My Department carries out Value for Money and Policy Reviews on major spending programmes in line with the strategic management initiative in order to: assess the objectives, efficiency and effectiveness of the programmes and to identify mechanisms to improve the delivery of specific programmes; and identify indicators which will improve monitoring of the performance of the programmes and of the success in meeting their objectives.
A review of the Food Institutional Research Measure, my Department's public good food research measure, has been carried out and the independent evaluation of the draft report, which is required under the expenditure review process, was recently completed. It is expected that the report will be signed off and published in the new year. Consideration will then be given to implementation of any recommendations in the report. It is not appropriate at this stage to comment on potential savings that may result from the review.