Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 20 May 2004
240 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the composition of the management advisory committee of her Department; the number of times it has met since its formation; the number of times she has attended it in person; and the issues it has considered. [14988/04]
View answerThe management advisory committee of my Department at present comprises the Secretary General, the director general of social welfare services, which is the service delivery arm of the Department, five people at assistant secretary general level and four at director level.
I regularly attend meetings of the committee. I have chaired the committee's meetings on 18 occasions since my appointment as Minister for Social and Family Affairs in June 2002 and there have been 53 meetings in all during that period.
A management advisory committee has been in place in the Department for many years, but exact records of the number of committee meetings since its original inception are not available. The committee met on 15 occasions between June and December 2002, on 27 occasions in 2003 and on 11 occasions to date in 2004.
The committee discusses a range of issues relating to the management of the Department, including in particular: delivery of the Department's strategic priorities as outlined in the Department's statement of strategy and other related strategies; monitoring the quality of delivery of services for which this Department is responsible; ongoing financial management and budgetary issues; implementation of the Department's modernisation action plan under the Sustaining Progress agreement and ongoing change projects in which the Department is involved; and other relevant issues concerning the Department which arise from time to time.
There are also a number of sub-committees of the management committee which address specific issues relating to the policy, financial, human resource management, operational and risk management and eGovernment agendas affecting the Department.
