I propose to take Questions Nos. 135 and 136 together.
In 1999, the Secretary General in my Department assigned responsibilities to assistant secretaries, under section 9 of the Public Service Management Act, for overseeing the management of their divisions in line with the outputs specified in their business plans and the resources allocated to them or under their control. Under these assignments, assistant secretaries are responsible for advising on, monitoring and implementing policy, and overseeing the delivery of quality services in respect of their divisions.
The Secretary General subsequently assigned responsibility for financial management matters, as envisaged in section 9(1)(e) of the Act, to assistant secretaries and principal officers, in the context of further strengthening the internal financial control systems within the Department. Further assignments in regard to staff management matters, as envisaged in section 9(1)(f) of the Act, will be considered once legislation to amend the Civil Service Regulation Act 1956 has been enacted, at which time revisions to the original assignments are also planned to reflect changes in personnel and re-assignments of functions at assistant secretary level.
The assignment of functions under the Act forms part of more extensive management arrangements to support the discharge of the Department's business, including; preparation of the three-year strategy statement and annual progress reports; a programme of business planning reviews undertaken by the management advisory committee in respect of each division; target setting and annual review for each assistant secretary; and the performance management and development system, PMDS, under which responsibility for the delivery of the outputs in the business plans is assigned at individual and team level across all grades in the Department.
While the Department's strategy statements, which outline the objectives and strategies being pursued by the Department and the indicators against which progress will be measured, and annual reports, which report progress on the implementation of the strategy statements, are published, it has not been the practice to publish assignments of responsibility, divisional business plans or the role profiles of individual staff members.
In the normal course of discharge of the business of the Department, I, like my predecessors, delegate responsibilities to my Ministers of State and officials. Some of these are undertaken under implied delegation of authority, while others are delegated under, and in accordance with the provisions of, the relevant legislation, for example, under the Statistics Act, responsibility for the Central Statistics Office is delegated to the Government Chief Whip, under the Civil Service Regulation Act, responsibility for certain staff management matters is delegated to officials in the Department and so forth. Any question arising in regard to such implied delegation of authority is a matter for legal interpretation by the courts.
I believe that the above arrangements for the delegation and assignment of functions within my Department are the appropriate ones, having regard to its size and remit.