Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 25 Jul 1996

Vol. 468 No. 4

Written Answers. - Local Government Audits.

Noel Dempsey

Question:

389 Mr. Dempsey asked the Minister for the Environment the plans, if any, he has in relation to the publication of the audits on aspects of Local Government recently announced to ensure that such a long delay between completion and publication does not recur; the audits ongoing or planned beyond those already published; the estimated date of completion and subsequent publication of these audits; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16132/96]

Noel Dempsey

Question:

390 Mr. Dempsey asked the Minister for the Environment the reason, in relation to the recently published audits on local government issued by his Department, the local authorities surveyed in the various audits were not named; the plans, if any, he has to do so; the steps, if any, he has take to date to or plans to take to ensure that the attention of the officials, public representatives and the general public in the relevant areas is drawn to the contents of these reports and their immediate relevance to them; if his attention has been drawn to a request from Deputy Dempsey to him to reissue the reports with the relevant councils named; if he will do so; if all future reports will be published promptly and will disclose the identity of the public bodies examined; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16133/96]

Minister for the Environment (Mr. Howlin)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 389 and 390 together.

Value for money (VFM) reports on selected local authority operations, carried out by the VFM unit of my Department, are issued, as they are completed, to all local authorities. The local government auditors, in the course of their annual audits of local authority accounts, assess the extent to which the reports' recommendations are implemented by local authorities.

The VFM publication which I recently issued aggregated ten separate reports in one comprehensive volume. This was the first time that such reports were made available to the general public. Since publication, a report on local authority stores has been completed and has been issued to all local authorities. Work is currently under way on studies in relation to water production, housing maintenance and debt collection. A study on refuse collection is also planned. I propose to publish these, and all future VFM reports, at regular intervals.

Value for money auditing is still a relatively new and developing initiative, introduced within the local government audit service only these years ago. It is an evolving process which may require adjustment or "fine-tuning" as it develops. The purpose of the VFM reports is to assist local authorities generally in achieving efficiency, effectiveness and economy in the provision of services, rather than to identify defects or inadequacies in the case of individual authorities; this latter is more approporiate to the normal audit report. I have no proposals, therefore, to specifically identify those local authorities who contributed to particular studies based, on returns from a sample of authorities, but the issue will be kept under review in the light of developments.