Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 6 May 2004
203 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the number of State contracts, projects or procurements in respect of which cost overruns have occurred in the past five years; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13241/04]
View answerMy Department enters into, on average, 36 contracts for procurements of services and supplies annually. My Department's policy is that all procurement is carried out in strict adherence to relevant legislation and that resulting contracts are drawn up on a fixed price basis. This facilitates best value in terms of cost, and also enables a degree of predictability on project budgets.
There are well-established project management processes in place within my Department for managing and monitoring the progress and cost of all projects. One of the objectives of these project management processes is to detect and provide indications, as far in advance as possible, of upcoming circumstances or contingencies which may necessitate changes to project timescales or resources. The application of the project management process enables such changes to be flagged, and their effects on projects managed, in a controlled manner. These processes are constantly being refined and new structures put in place as experiences encountered during the currency of projects demand.
In the past five years, cost overruns were incurred by my Department in three projects. The reason for each of these overruns was specific to the individual project concerned and their effects were managed within the project management process I have described above.
