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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 25 Jan 2017

Vol. 936 No. 1

National Shared Services Office Bill 2016: Second Stage

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

This Bill is somewhat detailed and technical, but it is extremely important as it lays out the legislative basis for the establishment of the national shared services office, NSSO, as a separate Civil Service office under the aegis of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

I will give the background to the Bill and to the office of shared services. The office was established on an administrative basis in 2014. It is charged with leading the shared services strategy and the implementation of such projects and operations within the overall public service reform and renewal context across the Civil Service. Government investment in shared services has been significant, with €28.5 million capital funding provided to date, reflecting the importance of this as a cross-cutting transformation initiative under the public service reform programme of 2011.

It is of the greatest importance to me and the Government that our work has a positive impact on the public. I believe shared services in the Civil Service is doing just that, by creating one team which takes daily operational functions common to all Departments such as finance and human resources and transforming them through process standardisation, in other words, by seeking to come up with a common way of performing important actions that are performed tens of thousands of times per week or month across the Civil Service, and system consolidation in order that it is all done in one system or a smaller number of systems, with higher levels of automation and self-service. All of this is to allow Departments and civil servants to focus on their core business of providing better front-line services to citizens.

I have had the opportunity to visit the three main centres within which the shared services functions are located in Tullamore, Killarney and Clonskeagh. When one goes into these centres, one sees areas within these offices where all the pensions of those who used to work in the Civil Service are being paid or one sees salary queries for all of the Civil Service with a few exceptions - I hope we will be able to bring all organisations on board in 2017 and 2018 - being dealt with within one office. This delivers savings to the State and allows us to do important work better and more efficiently. This will, in time, allow more cost-effective custom solutions and will ensure we are not duplicating effort across Departments. It will lower the costs of technology and allow staff who are involved in this work to do important work more effectively and efficiently.

This a customer-focused organisation. The centres are staffed by civil servants who are becoming specialists in best-practice standards of non-core support services such as human resources and payroll. They operate a single standard way of working and they are able to contribute, and respond quickly, to the introduction of new policies, such as the recently introduced paternity leave scheme. Furthermore, because data is consolidated and held centrally and standardised, it creates better insights for policy makers and provides improved management information for decision making. When compared with international standards, and indeed when compared with standards in the private sector both in Ireland and abroad, the State has made significant progress in a relatively short timeframe in delivering a really ambitious plan. This is all a result of strong support from both the Government and senior managers and leaders within the Civil Service.

The rationale for this office is to consolidate shared services into one office with better focus on the customer and an improved service culture, and to have this separate to the broad-ranging policy making functions of my Department. Establishing the NSSO as a separate entity will enable my Department to move away from operational matters and prioritise expenditure and budgetary policy over shared services. However, the Bill is clear that I, in my capacity as Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, will retain the key supervisory role, empowering me to appoint and remove the chief executive, and allowing me, when necessary, to give direction to the office. Furthermore, the chief executive will be fully accountable to the Oireachtas, answering on service, quality, benefits and value for money.

Significant progress has already been made. The human resources and pensions administration shared services centre for the Civil Service has been in operation since March 2013. When the annual running costs are extracted, the saving in the cost of the delivery of transactional human resources was estimated at €3.7 million across the first three groups of Departments and offices that migrated to this new service. It now provides HR and pensions administration services for 34,500 public servants across 39 Departments and offices and employs over 300 staff.

The single payroll shared service centre, PSSC, for the Civil Service, which began operating in December 2013, now services 43 organisations and has 102,000 payees, including 57,000 retirees. Last year, the PSSC made over 2.7 million payments to the value of €3.24 billion. This figure is set to rise in the current year. The PSSC replaces 18 payroll centres that had different versions of payroll systems, which previously cost €21.4 million to provide payroll, pension, travel and subsistence payments. The business case estimates an annual cost when fully operational of nearly €16 million.

The development of a new finance technology solution for Government has also begun. The introduction of a single finance technology platform will replace 31 existing finance systems across Departments and offices and facilitate transaction processing in the financial management shared service centre. The centre which is scheduled to start providing financial management services in 2018 will use common technology and standardised procedures to deliver core financial management services to 48 identified Government organisations, all of which will be on board by 2020. It is expected to yield a sustainable reduction in the annual cost of finance of approximately €15.4 million through a reduction in the cost of support for finance technology and a reduction in the head count, equal to 145 full-time equivalents, required to provide financial management processing services. This will make a big contribution to fulfilling the dual mandate of managing expenditure and reforming the way in which we deliver services. It will deliver tangible improvements in the efficiency and effectiveness of the Government’s central finance function, which includes the processing of finance transactions such as payment of invoices, processing of receipts, fixed asset accounting, as well as the general ledger and appropriation accounts which are audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

Research shows that service delivery and high quality customer services are most effective where implementation is separate from policy making. For greater effectiveness, the NSSO requires the flexibility to respond quickly to operational matters. This is not always possible within an environment of measured pace and focus on policy making, as within the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. Added to that, the demand on my Department from the NSSO is significant. In 2017, with an estimated 780 staff, the NSSO will have twice the manpower of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. Creating the NSSO as a separate office also provides for the independence of shared service governance. It ensures clear accountability structures delivered through individual service agreements with public service bodies, which specify the terms and conditions upon which services are to be provided. Further to this, and in anticipation of the enactment of the Bill, the NSSO is formalising and modifying its current governance arrangements with the establishment of the NSSO board, as provided for in the Bill. A separate customer services group will be also established to oversee shared services performance across the service management framework.

Turning to the Bill, the legislation provides for the office to carry out corporate administrative functions on behalf of a public service body. The legislation will specify the chief executive officer of the NSSO as Accounting Officer. The NSSO board, which will have an advisory remit, is also provided for in the legislation. The Bill is set out in five Parts.

Part 2 allows for the practical structures in the establishment of the national shared services office. It confers on the office all such powers that are necessary in the performance of its functions.

Part 3 is concerned with the establishment, membership and functions of the board.

Parts 4 and 5 contain technical provisions dealing with transitional arrangements, and consequential and miscellaneous provisions.

I look forward to hearing the contributions from Members. It always has been envisaged that the NSSO would become independent in the delivery of its functions. Shared services is the biggest cross-Government change the Civil Service has experienced. I acknowledge that this type of project is not without risk. The statutory establishment of the NSSO will help us to meet the requirements of international best practice in this area. These requirements include clear accountability arrangements, clear funding arrangements, an appropriate degree of operational autonomy and a strong focus on the customer. I am sure the House will find that, with five shared service centres operational across the breadth of Government and others planned in the next few years, Ireland has an ambitious plan for investment in shared services.

I acknowledge the guidance, support and direction from the members of the shared services steering board and programme boards to the NSSO. Their sponsorship and work have been instrumental in assisting the delivery of this ambitious programme of work and bringing it to this point. I commend the Bill to the House.

Deputy Dara Calleary is sharing time with Deputy Sean Fleming.

I welcome the Bill. Fianna Fáil will be supporting this Bill, which provides for the establishment of the national shared services office on a statutory basis. The office currently exists on an administrative basis within the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

Shared services is the provision of common corporate services to a number of organisations by an independent service provider that previously were carried out by each organisation separately. It reduces the duplication of effort by consolidating transactional functions, such as finance, payroll and human resources, and ICT to enable quicker access to data and improved data quality through increased standardisation, specialisation, automation and control. As both private and public sector experiences internationally illustrate, the value of shared services include: direct cost savings and efficiency; the provision of better management information to enhance decision making; and, most importantly, the freeing up of senior management resources to focus on policy development and service delivery. However, any Bill presented by this Government to establish another quango brings to mind the promises made by the parties in the general election campaign in 2011, when they effectively promised a bonfire of quangos. Now, a new agency is being established to do this important work. Second, listening to the Minister's remarks one would think nothing had been done about shared services prior to 2013. The centres the Minister mentioned, particularly Killarney and Tullamore, were established in 2008 and 2009, and a considerable amount of work was under way towards achieving this aim prior to 2011.

There are a number of concerns that must be dealt with. I welcome some of the provisions in the legislation, although we will discuss them further on Committee Stage. In recent years we have seen a constant pattern, not so much in the public service but in private sector pay delivery, of payment failures by either banks or the paying agency. We must ensure that in combining all the services in shared services, particularly with regard to payment, it has the best quality information technology to ensure people are paid on time and when they are expected to be paid. They cannot be left short of their wages because of a shared services collapse. It is important that the investment in facilities and services continues to be as reliable as it is today for the public service, and that the creation of one agency does not result in a focus on costs at the cost of delivery.

Second, shared services and the information they provide should be used to enhance the public and civil service. This should not be used to drive a procurement policy that shies away from supporting local business. Procurement and procurement savings are important, but until we use procurement as a tool for job maintenance and job creation for SMEs and local suppliers, we will not use it most effectively. The use of shared services information to drive a procurement policy that is in favour of big suppliers would be wrong and would go against a proper and socially responsible procurement policy.

We must also ensure that, in taking down the silos between back office functions within Departments, we direct that culture to service delivery functions. The Minister will be used to hearing me say that. It is a sentiment he shares. It is ridiculous to have different policies in so many areas, involving the journeys of so many citizens, from Departments that contradict each other. The Department of Health will always contradict the Department of Education and Skills, which, in turn, will contradict the Department of Health. The silo nature of Government must be broken down in the services and delivery of services for children with additional needs and in many other areas. We must put our citizens and their needs first, and ease the difficult journeys in life of citizens who face challenges for which they are not responsible. The silo nature should be broken down not just behind the office but also at the front of the office.

In providing shared services for civil and public servants, we must also provide shared and cohesive services for the people who use those services.

I want to ensure there is accountability from the organisation directly to the Oireachtas. I welcome the Minister's commitment to do that. We cannot have a situation in which when public representatives here in the Oireachtas or at local level try to get information on behalf of those we serve, we are blocked by reason of data control or the agency not being answerable to the Oireachtas. That day has to go. Every Government agency in receipt of funding, particularly an agency that is twice the size of the Minister's Department, must be answerable to the Oireachtas and its Members, regardless of who is in government.

With those reservations and remarks, we are happy to support the Bill. We will work through Committee Stage to enhance and strengthen the safety around the Bill. Shared services and the provision of salary and pension payments in particular are a very serious operation and cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of those who want to deliver them on a "yellow pack" basis or on the basis of any less value. We must ensure the establishment of the authority does not, knowingly or unknowingly, allow for that to happen.

As Deputy Dara Calleary indicated, we agree with the Bill in principle and will support anything needed to improve services and efficiencies across the public service and the Civil Service, in particular. It goes without saying we will have a detailed discussion on Committee Stage, when the points my colleague has mentioned will be teased out in detail. It is important that the Minister be open to any practical, sensible amendments made during the course of the passage of the legislation through the Oireachtas.

I will tease out some issues, although the Minister may not get an opportunity to answer before the Second Stage debate is completed. If he has answers by the time we reach Committee Stage, it will be adequate. We would like to see a detailed financial plan for the office to give us an indication of the break-even period. We have had various discussions about the shared payroll service that exists in the public service. During the first few years, there was quite an amount of up-front investment in capital, staff, training, building and equipment for a number of years. Savings will occur in Departments as time goes on once the functions transfer. How long will it take the service to break even? While it is fine to say it will save money, will it be after two, three, four, five or six years? People are entitled to know this level of detail in order that we can examine it from a business case point of view.

We will need to see the details of the cost savings in terms of staff. If the work is being done centrally, it means it is not being carried out in the individual Departments and, by definition, the staff who carried out the work in the individual Departments will be free for redeployment. In the Minister's opening statement, he said it would lead to a reduction in headcount - I do not like that phrase when we are talking about public servants - of 145. Does the Minister mean there will be a reduction in public service numbers or that 145 people will be free to improve the quality of service in their parent Departments? This needs to be clarified. Many public service bodies could do with an improvement in service, given the reduction in staff numbers during recent years.

One of my concerns about going down this road is that when everything is centralised there will be a temptation for some future Minister to outsource it all in one go to the private sector. The Minister will have to give a commitment on this. In commercial sectors, we see that major institutions outsource many of their back office procedures to the private sector. When it is all consolidated in one spot, it is very easy to outsource it. While I know this is not the Minister's intention at this stage and I do not see it happening in the immediate future, it would make it very easy for it to happen down the road. The Government could contract some of it out, then more of it and, suddenly, the office is just a procurement service for outsourcing services. We must guard against this and ensure there is something in the legislation to deal with it.

On the one hand, the Minister told us it would be independent, while, on the other, he said he would have a supervisory role. Next, he will tell us there will be a board over it, and then he will tell us he will be able to hire and fire the chief executive. I am not sure whether it is independent. I would favour not complete independence, given that we live in a democracy and people should be answerable to the Oireachtas, to which people are elected to represent the public. On the question of accountability, will the Minister specify whether it will be an Accounting Officer, a chief executive or an accountable officer. "Accountable officer" is a new phrase coming into the public service, which refers to a person who is not quite an Accounting Officer but who is wheeled out to answer questions or, sometimes, not answer questions, as the case may be.

Will there be a board? Who will appoint the board? Will it go through the Public Appointments Service? Will the board appoint the chief executive, or will be Minister do it? There is a detailed section on accountability to the Oireachtas and I want the Minister to make it very clear. There will be a section in the legislation saying the chief executive will be accountable to an Oireachtas committee, as the case may be. However, this will mean there will be no accountability by way of parliamentary question. We went through this debacle with Irish Water. It was said that it would be answerable to the Oireachtas. However, once it was up and running it was not really answerable and did not answer parliamentary questions. The Health Service Executive does not answer any parliamentary questions asked here. If we put down a parliamentary question, the Minister passes it on to the parliamentary affairs division of the HSE to reply directly to the Deputy. By taking this route, the accountability to the Oireachtas is broken.

It is important that whoever is accountable from the new organisation be accountable to the line committee of the Minister's Department and, separately, to the Committee of Public Accounts. All these public bodies that are fully publicly funded for public services should be accountable to the Committee of Public Accounts. They should be separately accountable, regarding their operations, policy and procedures, to the direct line committee. It would not be right if the Oireachtas Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform had no access to it, if it were confined to the Committee of Public Accounts, or vice versa. It is important that we achieve this.

Under the Minister's Department there is the Office of Government Procurement. Will the new office link in with this office in due course or will there be two separate quangos? In a way, they are different aspects of it, however there are probably similarities in what the Minister is trying to achieve, namely savings across Departments, co-ordination of knowledge and information and better value for money for the Irish taxpayer. Is it planned that these would merge somewhere down the road or is it an issue for another day?

We have mentioned the facility in Clonskeagh, PeoplePoint, and the payroll shared service. So far, this affects only the Civil Service, and the line Departments which include 30,000 to 40,000 people. The local authorities have been using shared services for quite some time. A particular expertise has been built up in County Laois through Laois County Council, which handles the MyPay system for all the local authorities through the service that is managed by the Laois county manager. Approximately 70 staff there are managing the payroll and in the next month or two, the last of all the local authorities in Ireland will have transferred their payroll processing functions, including superannuation, to Portlaoise. This can be extended further to HR and other issues as time goes on. Will this link in with the office? Where does the NSSO brief begin and end? Will it extend to the public service? I do not think the Minister is dealing with the Civil Service in isolation.

I am concerned when I see the NSSO dealing in the Civil Service and, probably, extending into the public service. Will it ultimately take control of the shared services in the local authorities? I would like assurances, from a Laois perspective. The Government has invested heavily in a system which is working exceptionally well in Portlaoise and is an example of how the new office should operate. The numbers in the local authority are equal to the Civil Service. I would not like the NSSO to take over the work being carried out in Portlaoise under the jurisdiction of the Laois chief executive.

He wants it to be decentralised to Portlaoise.

We would be happy for some additional work from the National Shared Services Office, NSSO, to be carried out in Portlaoise and see if it would operate effectively. It would be terrible for the autonomy of local government if shared service work at local government level was to be taken over by the NSSO. Local authorities have taken the lead when it comes to shared services in areas such as waste management and the processing of permits and housing loan applications. I would not like to see this work subsumed into a national office under the supervision of a Minister and removed from the local authority structure. I would like to see a commitment given on that issue before the legislation is passed.

The principle and the idea behind the Bill are good. However, there are several matters of concern. We need to see a timetable for when it is proposed to break even. What will happen to the staff who will no longer be required? Will they be redeployed for good effort rather than reducing the headcount? Now that the work will all be captured in the one office, we want to put measures in place to ensure it will not be contracted out to the private sector at the expense of a good public service which has been doing the job up to now, but perhaps this might be a more efficient way. Will the Minister address these concerns on Committee Stage?

I understand Deputy David Cullinane is sharing time with Deputy Carol Nolan.

I commend the Bill to which Sinn Féin gives qualified support. It will be supporting its passage to Committee Stage. There has been little public commentary on the Bill since it was first announced by the previous Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin, in January 2016. This always gives cause for concern, especially when dealing with a Bill which potentially has significant implications for the operation of several services across Departments and public bodies. On the face of it, it seems benign. In policy terms, its context is the reform of the public sector and who could be opposed to reform of the public sector? The objective stated in the action plan for public sector reform is “to continue to envision, launch, grow and transform public value through shared services programme”. How can anyone be against a plan which sets out to grow and transform public value? Of course, we would support such a move. I welcome this and any measure which will bring clarity to employment levels in the public service, as well as wage levels.

When I was appointed Sinn Féin spokesperson on public expenditure and reform, I met the Minister in the first week. At that meeting I asked him if he could assist me in getting costings for returning the public service to a single tier pay structure. He helpfully set up a meeting for me with the Secretary General of his Department who was able to provide me with the costings for restoring allowances. However, he was unable to provide me with costings for returning to a single tier pay structure. He then referred me to several officials in his Department whom I met in my office and who were also unable to provide the information. They said it was because different Departments operated different payroll systems and were unable to obtain the data which would enable them to provide the answers to my questions. The answers were important because they had an impact on policy. We wanted to know how much it would cost to return all those on 1 January 2011 who were stuck in a two tier parallel pay structure back to a single tier pay structure. However, it simply could not be done and to this day we have been unable to get the costings. If shared services were able to deal with these issues and enable Departments to get data because we had simplified shared systems, we would be supportive of it.

I recognise that having shared services does not mean a concentration of services in one office, but it does fall into the overall principle of improved analysis and service. Deputy Dara Calleary referred to Departments operating in silos, of which we all have experience. We often hear phrases trotted out such as “cross-cutting” and “interdepartmental” which are often just a cover for the fact that Departments are operating in silos in shared services and policy terms. I agree that it is important that we move away from the silo mentality to a much greater sharing of services to achieve efficiencies.

International studies tend to show there are five attributes of shared services. They comprise distinct governance, namely, a distinct organisational structure with a dedicated management team delivering the operational aspects of corporate services for one or more organisations; standard processes, namely, processes are standardised and streamlined; economies of scale, namely, scale is achieved through combining processes previously executed independently; customer driven, namely, that a culture of service delivery is ingrained within the shared services centre. They also mean that resources are committed to key account management, monitoring key performance indicators and the achievement of service-level agreements. There is also continuous process improvement, with dedicated project teams managing process change to drive improvements in both efficiency and levels of service. These are all fine objectives and hard to argue against, especially in a large public service which covers different Departments and large expenditure which could potentially lead to duplication.

As the Bill is from the previous Administration, however, we should not take everything at face value. On the proposed office, its function is to enter into contracts for the procurement of goods and services required for the provision of shared services. The Government intends to give the office “all such powers as are necessary or expedient for the performance of its functions” and that “the office shall be independent in the performance of its functions”. The Bill will allow the shared services office to enter into agreements with public service bodies and draw up the terms and conditions on which shared services are to be provided for these bodies. It will make payments to and communicate with persons on behalf of public service bodies for the purposes of providing shared services. It will receive and process personal data provided for it by public service bodies for the purpose of carrying out its functions. It will develop and implement policies on the manner in which shared services are to be provided. It will provide guidance, where appropriate, in the public sector on the provision of services comparable to shared services. That is quite the transfer of power to an independent body.

What does the Bill mean by a shared service? It states:

“Shared services” means common or combined services provided to more than one public service body, the provision of which (to the public service bodies concerned) enables, assists or facilitates the carrying out of any administrative task or process necessary for or incidental to the performance of a function, specified in Schedule 2, of those public service bodies.

The areas of responsibility which will be transferred cover employment contracts, wages, pensions and financial accounts. The office will cover 40 public bodies, including An Garda Síochána, the Houses of the Oireachtas, the Courts Service, the Office of the President, the Revenue Commissioners, the Defence Forces, the Road Safety Authority, the State Laboratory and the State Examinations Commission. That means that a lot of sensitive data will be put out to tender. This has to be a concern, especially the information on personnel within the legal and judicial system.

It is worth noting that the public service managerial concept of the shared service office is relatively new. It began in the 1980s in the private sector and crept its way into the public sector from the mid-1990s onwards under the banners of innovation, transformation and efficiency. A 2013 International Centre for Local and Regional Development, ICLRD, report stated, "Shared services working together for the common good have found that shared services offices do not always realise the planned benefits in terms of costs and efficiencies".

These studies have found issues such as higher costs, loss of focus on quality, problems associated with the use of technology and staff reductions, with a corresponding drop in public service standards.

The report also highlights the areas of interest for Governments in terms of where a shared service office can go once it is up and running. To date, shared services in the State have tended to focus on administrative services but that can change. In its 2013 report, the ICLRD wrote the following about the State:

With the emphasis on ‘back-office’ shared services to date, much of the collaborative working across central and local government has been in the spheres of Human Resources (HR), finance, procurement and ICT. The growing interest in exploring the options for a shored services agenda within front-line services is resulting in other services coming into play. There are a growing number of instances where local and regional authorities are pooling or sharing service provision in areas such as emergency services, health administration and inspection, water and waste-water, tourism and area promotion.

It went on to say:

Similarly, as part of the ICLRD Executive Training Programme (in 2011) with the ten Councils that make up the Irish Central Border Area Network (ICBAN), a working group was established on shared services. This was made up of senior management within local government, representing both jurisdictions on the island of Ireland - including Chief Executives, County Managers and Directors of Service. This group identified potential areas where shared services may be feasible; these included: emergency services/planning; training and capacity building; arts, heritage and culture; recreation services; and environmental and technical services.

What we have here is a high-level group being set up in 2011 to discuss the roll-out of a shared services programme in the State that will focus on back-room operations at first, as the Bill before us does, before eventually moving on to front-line services, including emergency services, tourism, health inspection and administration. As to where the Bill will lead us, we are not yet sure for certain, but we can clearly see that it lays down a structure that could easily allow for a more comprehensive and wide-ranging roll-out of shared services under the administration of this new office. There is no doubt in my mind that the ambitions of the Fine Gael Government, the Fine Gael Party and the Minister's Department do not end with the back-room operations presented in Schedule 2 to the Bill. This becomes clear when we look at the checks and balances or lack thereof.

In terms of oversight, the Bill allows the Minister to "give general directions in writing to the Office for any purpose in relation to the functions of the Office under this Act or for any other purpose in relation to the provisions of this Act, or any other enactment". I have a concern with the phrase "general directions". We know from the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, and the Department of Finance that the term "general directions" is interpreted by the State as meaning, in effect, no direction. This is a hands-off approach where the board members of the shared services office will be given potentially free rein to implement policy as they see fit, with strategies drawn and put into place that involve public money but not public oversight. The board will be able to hire consultants and advisers as it sees fit. We know from past experience that they can very easily turn into a gravy train for private companies. There is no provision for a fee cap for consultants in the shared services office. Perhaps the Minister will elaborate on that. The board will be given a statutory power to pay consultants whatever it likes. The Bill states: "Any fees payable to a consultant or adviser shall, having regard to guidelines issued from time to time by the Minister, be paid by the Office out of moneys at its disposal". Guidelines, as with general directions, are nothing when compared to the statutory powers of a board. Here, as with NAMA and Irish Water, to name but two, the board will triumph.

That leads us to another issue. The shared services office will be set up as a stand-alone company. The practice and precedent under Irish law is that when a public company has both a social and a commercial remit, the commercial side wins through. Even if the policy and direction of the shared services office ends up having negative social effects, it will not be taken into account as much as the narrow balance sheet view of the commercial side. This is the case with NAMA as well as Irish Water, which are both registered as stand-alone companies. Even as NAMA sits on unused rezoned land across the State and in doing so causes social damage to the tune of hundreds of millions of euro, as long as the board, in its wisdom, believes its commercial side is serviced by land hoarding, then as far as the State is concerned, the hoarding is justified. This is the type of logic that has been written into the National Shared Services Office Bill.

We have a Bill before us that is focused on establishing an independent office, which in the Irish State means little to no real public oversight. That has been people's experience of many of these so-called independent offices. It will be mandated to facilitate the contracting of shared services around traditional back-room operations such as salaries, pensions, and financial accounts. Once it is up and running, it could easily see itself dealing with more so-called front-line operations and moving into areas such as emergency services, health administration and inspection, water and wastewater, tourism and area promotion.

We are giving the Bill a cautious welcome and are taking a wait-and-see approach. We will be supporting the Bill and its passage through Second Stage. I look forward to the Minister's response to my contribution.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCeann Comhairle as ucht na deise labhairt ar an mBille seo anocht. As my colleague, Deputy Cullinane, has outlined, we are giving qualified support to the Bill. We have some concerns, which Deputy Cullinane has outlined. In terms of education, there are benefits associated with the notion of shared services. It has relevance to the education sector. The education and local government sectors represent more than 40% of the Irish public service. Sinn Féin supports any measures that will increase efficiency and reduce waste in public services. There are many examples of areas where increased shared services would be of significant benefit in the education sector. In particular, areas such as the roll-out of broadband ICT and the digital strategy for schools have all benefitted from shared services initiatives. There is also scope to develop enhanced shared services in areas such as further education and training, which is managed between the State agency, SOLAS, in partnership with 16 education and training boards. It is my view that the greater sharing of information and data between Departments and agencies in the education sector would potentially ease the administrative burden and inform more effective policy decisions. For example, areas such as school transport, admissions and capital planning could all benefit from more comprehensive data sharing between schools and the Department on projected student numbers. However, there are a number of concerns about the Bill. There is a genuine fear that the Bill could pave the way for further outsourcing of elements of the public service to external bodies, raising potential issues with regard to the rights of workers and also with respect to data protection and confidentiality.

The definition of a shared service within the context of the Bill is quite broad and leaves significant scope for the Minister and the national shared services office to determine the range of goods and services that will fall within the remit of the Bill. This would need to be clarified on Committee Stage. There is also a clear need to ensure there is strong accountability of the office to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and to the finance committee. This needs to be strengthened on Committee Stage.

Overall, I welcome the stated purpose of the Bill to improve efficiencies and look forward to working with my colleagues, particularly Deputy Cullinane, as the Bill proceeds to Committee Stage to ensure outstanding concerns are addressed.

I thank all Deputies for the contributions they have made. I thank Deputies Calleary, Fleming, Cullinane and Nolan for their contributions. In the time that is open to me, I will touch on some of the main themes that were raised.

The Minister has 30 minutes.

Perhaps I will cover all the points that have been raised. Committee Stage is coming up and I will be able to do it in a little more detail then. I will touch on some of the broad points made by Deputies and give a response to them. We can work through each of these points in more detail on Committee Stage. I thank colleagues for the support offered to the Bill. That support is qualified because Deputies want to understand details of the legislation and quiz me about the implementation of policy. Nonetheless, all of the Deputies who have spoken can see the benefits this approach can offer.

I welcome and acknowledge this. Although I know Deputies are very busy, if any of them would like to visit these centres and see the work that goes on, I believe they would find it very helpful. If Deputy Calleary or any of the Deputies were to agree to do that, I might visit Portlaoise with Deputy Fleming and to see what is under way there.

Some common themes emerged from the different points raised by speakers. The first was the concern in regard to what is the reach and growth potential of this organisation. The concern was that if we are looking to integrate functions of up to 40 organisations by 2017, it will be difficult to avoid having one massive organisation that is not accountable to the Oireachtas or a Department. Thatr is why the lines of reporting are very clear in the Bill. It will report to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and it will then be open to the Oireachtas committee that shadows my Department and the Committee of Public Accounts to raise questions in regard to its operation.

The second theme that emerged was in regard to procurement. I have no plans, nor is my Department developing plans, to merge this organisation with the Office for Government Procurement. We see them as having different functions and doing different pieces of work. The sole role of this significant organisation will be to administer the different support services that are important to civil and public servants. A phrase that was used with me in my visits to different offices was that the organisation wants to get to a point where, from the moment somebody joins the public service to the moment they stop being a retiree, all the services are available to them from a single organisation. Whether it is in regard to being paid, the management of human resources files, applying for leave, retiring or being paid in retirement, the idea is that, from the cradle to grave, all those services will be provided by a single organisation. Of course, we are trying to do all this in a better and more effective way. Deputy Fleming touched on the point that, within local authorities, much of these services have been brought within one local authority and it has worked well there. The opportunity for efficiencies across so many other agencies is very significant and that is the role of this organisation.

The third common point put to me was in regard to whether there was an agenda to outsource this work. I have no such agenda and, again, my Department is not developing such an agenda. I struggle to see the merit or benefit it would deliver. If we are going to all this effort to put together an organisation which has all the expertise located within it and which can do the work more efficiently on its own than can be done by 40 organisations, I find it difficult to see how any private sector entity would be able to match that. That is my view and that of the Government. Of course, this is a matter that will be raised with me as the Bill moves through the House.

The issue of data safety and integrity was specifically raised by Deputy Cullinane, who said he did not want us to get to a point where data is going out to tender. That is the last thing we are looking to achieve. Deputy Calleary spoke about trying to avoid services being provided on a yellow pack basis, as he put it. What we want is to be in a situation where a significant amount of information in regard to everybody who has worked, or is working, for the State is kept centrally and all the services to underpin that are run by one organisation. I believe we will be better able to address concerns in regard to data integrity if it is managed by one group. With regard to efficiency and quality of service, I again refer to the point made by Deputy Calleary. We should be able to manage the process better if it is run by a single organisation.

The final common point that emerged was in regard to accountability. Again, the Bill makes very clear that the organisation will be accountable to the Oireachtas through the Oireachtas committee and, from a Government point of view, it will continue to report directly to me, as Minister, and my Department.

I have touched on the common themes that were raised by Deputies and I want to move to some of the more detailed points. Deputy Calleary raised an issue in regard to procurement and job creation. I hope I have clarified that it is not the aim to merge the organisation into the Office of Government Procurement and that they will be separate organisations doing separate work.

Deputy Fleming raised the issue of headcount. In my opening speech, I tried to make clear, and I will clarify again, that the objective is to ensure staff who would have been doing this work are redeployed to provide work that is central to the Department within which they are located, as opposed to providing operational support to people who are inside a Department. The Deputy referred to the local authorities. At this point, the office has no plans to go into the work local authorities are doing in regard to human resources. I can offer further clarity on that as the Bill goes through Committee Stage. The Deputy also raised the issue of contracting out, which I dealt with earlier.

Deputy Cullinane raised the issue of data integrity and I hope I have dealt with it. He also went through the broad policy background to shared services and I agree with much of what he said. He further asked, given we are starting with a shared services approach to back office operations, what are the frontiers of my ambition. For example, he referred to the NSSO being involved in the delivery of emergency services. I can assure the Deputy we have no plans to go into that terrain and that what we are talking about is support services in regard to human resources. Deputy Cullinane also referred to the processing of permits and, again, this is not an area we aim to see the NSSO go into. I suggest to the Deputy that if we had an agenda to go into those kinds of policy areas, we would not be putting the organisation on a statutory footing because, if we were then looking to radically expand the kind of services the NSSO delivered, we would need to change primary legislation in order to do it. It is because we are very clear on the kind of services this organisation is going to provide that we want to put it on a statutory footing.

Deputy Nolan referred to the benefits she has seen within education. I agree with that point and hope we can see that approach shared elsewhere. She also made a point about the benefits that could be gained through the greater sharing of information and data. She is right that this will not be a benefit the organisation will deliver in the early part of its existence because the work involved in administering these services is very large. However, from my visits to the different centres, two things became very apparent to me. The first is that the people involved in leading these centres have gained a huge amount of experience about how we can better set policy.

The roll-out of the new paternity leave is a good example in this regard. When the paternity leave offer was made available to public servants, because we had received more feedback and information regarding how we can make leave arrangements work better, we were able to implement that policy more swiftly. Similarly, when we get into areas such as the implementation of parts of the Haddington Road and Lansdowne Road agreements, more expertise is being developed on how we implement policies. This is the very reason I want to ensure this organisation continues to have a firm relationship with my Department in order that we do not lose sight of that kind of learning and information.

I visited Clonskeagh on Monday. One of the team leaders involved in overseeing a particular area talked to me about the need to better operationalise policy. What the team leader was referring to was that when we make changes regarding public policy and implement reform measures, we must be more aware of how we can make them happen. That is what this service centre will be able to offer. Furthermore, we will begin to generate large amounts of information regarding what goes on in transactions within our public service. Extraordinary work is going on now in big data, a sphere in which Ireland is doing very well within Government through our open Government partnership whereby we publish whole data sets on different policy areas. This type of approach can be used to look at all the information we will build up on the operation of transactions within the public service and Civil Service. This might well yield policy insights and learnings that we do not have at the moment. As I said, I do not think this will happen in the early years of the operation of this organisation, but perhaps in a few years' time it will yield some rich insights into the ways in which many hundreds and thousands of people within the State live, receive payments and undertake transactions.

Again, I thank the House for the qualified support that has been offered to the Bill. I have tried to cover all the different issues that have been raised, but I will do so in more detail as the Bill moves to Committee Stage.

Question put and agreed to.
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