Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 22 September 2015
467. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the annual cost to his Department of fees paid to private for-profit companies to provide services, such as consultancy work, recruitment services and other outsourced services, for example cleaning, catering and so on; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32717/15]
View answerEvery effort is made by the Department at all times to ensure that value for money is derived from all elements of the exchequer provision made to the Department's Vote. Over the period since 2011 the Department has delivered on each annual current expenditure target set by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform.
In relation to the Department's Administrative budget which is directly relevant to the areas raised in the Deputy’s question, essentially there has been an annual 5% reduction achieved each year over the 2011 to 2014 period inclusive. Given the level of reforms delivered by my Department over that period allied to changes to the structure of the Department's Vote, which includes transfers of certain functions in and out of the Department, it is not possible to provide a like-for-like comparison between 2011 and 2015.
In 2014, the Department expended €1.07 million on consultancy, value for money and policy reviews. The majority of this consultancy and policy reviews relate to areas of work previously undertaken by Forfás. This work, which is now undertaken by the Strategic Policy Division of the Department in conjunction with external providers, was integrated into the Department upon dissolution of Forfás during 2014. The 2015 expenditure on these categories to the end of August was €543,000.
In relation to outsourced information and communications technology (ICT) supports, the Department expended €1.37 million in 2014. This expenditure spanned across areas such as software supports, IT consultancy, website maintenance and the provision of helpdesk services. An amount of € 734,000 has been expended in outsourced ICT supports to the end of August 2015.
Costs incurred by the Department in relation to other outsourced costs covering cleaning, catering, off-site file storage, translation services, furniture removals and the use of couriers amounted to €260,550 in 2014. An amount of €188,080 had been expended across these categories of expenditure by the end of August 2015.
