Forfás and Ordnance Survey Ireland annual accounts to be examined by PAC

Martin D Shanahan, Chief Executive Officer, Forfás will come before the Committee at 10am, while Colin Bray, Chief Executive Officer of Ordnance Survey Ireland, will appear before the Committee at 12 noon.

Committee Chairman John McGuinness TD said: “Forfás is dissolving this year and functions and staff transferring to Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and other agencies. The aim of the integration is to strengthen the capability and capacity to develop and implement enterprise policy. The Committee will be keen to receive an update on the current status of the integration of Forfás with the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and the associated transfers, the cost of the process cost and how the transfer of the policy research section to the Department will work in practice.

Forfás highlighted in its Annual Report the difficulties which it has encountered as a result of the moratorium on recruitment. We will want to know if Forfás has been able to deliver on everything it is mandated to do and if any specific areas of operation suffered more than others as a result of the reduction in staff. In his Audit Certificate, the C&AG draws attention to non-effective expenditure of €1.4m which was incurred by Forfás in 2012 on rent and associated costs related to unoccupied office space. This is also likely to feature at our meeting.

Our second meeting is with Ordnance Survey Ireland, the national mapping agency, which creates and maintains Ireland’s mapping and related geographic databases.

We will focus on staff costs and salaries, in particular issues raised by the C&AG in his annual report of the Ordnance Survey relating to bonus payments to the former CEO and to staff. We will want to assess the control framework that was in place that allowed these payments to be made at a time when it was clear Government policy that there would be no public sector bonuses.”

OSi differs from other public sector organisations as part of its remit is commercial and in 2011, almost 90% of OSi’s operating cost base was covered by commercial income. In the Chairman’s Statement, he says that the Board is supporting a number of initiatives to broaden the markets that OSi operates in and to extend products and offerings in existing markets. We will be interested in getting a briefing on these initiatives and offerings and how they will complement OSI’s existing range of services. The Annual Report states that overall revenue was down by 7.5% in 2011 due in the main to a further downturn in construction and planning applications and we will want to know if this trend continued into 2012 and 2013.

The OSi’s involvement in the new postcode system, as well as the costs the OSi has incurred to date on the postcode system development, is also likely to be on the agenda.”

This meeting with Forfás will start in Committee Room 1 at 10am, while the meeting with Ordnance Survey Ireland will take place at 12 noon tomorrow, Thursday, 17th October 2013.

Committee proceedings can be followed live here. 

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Committee of Public Accounts Membership
 
John McGuinness (Chairman)
Kieran O’Donnell (Vice Chairman)
Paul J Connaughton,
John Deasy,
Paschal Donohoe,
Gerald Nash,
Simon Harris,
Michael McCarthy,
Mary Lou McDonald,
Sean Fleming,
Eoghan Murphy,
Derek Nolan,
Shane Ross