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Departmental Reviews.

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 11 February 2004

Wednesday, 11 February 2004

Questions (71)

Pádraic McCormack

Question:

126 Mr. McCormack asked the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the number of payments under review in her Department; when the reviews started; their aims; and the costs associated with same. [4005/04]

View answer

Written answers

My Department has undertaken a range of programme expenditure reviews under the expenditure review initiative in 1997 which was launched in 1997 to provide a systematic analysis of expenditure and a basis for informed decision making on expenditure priorities. Details of these are in the table which will be circulated with the Official Report.

The reviews are carried out by working groups comprising staff from the relevant areas and with representation by the Department of Finance and other Departments or agencies, as appropriate. The expenditure review process generally is overseen by a central steering committee, chaired by the Department of Finance. There are currently five expenditure programme reviews under way in my Department.

A review of the back to school clothing and footwear allowance is being finalised at present and is due to be submitted to the departmental steering group shortly. An interim report of a review of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme is also due to be submitted in the near future. Reviews of the back to education allowance scheme and of certain aspects of the unemployment payment schemes should be available for consideration by the departmental steering group later this year. Finally, the second phase of review of the qualifying conditions for contributory pensions is scheduled to be completed by the middle of this year.

The aims of the reviews are in line with the objectives of the overall expenditure review initiative in the Civil Service, that is to provide a systematic analysis of what is actually being achieved by expenditure in each programme and to provide a basis on which more informed decisions can be made on priorities within and between expenditure programmes.

The expenditure review process is usually carried out in-house as part of the normal work of my Department. On occasion, it may be is necessary to engage outside assistance to assist in a specific aspect of a review. This was the case in the back to education allowance review in which consultants were engaged to carry out a survey of participants in the scheme in December 2003, at a cost €22,000. In addition, all reviews commenced since 2003 are subject to an external quality assessment by a review expert from a panel of experts established for this purpose. Expertise from this panel may also be engaged to provide advice during the course of a review. An expert from the panel has been engaged to provide assistance in the reviews above at a cost of €7,800.

Question No. 127 answered with QuestionNo. 111.
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