John Bruton
Ceist:169 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Taoiseach the reason his Department commissioned a company (details supplied) at a cost of £104,755 to conduct a review of the non-national roads study. [21011/01]
Written Answers. - Roads Study.
In October 1995 the Government endorsed proposals from the Minister for the Environment and Local Government for administering, supervising and monitoring the non-national road restoration programme subject to "an independently validated efficiency audit to be undertaken of all aspects of county councils" operations in the roads area with a view to increasing efficiency.
The Department of the Taoiseach provided the secretariat for a cross-departmental review group of the efficiency of county councils' operations in the non-national roads area. The review was one of a number of similar evaluations of areas of major public expenditure, for example, Navy and Air Corps, Garda Síochána which were undertaken around that time under the banner of the Strategic Management Initiative. A consortium of consultants led by KPMG was awarded the contract in May 1997 for professional services in relation to the review. The review was completed in December 1997.
Implementation of the recommendations is a matter for the Minister for the Environment and Local Government who, I understand, established a working group made up of senior administrative and technical officers from his Department and from local authorities. I understand this group has overseen action in a number of areas including production of best practice documents and development of training programmes.