We are examining the 1998 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts, that is Vote 8 - Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Witnesses are reminded that from 2 August 1998, section 10 of the Committees of the Houses of the Oireachtas (Compellability, Privileges and Immunities of Witnesses) Act, 1997, grants certain rights to persons identified in the course of the Committee's proceedings. These are outlined in the brief provided. I remind witnesses that they do not enjoy full privilege. Members are reminded of the long standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside of the House or an official, either by name or in such a way as to make him identifiable. I ask Mr. Joe Meade, the Secretary and Director of Audit, to introduce his officials.
1998 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts.
Vote 8 - Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General.
Mr. Meade
I am accompanied by Colm Dunne, John Buckley and Richard Rapple.
Perhaps Mr. Breen will introduce his officials from the Department of Finance.
Mr. Breen
I am accompanied by Mr. Pat Kiernan and Mr. Tony Gallagher.
There are no paragraphs to be examined. Will Mr. Meade make an opening statement?
Mr. Meade
The Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General is a State Department and is subject to audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General. However, under the Comptroller and Auditor General (Amendment) Act, 1993, the audit is carried out on behalf of the Comptroller and Auditor General by a private firm of auditors who is sought by tender every three years. They make their report to the Comptroller and Auditor General, he accepts it and it is published with the accounts.
The office assists the Comptroller and Auditor General in carrying out his constitutional and statutory functions, via Vote audits, value for money examinations and inspections. The bulk of the audit work is carried out in financial audit and we have in total 324 audit entities to be audited in any particular year. The staff of the office are civil servants who are appointed under terms and conditions approved by the Minister for Finance and are, for the most part, qualified accountants. We have, over the last few years, like many areas in the public service, been experiencing some difficulties in retaining and recruiting staff. We are taking various measures to get over that problem. At the moment the total authorised staff is 142, while we have 116 serving. Therefore, we have 26 vacancies. However, a competition has recently been concluded by the Civil Service Commission, from which we will be drawing down in the next few weeks.
In the past few years, particularly since 1994 when the new mandate came into operation, our mandate has been expanded to take account of the audit of health boards, third level educational bodies, the vocational education committees and county enterprise boards. In the last year, we had to carry out, on behalf of Dáil Éireann, the preliminary work on the DIRT investigation, which occupied a fair amount of the Committee's time. That is a general overview of the office. I am open to any questions.
How many staff had to be assigned to the DIRT investigation?
Mr. Meade
Following the passing of the necessary legislation in December 1998, a special team was formed. Overall, six staff were assigned to it full-time for seven months. The team consisted of the director of audit, senior auditors and auditors. The total cost of the operation came to£1,000,078. Under the legislation, we had to appoint an external auditor to carry out work in the banks, which came to about £826,000. Stenography costs were £49,000, legal costs, £3,000, travel and subsistence, £3,000, media notices, which had to made when we started the investigation, £9,000, computer stationery and printing, about £37,000 and incidentals of £1,000. The actual cost of the staff, which the office would have borne anyway, came to £105,000 and overtime, £32,000. So, the whole cost came to £1,000,078.
Has that sum been recouped from the DIRT inquiry?
Mr. Meade
Not yet. Under the legislation, when the matter is concluded, it will be up to the Minister for Finance to request the recoupment of the full costs from the financial institutions, including not only our costs but also those of the Dáil offices and various other Government Departments.
Have you recommended that course of action to be taken?
Mr. Meade
There is a provision in the legislation for those costs to be recouped. Ultimately, it will be up to the Minister following the final report of the Committee of Public Accounts on the matter. As the Deputy knows, the report was an interim one which will be considered further at a meeting at the end of June. Various Departments and agencies must come back to the committee so the matter has not been finalised.
How did 26 vacancies build up?
Mr. Meade
In the past few years, in line with many Departments, but particularly in a professional office, there will be movement. This occurs in the private and public sectors. Demand for qualified accountants is high in the economy. In the public service, there is a realisation of the need for more financial control expertise. In the past four years we have lost six of our staff to the Central Bank, four to the Department of Finance, two to the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development and three to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. We have also lost staff to the private sector and others have gone overseas for their own reasons. We do provide an incentive to the staff to try to retain them. However, we are subject to normal Civil Service rates. To be fair to the Department of Finance, we have received certain concessions in awarding extra increments and promotional opportunities for junior staff.
We have also lost some staff at middle management level and if this were to continue, it would be quite worrying. We have put proposals to the Department of Finance to try to alleviate this. They are being considered by the Department of Finance but knowing its past attitude to the office, I am confident it will look favourably on the matter when it has considered it. I am aware that the Department of Finance must be conscious of overall Government policy and sometimes when one makes proposals for staffing, regrading and restructuring, it is not a simple matter of saying "yes, we will give it one body and not to another". The Office of the Chief State Solicitor, which was before the Committee some weeks ago, is having similar difficulty keeping technical staff. The public service in general is finding it difficult to retain staff at all levels. There is now more mobility among staff in every organisation. The private sector is also finding it difficult to hold staff. We are taking measures to overcome the problem but if the haemorrhage of staff which has arisen in the past few years continued in the next year or two, we would be worried. We are constantly monitoring and reviewing the matter and devising new strategies. Hopefully, things will level off somewhat.
How do the salary levels paid in the office compare with those of staff of the same calibre and experience in the private sector?
Mr. Meade
A great deal depends on whom one is comparing with. At our entry grade, for which a person must have the first part of an accountancy qualification or a university degree, if a person is 22 or 23 years they will start at £18,000. After four years and if they are fully qualified they will go onto a salary scale of £22,000 and after another year, they will go on to a scale of about £23,000. After that we apply the normal Civil Service rates. For example, an audit manager would earn up to about £37,000. Senior audit managers can earn up to £49,000 and a Director of Audit earns around £61,800, the same scale as an assistant secretary.
The big six have a much higher salary. The recruitment grades in these or other accountancy bodies offer various packages. Our junior salary scales are roughly in line with these. They offer staff some incentives such as, for example, free VHI, free life assurance, cars etc. They can also give them a different variety of work - they can go into tax consultancy or management consultancy. We have as good an office and structure and the work is as varied, probably more varied than many of the private auditing firms. Not only are we auditing areas such as the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs, the Revenue Commissioners but we also have scope for value of money audits. We have some of the biggest semi-State bodies within our remit, including the Central Bank, the National Treasury Management Agency, SFADCo and Bord Fáilte. We audit the health boards, VECs and universities.
We have had discussions with the Department of Finance regarding our salary scales. They are, to an extent, reasonable although they can always be improved. We are in a buoyant market and the private sector is also experiencing some difficulties.
I am sure the big six to which Mr. Meade referred are having staff turnover problems——
Mr. Meade
Yes, they have.
——in so far as the financial institutions are thinking about the new plcs.
Mr. Meade
One of them can call in staff from their overseas office when they have vacancies, being part of a multinational company.
That might be a reason for co-operation between Comptroller and Auditor Generals' offices around the world. This would also be beneficial in terms of gaining and sharing experience.
Mr. Meade
The European Court of Auditors have a system where a person from a national audit body of one of the 15 European Union states spends a period of four years with the European Court of Auditors. I spent a period there in the early 1990s. At the moment, three of our staff are in positions in the European Court of Auditors. Another member of staff is on secondment to the EU Commission and is working in the investment area in Luxembourg. There is also a liaison officer who meets with the European Union auditor generals and the European Court of Auditors twice a year. Members of the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions also meet. There are also exchange visits between our office and international bodies.
I wish to address a matter pervading the political ether at the moment, that is the concept of public service. Given that the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General is so small, he must know many of them personally. How important is it to the office that staff contribute to the improvement of the public service?
Mr. Meade
All civil servants work under a code of ethics which is to serve the public as best they can, and to be fair, impartial and independent. Every year, the Comptroller and Auditor General must certify and present an audit report to Dáil Éireann on the expenditure of the various Government Departments. He is assisted in that task by the staff of the office. All of the staff work under strict demands from us. They must be fair, independent and non-judgmental, but judgmental in the sense that they review the facts and present them in a fair manner. It is also fair to say that in the past few years, particularly in the public service, a greater realisation of accountability has taken place. Through the SMI and various other processes, far more financial management procedures are being installed in the wider public service.
It is important for the Civil Service and the public service, including our office, to ensure its officials act with the highest probity. Part of the audit of the Comptroller and Auditor General is the regularity and probity audit which involves ensuring moneys are spent for the purposes for which they were voted by Dáil Éireann and that the public good has been adhered to. By its nature, audit will not be able to discover everything. One must always ensure one's staff are working to the highest ethics. One does this by peer review, review of files, training and conversation with them. The Irish Civil Service is unique in a sense - it is somewhat similar to the UK - in that while Ministers and the Dáil approve the money, the accountability for that is put in the hands of accounting officers.
Something which does not happen very often and which is to the credit of both politicians and the public service, is that if a Minister demands something to be paid, which the accounting officer is not happy with, the Minister must direct him in writing to make that payment. The accounting officer makes that payment and then forwards the papers to the Department of Finance and the Comptroller and Auditor General. This is a very good method to have and it is to the credit of politicians and civil servants that it has had to rarely called upon. Furthermore, the fact that every accounting officer and civil servant can be called upon to appear before this committee or other committees to account for their stewardship - no holds barred, they must answer questions and account for what they have done - is a good discipline to place on people.
It is up to us to ensure our audit standards are keeping apace with developments. Naturally they will have to take account of matters which arise from time to time. We will find other programmes accordingly if they were not sufficient and ensure the Irish public service administers funds in the best manner possible. I hope that answers the Deputy's question sufficiently.
I am interested in the pride the staff have in the job they are doing and whether it is contributing to the public good, that they feel that this is an important job for the public and they have contributed to that.
Mr. Meade
One does not join the public service to get rich. First, it is a job and second, one has a purpose. Many of my staff could obtain far more lucrative positions in the private service. Many of them have been head-hunted which is a credit to them and the office training they get. Some who have been head-hunted have turned the job down. We have persisted in the office, for good or ill, as such. We take pride in our work - if we did not, we could still turn up for work but we would not do it. Even in strained circumstances we have, over the years, consistently produced our work and, I would hope, reasonably good quality reports. We have carried out audits and we have, in effect, made a change.
For example, without getting into a matter which will crop up later, yesterday we issued a value for money report on driver testing, with which there were problems. It is good to see the impact of that report is already evident in that the Government has initiated a consultancy review to tackle the problem and examine it overall. There is a certain amount of pride in that for those involved in that project.
There is also pride to be found in the changes which have taken place throughout the public service in the past ten years. When I talk about public service, I mean health boards, educational bodies etc. There is a greater awareness of internal audit and public accountability. All of those give me pride in my job and the office. I know the vast majority of staff feel the same way.
I am sure they do and that is apparent. It comes across in that fashion anyway. The staff are to be congratulated on the professional approach they take and, at the same time, the amount they give to the public service. We will discuss later the report on the impact of value for money examinations over the past ten years. Any improvements reflect the work done by the staff.
Mr. Meade
We must also be conscious of the fact that the public service is also aware and many changes have taken place between the Public Service Management Act, SMI, freedom of information and public ethics. There is a general sea change.
In what premises does the office staff work?
Mr. Meade
We have two premises. Our head office is located in Dublin Castle and we also have another office in Harcourt Road. We hope to move to a centralised office in the next few years which would be adjacent to Dublin Castle. Some of our staff are based in the larger Departments for conducting audits. We send staff to other bodies for the duration of the audit. They would not need to be located there on a full-time basis. We are spread throughout Ireland for the purposes of conducting audits.
Is there sufficient space for the office?
Mr. Meade
It is fair to say that, not unlike Leinster House, there is a premium on space throughout the public service. All our audit clients try to facilitate us and, in the vast majority of cases, they do so very well. There can always be a premium on space. However, any area where we have had problems, and they have been very few, they have been solved to our satisfaction.
I suppose that, when audit clients pay such low fees, the least they can do is give Mr. Meade's staff some space in which to work.
Mr. Meade
I must correct the Deputy on the point about low fees. We do not charge audit fees for the audit of the accounts of Departments or the Finance accounts and VFM examinations. We charge audit fees for all other audits. Our audit fees are based on the standard charge per day worked out in accordance with Department of Finance guidelines, which includes a cost for overheads and superannuation. It is based on the days we have audited, and we have a management system which keeps track of the days which are planned and the days the audit is conducted for which the organisation is billed accordingly. We do not charge for attendance at meetings of the Committee of Public Accounts or for some of the final clearance at head office. The fees in the accounts do not include audits of Departments which account for 40% of our total overheads.
In so far as the office can charge an audit fee, the management of the body, semi-State or otherwise, can debate the extent of the audit and the audit fee. However, if no fee is charged to Departments, there is no way they can limit the scope of the audit, not that they should try to do so. As well as that, one must be pragmatic and try to get things done as quickly as possible. Does Mr. Meade believe there is a good reason for levying some form of charge on Departments which would mirror the costs involved to indicate the amount of time and effort spent in the various Departments? That would give Committee members an indication of the amount and volume of work and a basis for asking further questions and investigating further efficiency and effectiveness.
Mr. Meade
It was decided in 1993 that fees would not be charged to Departments because, in effect, it would only be a circular flow of money. That said, we have a management system and we work out within that the cost of the various audits of Departments. Furthermore, in the new financial accounting procedures which will be introduced under SMI over the next three years, there are proposals that each Department would include notional costs in the sense that the audit cost would be noted in their accounts. This has already been done in the pilot accrual accounts for the Department of Public Enterprise. We have also included audit costs in the audit of intervention. We keep track of the fee costs for all audits we conduct. We also keep track of the days we have planned for audits and how long they take.
Fee income is only one basis of determining efficiency. One must also take into account quality. It is very easy to cut an audit if one wants to by saying that one is generally satisfied with the system. Unlike the private sector, we have the luxury - it is not one in the general sense - of being the statutory legal auditors requested by Dáil Éireann to conduct audits. Departments or semi-State bodies cannot change us from one year to the next. We do not have to tender for the audit. That said, we contracted out audits because of our staffing situation.
I will return to that. Are there certain Departments in which Mr. Meade's staff feel more comfortable or where it is a nicer audit on which to work? Does the office have a rating of Departments, their management and information systems, the difficulty or ease with which records can be obtained, the comprehensive nature of reports written by Departments and information given to staff of the office? Are some Departments better than others at having information ready and available for staff of the office in the format they require which they would have requested in previous years? Is there a way the office can say some Departments are better than others in that regard?
Mr. Meade
Part of our annual planning process is to conduct an overall audit planning memorandum and to consider the various risk factors and also the overall control environment in all the audit agencies. Before one begins an audit, one must plan for it. Some places are better than others.
Which is the best Department? I will not ask about all of them, but which is the best? Which is the most organised?
Mr. Meade
I would not like to make a league table.
Apart from the Department of Finance.
Mr. Meade
To be fair to all Departments and many semi-State bodies, they all make valiant efforts. Like us, they also experience staffing difficulties. All agencies give us the fullest co-operation, bearing in mind that many of these agencies have many pressing problems and may have not only internal audits but also audits by the European Union auditors and the European Court of Auditors. Most Departments facilitate us. There are difficulties in some Departments which we resolve satisfactorily. We hope in our corporate report in the next few years to produce performance indicators where we will indicate among ourselves how we perform relative to certain standards we have set. If we were to have major difficulties with large organisations in the production of audit files or in their facilitating the audit, we would not be averse to bringing those to public attention, if necessary. The Deputy asked which is the best Department. They are all good.
Mr. Meade is very diplomatic. He should be in the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Mr. Meade
They did not recognise my talents.
Regarding the assistance the office receives from outside auditors, Mr. Meade mentioned earlier that the audit of the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General is put out to tender every three years. Is much work done by outside auditors on the office's behalf?
Mr. Meade
We must conduct audits of 324 entities. In 1997, as a benchmarking exercise, we decided to contract out four man years of audit work to the private sector. In 1998, because we were experiencing some staff difficulties, we decided to continue that exercise of man years. In 1999, we contracted out seven years because of the onset of the DIRT investigation which took six man years out of our operations for seven months. When one has a high staff turnover, one will recruit good staff but they have to be trained and will not be as experienced as other staff. For the coming year, because we are still not fully skilled up and have lost some experienced staff, we are contracting out 11.2 man years.
At what cost?
Mr. Meade
The base cost in 1998 was £129,000, it was £241,000 in 1999 and £348,000 in 2000. That is the projected cost at the moment.
It is 11 man years so we are talking about £30,000 per man year.
Mr. Meade
We did comparisons and benchmarks with our own costings and discovered that the carrying out of audits by outside people is roughly the same as those carried out by our own office.
Or cheaper?
Mr. Meade
No, they are not.
Not that they are any better but you might put the squeeze on them.
Mr. Meade
No, we have done these outside arrangements by public tender. Because the contract limit was over £150,000 it was advertised in the EU journal. We laid down the standards we want in line with audit practices. The auditors had to be covered by the necessary professional qualifications in the various institutions. One firm based in Northern Ireland is doing audits at the moment as well as three other firms. We want to cut down the contracting out. We are only doing it at the moment until we get our own staff fully skilled up. We want to cut it down to as little as possible. We will always do a small amount of it as a benchmarking exercise for our own quality, for costing and for audit methods.
It seems an effective way of getting the work done and allows flexibility in so far as numbers are concerned.
Mr. Meade
While the general audit principles remain the same, there are certain tenets to public sector auditing such as regularity and probity that have to be carried out. In that regard, in line with the auditing practices board, the office has been involved in a working group to draw up an auditing practice note to say what the audit of public regularity would entail. That mirrors what has been done in the UK. We hope to finalise this with the auditing practices board in the next few weeks. We have used this as the benchmark by which the audits have to be carried out. In effect, it is codifying what we have already done in practice.
Excellent. How many firm are involved in the £348,000?
Mr. Meade
At the moment we have four firms in 2000. Their names have been published in the official journal of the EU. I can give the Deputy the names if he wishes.
Yes.
Mr. Meade
Chapman Flood Mazars, Crowleys - DFK, Deloitte & Touche and the Helm Corporation in Northern Ireland.
Having been in Canada for a number of years I know that many public sector audits of government departments and semi-State bodies are carried out by professional firms under the auspices of the local comptroller and auditor general, whether it be provincial or government. It seems to work quite well. What sort of audits are carried out by outside firms? Is it a particular type of audit?
Mr. Meade
It varies. We try to get as broad a spread as possible. Some would be regional, some would be small bodies and some would be large entities. Not alone are we doing it because of the fact that we have some staff shortages, we also want to use it as a benchmarking and training exercise. I can give the Deputy some of the bodies for each of the firms. One firm has Bord na Gaeilge, the Marine Institute, the Royal Irish Academy of Music and An Bord Pleanála.
Another firm has the National Standards Authority of Ireland, the Radiological Protection Institute, the Refugee Agency, some VECs, CEBs and regional fisheries boards. Another firm has some of the institutes of technology, fisheries boards and the Environmental Protection Agency. St. James's Hospital and EVE Holdings, a small subsidiary of the Eastern Health Board whose main functions is to help handicapped people, are being been done by one of the other firms.
I would like to comment on one issue raised by Deputy Ardagh. I am glad that Departments are costed and that a real cost assessment is done of each audit. I am also glad that we do not charge the Departments and take the money back, as it were. That would ring of the old local loans fund system whereby we were channelling money around the country with treble costings and such like. On the one hand I am happy there is a real cost but we do not go through the procedure of shifting money from Department to Department.
Is there any question of resourcing problems at the office? Sometimes auditors are shy about these matters.
Mr. Meade
No, we have a staffing complement of 142. Currently we have 26 vacancies. I can give the Deputy the numbers who have left and joined the office over the past three years. Suffice it to say that 61 people left the office but we have replaced them with 48 people. I can truthfully say that the Department of Finance has always given us adequate resources. Our problem is getting those staff, as such.
That is on the staff side. On the non-staff side, what about the resourcing and financing of the organisation?
Mr. Meade
We have received excellent support from the Department of Finance. We have enough money to upskill our IT systems where everyone in the office has a computer and we are moving towards a paperless office. Our travel costs are kept to the absolute minimum. If we did not have sufficient resources in that respect, I am sure the C & AG would bear me out on this, he would be the first, not alone to complain to the Department of Finance, but to bring it to the attention of the Committee.
So, when it comes to resources, the office stands up well in terms of international comparisons and that kind of thing?
Mr. Meade
We are a small office. We have 324 audits and a staff of 142. We do financial audits, but we also do value for money and inspections. We do the Central Bank, the National Treasury Management Agency. Unlike many European auditors general, we are one of the few which carries out the audit of a central bank.
Does it strike you as somewhat ironic, given your role and importance as a constitutional office and the Comptroller and Auditor General is the office holder, that you are empowered by the Dáil to investigate Departments but the Dáil or the Houses of the Oireachtas are, perhaps, the most under-resourced Parliament in Europe? The Clerk of the Dáil, Kieran Coughlan, appeared before the Committee some weeks ago and described our Parliament as the worst resourced in the European league. You are the person charged by the Dáil - the Parliament of this country - to investigate Departments of State - the Civil Service, semi-States and whatever - in terms of how they spend their money. Do you find it ironic that the Dáil or the Parliament giving you those orders to investigate with total independence, given the nature of the audits you have to do, is the worst resourced in Europe?
Mr. Meade
We are creatures of the Constitution and the law so we carry out the functions given to us by the Constitution and the law. If we were not fully resourced or we could not carry out our statutory function we would report to Parliament.
You would report to Parliament?
Mr. Meade
Yes.
I find it ironic that the Parliament to which you would report is itself utterly under resourced and is bottom of the European league in terms of staff ratios - this is not my conclusion, but was recently stated by the Clerk of the Dáil before the committee.
Mr. Meade
Without being——
Do you agree with the Clerk of the Dáil?
Mr. Meade
Without being disingenuous to the Parliament or the Clerk, it is up to each organisation to ensure it is adequately resourced and to make its case to the Minister for Finance. Bearing in mind that the Minister for Finance is also a Deputy and a Member of Parliament, if he is not providing the resources which the Parliament feels should be provided, either there is something wrong in the arguments being put forward or they are not being made with sufficient force. I suppose one of the great things for a Parliament is that a body, such as the office of the C&AG, which is independent of it, even if it does report to it can present the facts to a parliamentary committee.
Naturally, I feel at a personal level that politicians and people who serve in public life should be adequately resourced, not alone in salary terms but in terms of facilities, research back-up, etc. Parliament appropriates the money and is ultimately accountable to the people and those of us who cherish and value a system of democratic government and Parliament must ensure Parliament is at the forefront in ensuring the democratic principle is adequately adhered to. If Parliament is under resourced in regard to Europe and various other places, then it is up to parliamentarians not only to convince the Minister for Finance but also to convince the general public and the media that they serve a very important function and that without them we could have anarchy and chaos.
You are basically accepting the argument made by the Clerk of the Dáil that Parliament is utterly under resourced - you are effectively assisting our task, albeit in an independent manner. Is it time that a value for money examination of the Houses of the Oireachtas was carried out? Certainly, there seems to be an impression among the public that Deputies are largely and hugely over paid and under worked whereas the actual facts and figures show - as the Clerk of the Dáil stated before the committee - the opposite is true. The Clerk said it is the most under resourced and badly off parliament in Europe, with people getting the worst pay.
In fairness to Mr. Meade, it is tempting him a bit to try to——
I think he has the independence to be able to answer these questions. There is nothing to disbar the Comptroller and Auditor General from considering conducting a value for money audit of the Dáil.
I think that would initially be a decision for the committee.
No, it would be for the Comptroller and Auditor General.
Mr. Meade
The Houses of the Oireachtas are subject to audit by the C&AG and are part of the voted funds. Regarding policy matters, etc., the C&AG has no function. Regarding pay, I hope Buckley will look after Members and other public servants quite well. The C&AG, as part of his value for money programme, takes cognisance of matters brought to his attention by the committee and if he feels it necessary or that it would be valuable to carry out a VFM of the Houses of the Oireachtas he would consider that as part of his overall annual planning. We cannot get involved in policy matters.
I accept that, but I recommend that a value for money audit of the Houses be conducted.
I suggest we discuss that at a later meeting.
People are entitled to see the real picture as opposed to the perception and the nonsense sometimes put out in the newspapers, etc.
Mr. Purcell
I wish to clarify the position in that respect. The committee is entitled under its terms of reference, in private communication, to talk to me about my work, including making suggestions as to what might be suitable subjects for a value for money audit. In these cases it is often difficult to scope a particular project. Certainly in private session at some stage we can discuss the scoping of such a project to see if it would meet the objectives set out by Deputy Lenihan. We would have to look at it from the point of view of whether it is delivering an economical service, and at the systems in place in the Houses of the Oireachtas to evaluate the effectiveness of the service it gives. I would be more than willing to listen to the committee and try to scope a project which would fit within my statutory mandate.
The Chair might put that issue on the agenda as it is very important given the current scandals.
I suggest Deputy Lenihan raises it at the beginning of next week's meeting during private session.
I compliment the standard and production values in the corporate report which are minimalist, as I would expect for an external auditing operation. Is there any way of controlling other Departments under the SMI who insist on producing similar reports which are far less interesting and are full of glossy pictures with high production values but very low content values? Is there any way there can be a reduction in the enormous sums being wasted on glossy public relations publications by Departments telling the likes of me what a wonderful job they are doing? I do not think that in this day and age people expect the public sector to produce high spec, glossy brochures which are more in tune with a circus.
Mr. Meade
I thank the Deputy for his kind comments.
I move that we note the Vote and accounts for the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General.
On behalf of the committee I thank Mr. Meade and his staff for answering a most rigorous set of questions and for imparting much additional knowledge - their experience is showing.
Mr. Meade
Thank you, Chairman.
The witness withdrew.