Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 27 June 2023
36. Deputy Robert Troy asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform his plans to review existing legislation in relation to the responsibilities of senior public servants to ensure greater transparency and accountability. [30961/23]
View answerI understand that the Deputy is referring to the Public Service Management Act 1997 ("the PSMA"). This Act was introduced to provide a statutory underpinning for the Strategic Management Initiative. It provided for a new management structure for the Civil Service to enhance the management, effectiveness and transparency of the operations of Departments of State and certain other offices of the Civil Service.
One of the key transparency and accountability measures in the PSMA is the requirement that every Secretary General must prepare and submit a statement of strategy in respect of their Department to the Minister of said Department within 6 months of the appointment of a new Minister and at the expiration of the three year period since the last statement was prepared and submitted.
Strategy statements must set out the key objectives, outputs and related strategies of the Department concerned. All strategy statements are published and laid before the Oireachtas. Secretaries General are also required to provide and publish annual progress reports to their Ministers on the implementation of the strategy statement.
There has been no formal review of the PSMA since it came into force. It is clear, however, that the Act has, to a large extent, delivered on its intended purpose, which was to create greater openness and transparency as to the objectives of each Government Department and how they are performing in delivering on those objectives.
The PSMA must also be viewed in the context of the wider suite of accountability and transparency measures in the Civil and Public Service taken at the same time and in the years since its enactment. This includes all of the legislation in the areas of Freedom of Information, Ethics in Public Office and Regulation of Lobbying. It also includes the ongoing process of reform and renewal progressed under my Department's statutory function of managing the modernisation of the Public Service. In recent years this has included the establishment of the Civil Service Management Board and the Public Service Leadership Board; the setting of a common Corporate Governance Standard for the Civil Service; and the implementation of a new performance review process for Secretaries General. Last week I published the 2022 Public Service Performance Report, which links public spending to the outcomes public bodies deliver, and is another example of improvements we have made in this area. All of this illustrates the extent to which ensuring transparency and accountability is built in to how we have been designing and delivering policies and services in the years since the PSMA was enacted.
