patricia Ryan

Has Dr. Moran come across targets being wrong?

Dr. Patrick Moran

"Wrong" might be the wrong word. Sometimes for legitimate reasons the target set is not the appropriate target. This feeds into revisions of the targets for the following year. The key point is that while we try to do a good job in reporting the good and the bad and making it as accessible as possible, the detail about why targets are missed is the responsibility of the Department.

Deputy Patricia Ryan

I would like an explanation for the 75% failure to meet set targets for the movement of those with disabilities in congregated residential care settings to community-based settings, and to know what measures would the Government need to take to bring Ireland in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Dr. Patrick Moran

Again, I am afraid it is a matter for the Department of Health-----

Deputy Patricia Ryan

I know, yes.

Dr. Patrick Moran

-----to dig into the reasons for this and the answers to the questions.

Deputy Patricia Ryan

I thank the witnesses very much for highlighting it. It is very interesting for us as members of the committee to see this. It makes me wonder whether we are asking the right questions of the right people. I very much thank the witnesses.

Earlier we spoke about equality budgeting. How are the equality indicators chosen?

Ms Caroline O'Loughlin

Equality budgeting has been iterative since it was started in 2018. We work with the Departments to try to identify areas. In the earlier years we wanted to take varied sectors and do equality budgeting rather than gender budgeting, which is the international norm. We looked at all aspects of equality. What dictated the earlier metrics was the availability of disaggregated data. This is why there was a focus on gender in the early years. We have done a lot of work to make sure much wider disaggregated data is now available across all dimensions of equality.

With regard to how equality indicators are selected, in the first place we requested Departments to buy in. Momentum sped up for equality budgeting integration and now all Departments are reporting on equality metrics. For last year's Revised Estimates Volumes we required all Departments to provide an equality metric for each programme. We are trying to consider equality budgeting as part of the performance budgeting metric. We do not want to keep them as two separate things. We want equality budgeting to be used as an example of how applying an additional lens to performance metrics can make sure we are looking not only at the impact on society but the impact on various cohorts of society. It is up to the Department is the short answer.

Deputy Patricia Ryan

I thank the witnesses.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh)

Have we any other speakers who wish to contribute? We do not. I want to commend the Department on the value of the information that is presented here and on the way it is presented. As the witnesses say, the Department's litmus test is that it is readable, understandable and accessible for people. It goes some way to having accountability. Although there is still a long way to go in some Departments, I want to commend the Departments that are good at it. There needs to be an exchange of learning across Departments. I also commend the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform on being open to taking new suggestions on board in an evolving process in order that we have the proper information in there and so that we fill the information gaps that are there. If any of the other committees or those that are involved in the other sections of this, be it housing, health or whatever, identify a key measurement that is not included here, what should they do?

Ms Caroline O'Loughlin

We would assume that whichever Department it is would be aware, would make note and would make us aware of whatever changes were required. It would probably be done through the clerk. We would make sure we do our own research every year as well but it would probably happen through the line Departments themselves.

Dr. Patrick Moran

In that situation, when the sectoral committees are reviewing the data and meeting the Departments, those things would presumably be topics of discussion and why they are missing from it would be topics of discussion. The metrics we are supplied with the following year would presumably be updated to reflect those comments from the committees.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh)

We look forward to next year's report as well.

The select committee adjourned at 6.52 p.m. until 5.30 p.m. on Wednesday, 5 July 2023.