Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 29 November 2012
85. Deputy Jonathan O'Brien asked the Minister for Education and Skills the process whereby the contract for running the Student Universal Support Ireland was awarded; the criteria used to judge the submissions of applicants submission; the system used to award points or to adjudicate on each application and the bodies or person's who sat on the independent selection panel including its Chairperson. [53413/12]
View answer86. Deputy Jonathan O'Brien asked the Minister for Education and Skills the role he or his Department had in the selection of the successful application to administer Student Universal Support Ireland; when was the successful applicant chosen; when were they notified of their success and when were the unsuccessful applicants notified of their failure. [53414/12]
View answer87. Deputy Jonathan O'Brien asked the Minister for Education and Skills prior to the awarding of the contract to administer Student Universal Support Ireland to City of Dublin VEC, if any legislative changes were enacted by Dáil Éireann to allow CDVEC to access personal data and if so when and what were they. [53415/12]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 85 to 87, inclusive, together.
In January 2011, my Department issued an Expressions of Interest invitation to local authorities, VECs and other public bodies interested in taking on administrative responsibility for the centralised student grants awarding and payments function. The criteria used to evaluate the proposals were set out in the Expressions of Interest invitation and were as follows:
- Organisational capacity to perform the function-
- Experience in dealing with comparable schemes/services
- Existing core management, expertise and resources available to be deployed to the function
- Capacity to deliver strong cost and efficiency benefits
- Overall quality of the proposal for delivery of a central student grants function.
A total of 10 proposals were received. An independent selection panel met to evaluate and short-list the proposals for oral presentation on 4th March 2011. Those who did not make the short list were informed of the selection panel's decision on 4th March 2011 and an invitation issued on the same date to those who were short-listed to make an oral presentation.
Oral presentations were made to the selection panel by the four short-listed bodies on 31st March and 1st April 2011. Each proposal was ranked based on marks assigned under each of the evaluation criteria leading to the preferred proposal. Each of the bodies who made oral presentations on their proposals were informed of the selection panel's decision by letter on 11th April 2011. The selection panel recommended that CDVEC be designated as the single grant awarding authority on this basis. My Department acted as secretariat to the independent selection panel.
The composition of the independent selection panel was as follows:
1. Mr. Pat McLoughlin (Chair) - Chief Executive of the Irish Payment Services Organisation (former Chief Executive of the Eastern Health Board, chair of the Local Government Efficiency Review Group and a member of the Special Group on Public Service Numbers and Expenditure Programmes) 2. Mr. Jim Duffy - Former Assistant Secretary at the Department of Finance with responsibility for the Centre for Management and Organisation Development (CMOD) 3. Mr. Gerry Kearney - Former Secretary General of the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs.
The Student Support Act 2011 was signed into law in February 2011. Section 28 of the Act provides for the processing of personal data for relevant purposes related to student grant applications and covers all grant awarding authorities, including City of Dublin VEC.
