We are dealing with the following groups: the Civil Service performance verification group; the justice and equality sector performance verification group; the education sector performance verification group; the health service performance verification group; and the local government sector performance verification group. I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Tom Parlon, to the meeting and thank him on behalf of the committee for attending. We will hear a short presentation by the Minister, after which members may pose questions.
Freedom of Information Act 1997 (Prescribed Bodies) Regulations 2003.
This committee has played an important role in encouraging the development and extension of the Freedom of Information Act 1997. I am sure that these regulations, which will extend the Freedom of Information Act 1997 further to include the five performance verification groups, will be welcomed.
The public service pay agreement in Sustaining Progress provides that payment of the final two phases of the benchmarking increases and the general round increases are dependent on verification of co-operation and achievement regarding the commitments contained in the agreement. The Civil Service performance verification group will carry out the process for the Civil Service. The process will be carried out in the wider public service by four groups covering the areas of justice and equality, education, health and local government respectively. It is appropriate that these groups should be brought within the remit of the FOI Act. Their role is to verify that the conditions for payment of the final two phases of the benchmarking increases and general round increases in Sustaining Progress are met.
In fulfilling this role, each group will assess action plans to meet agreed performance targets in the sectors and organisations under their remit. They will then decide on the basis of progress achieved in relation to these action plans if payment of the relevant general round or benchmarking increases is warranted. In essence, the groups will be passing judgment on the successful achievement of the goals set out for the sector concerned.
Under Sustaining Progress the commitment to pay the general rounds and the last two instalments of benchmarking increases is conditional on real and verifiable changes in the public service.
It is important that this process is as transparent as possible so that it is clear that any increases being paid will be based on an independent assessment of the achievement of the commitments in the agreement.
The performance verification groups are temporary non-statutory committees established under Sustaining Progress. It is not the normal practice to designate such temporary committees for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act as this would be unduly cumbersome administratively.
However, some concerns had been expressed that the verification of the changes under the agreement would be conducted in secret and that the public would not be able to see how the verification process works or have an assurance that payments, if made, are justified.
As these regulations show, this is clearly not the case. There is a commitment to ensuring that this important process is carried out in a transparent manner so that the public can be assured that the necessary progress is being made and that any payments are justified, a view is shared by all participants in the process.
Before taking questions I wish to put one question. Is it not possible for the groups to release information under the Freedom of Information Act in the normal course of events, to the public service, without having to prescribe them here today? Is it necessary to prescribe them? Did not the existing regulation ensure they were already covered by the FOI?
The existing regulation is very clear about that. They have to be added, by Schedule, to the end of the Bill.
They are independent groups. They were not obliged previously.
They are independent.
This move today will bring them totally under the FOI.
I thank the Minister of State.
Is this due to the problem that they are not a permanent feature? Is it the reason they had to be brought into the Schedule?
Usually for temporary bodies they may not have been obliged. Due to the sensitivity of this area and the concerns expressed that there was some secrecy involved or a lack of transparency we have decided to bring them on board.
The Minister of State has put his finger on the issue. There are serious concerns about the lack of transparency in this whole process. This gesture towards transparency is too little and too late. The benchmarking awards were supposed to be based on hard evidence of gaps in pay between the public and private sector for similar work and on difficulties in recruitment. That hard evidence was to be assembled. It was never released. The independent economist on the benchmarking group resigned on the belief that the evidence did not support the awards made. Here we have a situation where the taxpayer will pay. The average household will pay €1,000 per head, enough to run 4,000 primary schools for the rest of the year and for ever, and yet they have not seen the basis of the award.
To give the benchmarking committee its due, it insisted that three quarters of the money would be dependent on real improvement in the quality of services. One of the principles of benchmarking from the start, as set out in the terms of reference, was that co-operation and change and modernisation was not to be the basis for a pay increase. We have seen the Government go in and negotiate in Sustaining Progress a so-called agenda of change - with no productivity - which was all about co-operation, modernisation and change which was not to be the basis for special increases. The Government reneged on the principles it said it would apply. I do not blame the unions and Senator O'Toole. I take my hat off to the unions in their capacity to do a good deal. In the so-called reform agenda, the Government came to the table with no serious reform agenda and negotiated a deal that resulted in business as usual proceeding. It was about co-operation with continuing on-going programmes of change. It was not a step change in performance where ordinary householders would see something in return for the €1,000 delivered.
When one looks at the framework of Sustaining Progress, around which action plans are being built - we have not seen them all, even though we are only two months away from the deadline for payment - one will see those were against such a hollow framework that they are not stretching the performance of the public service to new standards. This has been a huge opportunity missed by Government. For the Minister of State to say we will have freedom of information to access these action plans and the validation of them is missing the point. We are validating something that did not reach the standand that should have been set by Government. This is not a criticism of unions or of the public service. It is a straight criticism of Government for failing to drive the reform agendas, to put them on the table and to see that benchmarking brought through serious reform in the process of Government.
We will see the tragedy of this again this year as we saw it last year. The pay increases under benchmarking will pre-empt the entire budget the Minister has available to him on budget day. Again, hospital beds will be closed, home helps laid off and respite care denied to families with children with serious disability because the Government has not done its job.
This is a smart PR move. We know from reading the action plans that one would need a wheelbarrow to get the FOI request and sift through the volume of material that will be accessible under this regime. It is an issue of drowning people in a sea of material instead of a serious attempt to drive reform. The Government stands in the dock on this issue. I am all for paying people extra money but on the basis that we drive a new agenda of reform that brings us to best practice standards. That is where I feel the wheel has come off the Government's approach to this issue.
The Deputy is pre-empting the report of the performance verification groups. He appears to be assuming——
No, what I am saying is that what they are validating is not what was needed. There was no serious reform agenda for them to validate. Most of the action plans are about co-operation with modernisation and change in respect of programmes that were already under way. That will not yield the value. That is the point I made.
My responsibility here today is to extend the FOI to these particular groups, which should be positive news. In terms of comparing the performance verification groups with the benchmarking body, they are entirely different processes. The body was set up under the PPF and I do not want to go back through history but, clearly, the Deputy has gone back through the history of it. It was established as an independent body to conduct an examination of jobs and pay rates in the public service in comparison with the private sector. Obviously, much confidential information had to be acquired by the body which was given to it in confidence. That is the reason the body was able to come forward with the report. It was never envisaged that it would come under the FOI Act. The confidential aspect enabled the body to compile the report. In terms of any further information, one can debate whether one agrees with it for a long time. The position is that the performance verification groups have been charged with verifying progress for three-quarters of the benchmarking increases as well as the general round increases. Their deliberations will be available under FOI, whether it be barrow loads of information or otherwise. The previous criticism was that there was a lack of information. I am sure Deputies and everyone else have built up sufficient expertise in recent months and years to be able to tease out what is relevant so that their FOI requests will be succinct. Obviously, as Deputies, they have other means of getting that information also. This is all about making the information available. We have done that and it will be an open and transparent process.
I want to confine the debate as much as possible to the issue of the extension of the Freedom of Information Act and not a general debate on benchmarking. If the joint committee wants to debate benchmarking I will be happy to arrange it. Today we are debating an extension of freedom of information.
A number of comments have been made which are groundless and damaging and have to be responded to.
They will be responded to.
This is yet another attack on the public service.
I will allow that but I will not allow the debate to escalate into a full debate on benchmarking. If members wish to discuss benchmarking we will do that on another occasion. We are here to discuss the extension of the Freedom of Information Act.
As part of our job we might consider the stoppages, etc. that have occurred in the case of public servants in Italy, Belgium, France and Germany while this country has done its work and produced for Irish people in the best possible way.
Is the principle here that we should ask the Minister questions or that we should have Second Stage debates on legislation?
No, we are not considering legislation but regulations.
Deputy Richard Bruton has led off on what I can only describe only as a dirge on benchmarking.
Can I speak now?
This is not a Second Stage debate. We are dealing with regulations that have been sent to us for consideration by the House. We will report to the House that we have duly considered them and the House will then decide what to do, in the Chamber or otherwise, in due course.
The Chairman has allowed a Second Stage speech by a Deputy.
I will allow some latitude but there will be a limit to it.
I find the Minister of State's conversion, particularly at the end of his speech, to the Government's notion of upholding transparency in releasing any information and using the Freedom of Information Act as a vehicle for giving out information, pathetic. The Government is creating a fig leaf in providing that under the various verification groups we can get as much information as we like when the Minister of State is well aware that the information from those verification groups is unlikely to be of much benefit to any discussion on public policy.
Why did the Government, and the Minister of State, as a Progressive Democrats member riding hard on the wild ways of Fianna Fáil, acquiesce in the filleting of the Freedom of Information Act? When an FOI request was made to his Department earlier in the year seeking information on the details of the benchmarking report, which is not commercially sensitive information - in responses to FOI requests commercially sensitive information is usually blanked out - the Department of Finance went on record as saying it had refused to receive the documents on the benchmarking report because it did not want to know or have on its records the details of how the benchmarking deal was worked out. That is an abdication of responsibility on the part of the Department which is supposed to be managing our economy.
The Department today has told us bits and pieces about a series of groups of the great and the good involved in the partnership process, who their members are and so on, which we could easily find out by stopping people in the street. If the Minister of State is telling us that that is some restoration by the Government of the notion of freedom of information, his performance today is pathetic. Either the people who produced the original benchmarking report had a bonfire in their back gardens using the material that comprised the basis on which they reached their decision on benchmarking, and we have a well-informed member among us today who might comment on that, or perhaps some members of the original benchmarking body have it under their beds.
The spokesperson for Fine Gael referred to a well-known economist who quit the body. Does he still have his papers while the rest of the members, as I understand it, were told to lose them? I am not sure about that but I know that when a freedom of information request was made to the Minister's Department by a former Member of this House and the Minister who brought forward the Bill, Eithne Fitzgerald, she got an unbelievable report from the Department of Finance to the effect that they did not want the information and they refused to accept it. What way is that to run the country?
A serious debate is ongoing about the cost of benchmarking. Benchmarking was a deal the Taoiseach decided to do with the social partners in the run-up to the last election to get votes but the bill for that is approximately €1.4 million per year. As members of the finance committee we are entitled to get the information on which this decision was reached. The detailed material set out by the verification groups does not tell us the key economic information on how the decisions were reached and the way the agreement for payments under the benchmarking deal was structured. That is an abdication of financial management by the Government in favour of a political deal being struck, and the country will pay for it. The ordinary taxpayer is entitled to know where the value for money is on this deal. Most public servants also want to know where the value for money is and how they are contributing to it. I do not have to give the Minister of State examples of the issues that have been hanging around for years, such as parent-teacher meetings, etc., and which still have not been addressed.
The Minister came in here today with a pathetic list on prescribing groups but what is the story on the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, which is prepared to give performance verification group information under FOI but is not prepared to extend FOI to the Garda? If FOI was extended to the Garda, we would not be having the expensive tribunals we are witnessing currently. The health service performance verification group is also listed here. Time and again we have been promised that the Medical Council would be one of the prescribed bodies. Why is the Minister of State wasting our time today? What is before us today is, to a large extent, irrelevant because it is available through other mechanisms. The Minister of State has ducked those areas in which the Government ought to be making freedom of information available.
In terms of the Chairman'scriteria on re-engaging——
I referred solely to freedom of information.
But in terms of the amendment, the Deputy has decided to redraft all of that. The amendment has been fully debated by the House and by all bodies and it has been accepted in the Dáil. I reject the Deputy's claim about filleting of the Freedom of Information Act. First, there was a consultative process which was important to protect in terms of arriving at important decisions and second, some fees were introduced for which there was good reason.
Who was consulted on deciding what would be changed in the FOI Act or, more important, who was not consulted?
We have a long list.
On the records of the body, they are still held by the body and in terms of the detail, the body published an extensive description of the research it carried out.
Why does the Minister not extend the records of the body? Why are the records of the body on this list for the purposes of freedom of information? They are the important records, not the verification groups. Why are they not on this list?
What the body did not publish was raw data it had collected on private sector earnings, and there were good reasons for that. Most of the data collected on private sector job earnings were received on a confidential basis. It would not have been possible to acquire that information unless it was on a confidential basis. As the Minister for Finance has pointed out, publishing masses of raw data would only create scope for endless challenging and nit-picking. The body published composite data on the public service and private sectors in chapter 4 of its report but the amount of this data and in what form it was to be presented was a matter for the body itself.
Why did the Minister of State's Department refuse to accept the detailed records of the body?
I would like to answer that question.
The Minister of State has confirmed that the Department refused to accept them.
There was more than one body involved and there was supposed to be an independent determination of the outcome of this process. I would not have agreed to the Department of Finance having greater ownership of this information than the trade unions, management or any of the other groups. One might ask why those involved did not receive the information from the Labour Court. They did their business by way of a High Court judge deciding on the rules. Despite what has been said here the majority of the information has been published. Everything that the unions or management submitted and everything that was responded to and in respect of which an argument was pointed out was published.
I was surprised to hear that an economist resigned from the committee because he did not agree with the outcome of the process. Deputy Richard Bruton obviously knows more about what went on in that process than the rest of us. It was my understanding that the economist resigned long before any decisions and determinations were made but I have access only to the public information to which everybody else has access. If there is further information I would like to know about it.
This process was engaged in to protect our public service and to give us the greatest prize we have ever had - peace and productivity. One need only reflect on what is happening in Italy and on what happened in France last month and in Belgium earlier in the year. The public service in those countries has been tied down time and again.
People should not forget that it was difficult to get anyone on the workers' side or elsewhere to agree to the benchmarking process. Those who contributed to the process did not have any involvement in the outcome. It seems to be implied that the people who made presentations on benchmarking, such as the unions or management, had knowledge as to what the outcome would be and did some deal, but that was not the case. Nobody knew anything until the judge outlined the outcome. There was no negotiation on it. In order for there to be trust and confidence in the process, the decision on the agreement had to be done away from the Department of Finance by people who were not in any sense within the ownership or at the bidding of the Department. If that had been the case there could not have been trust and confidence in the process. It was difficult enough to sell it without there being that.
We need to be clear about what we have achieved. The Eurostat report published last week shows that in the area of education Irish schools are producing, in larger classes at less cost, the best results in the OECD, in most cases, and that we are at the top of any league or division that has been published. The Irish taxpayer is getting good value for money and we should ensure that continues.
This discussion highlights the demands of the benchmarking body to ensure that the verification process works, that people did what they said they would do, as in the case of parent-teacher meetings and other such processes. We should be creating a sense of trust in the public service among members of the community. That can be done. This was a difficult exercise to put together. Everything had to be balanced and the outcome was not determined by the Department of Finance, the unions or management, but by a judge, independent people and others.
We are debating a separate issue, that of freedom of information. Nothing the Senator said about the merits of the benchmarking agreement cuts across the argument that this information should be published and should be subject to inclusion under the Freedom of Information Act. There is a debate on the merits or demerits of the agreement but there is also another debate, which is the important one, on why we do not have the information on the records of the original benchmarking body under the Freedom of Information Act. Not making that information available under the Freedom of Information Act is wrong. It should be on that list today and it is wrong that the Department of Finance was not more fully informed.
The matter of the release of commercially sensitive data, which the Minister of State and Senator O'Toole mentioned, has been dealt with carefully and well by the FOI Act up to now whereby commercially sensitive data was blanked out but the substance of the data could be released under the FOI Act. I have not heard an argument as to why the benchmarking body should not have been subject to the FOI legislation. It is wrong that it was not.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. We had the best year of industrial peace last year since 1970. The benchmarking report and awards were accepted across the board by the unions, and Senator O'Toole will correct me if I wrong about that. This agreement has given us industrial peace. What DeputiesBurton and Richard Burton want is all the detail so that the agreement can be unpicked.
This is not complicated. The Senator should not distort the position.
Many industrial relations decisions, Labour Court decisions and so on are made without putting out a tremendous amount of detail. It might suit the Opposition to pick apart the agreement in order that people can argue the merits or demerits of it. This agreement has provided us with industrial peace. As Senator O'Toole said, there are strikes practically every day of the week in the public sector elsewhere in Europe. Benchmarking is a good deal. We have a pretty lean public service relative to our population compared with most other countries. Having worked in the public service, and I am sure Deputy Burton has plenty of experience of it, I am aware that most public servants work pretty hard. I support this decision. The correct decision was taken not to publish the detailed studies. The idea that the publishing of information in all circumstances is a good thing and a public right, is not true.
May I respond to that?
All the information in family law cases is not published.
As a result of the information in this case not having been published, the Government has driven a wedge between private and public sector workers. Private sector workers believe they are paying for the cost of the as yet unexplained benchmarking deal. I do not understand why Senator Mansergh objects so strongly to the FOI covering the benchmarking body's report. Commercially sensitive information can be easily excluded in the making available of such information. This is a question of freedom of information. There are two arguments taking place, one is about freedom of information——
This is about industrial peace, not only freedom of information.
The Government filleted the Freedom of Information Act——
That is rubbish.
——in order to carry out its actions in secret and we now have a major economic conflict between private and public sector workers because private sector workers and their representatives do not know or understand the basis for many of the benchmarking decisions. The information should be made available and then people could reach a conclusion on whether those decisions were fair.
People who are complaining are perhaps certain private employers; generally speaking, they are not employees.
IBEC supported it.
Yes.
For the information of the committee, the benchmarking body was set up because public sector workers, including the Members of and workers in these two Houses, were of the view that a wedge had been driven between them and the private sector because their income had fallen so far behind that of those in the private sector. This happens in every economic cycle. Private sector unions have also supported the payment of benchmarking awards.
We should remember how far we have come since 1998 when the FOI Act applied to only Government Departments and other bodies in central government. It has now been extended to include all local authorities, health boards, voluntary hospitals, third level education institutions and a wide range of other bodies and organisations. The Government is fully committed to continuing the process of further extending the FOI Act to include all appropriate bodies by the end of 2005.
When will it apply to the Garda? The freedom of information commissioner was before the committee——
If I may respond——
The Deputy should allow the Minister of State respond.
When will the legislation apply to the Medical Council?
I can confirm that the Garda Síochána is being considered in this context, as is the Medical Council.
When will it apply to them?
The next time I come before this committee it will be hopefully, one hopes, to announce the further extension of the Act.
The Minister of State does not have a date for its extension.
It is being considered as a priority.
I welcome the decision to include the performance verification groups under the Freedom of Information Act. That is an important step and I compliment the Minister of State and the Government on that. It will give the public an opportunity to assess whether these verification groups are doing the job they are expected to do.
With regard to the other point, Fine Gael has walked itself into a situation as a result of the statement by its leader earlier this year about the public service and benchmarking. That alienated the party members from the public service and now they are trying to find another excuse to ingratiate themselves. However, they have done the harm and they will not repair it, irrespective of what they say. The public service in this country deserves credit and that applies to all sectors, including the local authorities and education. Everybody is proud of what has been achieved. It was vital that the public service was brought into line, from a salary perspective, with what was happening in the private sector in recent years. Nobody should begrudge the people who have done and are doing so much for this country. It is only appropriate that they be compensated properly and this is being done not by some sleight of hand on the part of the Government or the Department of Finance but through a proper structure that was put in place under the chairmanship of a judge. There are verification groups to monitor what has or has not been done under the process and that verification is being made available for public scrutiny. We cannot ask for more than that.
I am sure Fine Gael will recruit Deputy Finneran as a political adviser to advise it on how to do its business.
We could get three seats.
We are not in that much trouble. Lest the Minister mislead the committee in saying that all public bodies are covered, they are not. The vocational education committees are not covered, which is an outrage. The number of years that have elapsed since——
I must interject. The Deputy accused the Minister of misleading the committee. The Minister did not say that.
He did.
He said that by a certain date all public bodies will be covered.
He said that all public bodies are covered.
By a certain date.
All appropriate bodies.
The Deputy should withdraw the allegation that the Minister misled the committee.
As I heard it, he said all public bodies were covered. If I am wrong, I will withdraw it. The vocational education committees are not included so far, which is a disgrace. The Minister should bear that in mind.
The debate has drifted away from the issue at stake today, that is, the extension of the freedom of information legislation to cover these bodies. I cannot understand why members are so concerned. Senator Mansergh spoke about these documents and the need to keep them secret. Has he forgotten that these documents are the property of the public? The public will pay for the benchmarking process. Members of the public will have to pay the additional taxation to cover it so they are entitled to see the background documents that have been prepared on benchmarking. Why should they be hidden? Why should the preliminary documents and others be kept secret? I cannot understand it. The Minister must give a plausible reason for this.
I said that most key areas of Government had been covered, including the local authorities, health boards, voluntary hospitals, third level education institutions and a wide range of other bodies. In fact, 375 bodies are included under the Freedom of Information Act. With regard to the vocational education committees, the position of schools administered and maintained by vocational education committees is broadly the same as that of all other schools. They are covered by the provisions of the Education Act which provide means for statutory access to the records held by these schools.
On the administrative operation of vocational education committees, there is a case to be made for the inclusion of the committees within the Freedom of Information Act. The only difficulty that would arise might be disentangling the vocational education committees from the schools under their remit. In 2001, the Minister for Education and Science brought forward legislation amending the VEC Acts and there did not appear to be any significant demand in the Oireachtas or elsewhere for the extension of the Freedom of Information Act to these committees. Subject to there being no legal difficulties involved, such an extension could be considered in the context of the future plan for extension of the Freedom of Information Act.
I welcome the fact that the Freedom of Information Act will be extended to the four groups. I disagree with the comments that benchmarking will drive a wedge between the public and private sectors. Large sections of the private sector are pleased that industrial peace is now almost guaranteed in the public sector. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating but in three years' time we will be pleased with the success of the benchmarking process. Too much emphasis can be placed on a division between two sectors. The private sector has done well in the past five or six years and there is no great resentment in that sector at the public sector getting an increase which is largely richly deserved. Indeed, in the course of the negotiations some parts of the public sector were reluctant to accept some of the conditions attached but ultimately they saw there would be a positive outcome. I believe it is a positive development and I welcome it.
Apart from any difficulties that are created, the importance of this decision today is that it will allow the public to see how the verification process works.
It should be pointed out that this is something that is not happening anywhere else in Europe. Every European country has failed to introduce a new school curriculum peacefully. In this country, it was agreed before it was printed and introduced in the schools. In the education area the group is chaired by an eminent and esteemed man who has no connection with any of the people involved. There are management representatives who have a list of demands on how the schools should run. The customers or clients in the case of education are the parents and the parent groups. Then there are the unions. They all must agree.
I will give one example of how this works. Last week, one education union believed it did not need to do one part of what was in the commitment. It went through the determination process and the union accepted the outcome. This is how it works and it is something we should applaud. We are showing the way to the rest of Europe. This is how people should do their business, through a coincidence of objectives, making progress, being modernising, moving the process forward and being productive. We are leading Europe in doing this.
The business of benchmarking was no more obscure or inaccessible than the daily business of the Labour Court. It was run like a court. In my more than 30 years of involvement in industrial relations, I have never seen an operation run with such discipline as Judge Quirke ran this operation. He was above reproach. Any time there was difficulty with an issue, he brought all parties in, discussed it with them and sorted it out. This is the way to move forward; it is not a step back. It is a superb development.
Senator O'Toole famously described the benchmarking process as the ATM machine.
That is not quite correct but it has become the public belief.
That is what the Senator is regarded as having said as an encouragement to members of the teaching profession who have, incidentally, implemented huge changes in teaching practice over the past decade. That is often not acknowledged. What we are discussing today is not the value or otherwise of the process but why it should be subject to the veil of secrecy that this Government created when it decided to fillet the Freedom of Information Act. Let us keep to this main point.
I have two questions for the Minister. The first relates to the health service performance verification group. The Department of Finance commissioned the Brennan report. The Brennan group was carrying out its work while this process was proceeding. Its report was received by the Dáil before these verification groups were fully established. The same applies to the Hanly report under which the Ennis and Nenagh hospitals are due to be downgraded and services transferred to Limerick. In the context of the Government's concept of improvement and efficiency, what impact will the Brennan and Hanly reports, and the other reports on the health service, have on the work of the health service verification group? All the groups are described as making visits. Yesterday the parliamentary Labour Party heard a presentation by Mr. Hanly who compiled the Hanly report. Where is the Brennan report which produced detailed recommendations? That group was chaired by one of the Minister of State's party members. Perhaps the Minister of State could comment on how that ties in with this. As Opposition spokesperson on finance, how can I get information on the relationship of the verification groups to these important reports on the productivity of the health services?
My second question relates to the local government sector group. In last year's budget the Minister for Finance made a point of not giving local authorities funding for some or all of the increases due under benchmarking. The local authorities were told to find the money through additional charges. We know about the regime of extra house charges in Fingal. A €12,000 charge will be added to each houses cost if the manager's proposals are accepted. This is about macro-economic management. What is the relationship between the verification group, which is due to visit Fingal tomorrow, and the decision by the Government not to fund benchmarking but to instead tell the council to find the funds? The council in Fingal is partly finding the funds through a new scheme of levies which will amount to approximately €12,000 per house. This is the type of information economic management requires to make rational decisions about allocating resources.
The Deputy seems to suggest that Fingal County Council, which is not a matter for us——
It is included in the list for a visit by the verification group.
The Deputy seems to suggest that Fingal County Council will use the new development levies, which are designed for infrastructural upgrading in the area, to pay for benchmarking.
We do not know. Perhaps the Minister has an alternative.
The Deputy has raised an unusual point about Fingal County Council. The development levies are not intended for that use.
That is why this discussion is important. I do not know the answer, but I hope I am wrong. Perhaps what is proposed is that Fingal County Council raise the business rate or introduce a range of additional charges. I do not know the answer; that is why I am asking the question. How will we keep ourselves informed about this important issue?
The performance verification group will not sort out the massive difficulties in the health service. That will be an issue for a bigger body. The health performance verification group is made up of an independent chairperson, representatives of customer clients, union representatives and management representatives. It is a substantial wide-ranging body.
Is the Minister of State saying that spending a large amount of money will not improve the problems in the health service? That is a disastrous outlook.
The Deputy must have a problem with her hearing. She has misheard me twice.
The Minister of State said it will not improve.
I did not say that.
That is what I heard the Minister of State say.
If the Deputy did not interrupt me so much, perhaps she would hear exactly what I said. The health service performance verification group will deal with the payment and efficiency of staff within the health service. They must meet agreed performance targets which have been laid down. It will not look at the entire health service and spending in Fingal or anywhere else; it will only look at the performance of the staff. It is made up of an independent group and its deliberations will be open to FOI requests. Some people may be cynical and ask how it will be able to come up with an excuse to grant extra payments. We have decided to open its discussions to FOI requests. I will not pre-empt what it will do. It may decide against granting increases if the people in the health service go on strike or refuse to co-operate with the plans already laid down. There are different specific criteria in each sector. There is an independent group under an independent chairperson. It is not its remit to sort out the overall problems in the health service, but to decide whether employees in the public health service are entitled to their increases under benchmarking. That is the extent of its remit.
The Minister of State is saying that the Government has produced a series of important reports on the health service, including one which produced a detailed list of things which must be done. The group which produced that report was chaired by one of the Minister of State's party members.
That is not the case.
I ask the Deputy to desist from making comments about people who are not Members of the House and who are not here to defend themselves.
I am talking about the Brennan report.
I would be happy if the person mentioned was a member of my party.
I should have said associated with the Minister of State's party.
That is irrelevant.
The Equality Authority will be on top of us.
The Minister of State is saying that although the expensive Brennan and Hanly reports have been produced on the health service, the verification group will not refer to them when it is doing its work. That is the type of information we need.
It cannot do that. The verification group exists to implement benchmarking, which has nothing to do with those reports. They are separate issues.
This is ridiculous. The Deputy is talking about structural reports which deal with major structural change up to a ten year period. The benchmarking report was prepared prior to that. The Deputy is talking about efficiency within existing parameters. It is ridiculous to suggest it is meant to comprehend the implementation of reports which must be negotiated with the unions. I am surprised that Deputy Burton, who is a member of the Labour Party and, therefore, of the labour movement, assumes that acceptance of the major changes in these reports should be imposed through the benchmarking process without any consultation or negotiation. The OECD in its report on the Irish economy in May highly approved the benchmarking process and said there should be more of it. It should be developed and extended rather than being treated in a populist manner as something which costs the taxpayer some money. I am surprised that Deputy Burton of the Labour Party is critical of the benchmarking process. The rest of the labour movement is extremely happy with it.
The rest of the labour movement wants the Freedom of Information Act, which has been filleted by the Government, restored.
That is a separate issue. We are talking about benchmarking.
We are talking about the Freedom of Information Act.
It has been extended, not filleted.
We want it restored.
Order, please. I call Deputy Richard Bruton.
I would like to ask a few specific questions to which the Minister of State might respond. I am amazed that not all the action plans have been published. Indeed, some of them, the health action plans for example, will not be completed until later this month. As I understand it, the verification process will have begun in November, so the action plans will be published, approved and their performance ratified all in the space of one month, if the Minister of State's proposal is agreed. In other words, the actions are being devised and he will establish and analyse whether they have been achieved within two weeks of the publication of the list. How can one hope to have a serious verification process for plans within only two weeks of their being put in place? They will justify an increase, which will be paid six weeks later on 1 January but it defies belief as to how that will happen. Will we see action plans for the craft agreements, which are probably different in that serious changes are being negotiated that will yield productivity? Will we see the details of those craft agreements, similar to this procedure, and the relativity claims that appear to be following on from them? I understand from the latest report that, far from relativity being dead, some 50,000 additional people will get a relativity leap-frog claim on the back of the craft section. Will we see new action plans from all the sections that will get benefits under that agreement? If the Minister of State wants us to believe that this is serious we want to see the action being published followed by a reasonably lengthy period during which we will evaluate whether the proposed actions are delivered. Only then could one see sanction and validation but the Minister of State seems to be catapulting all of this into a three, four or five week working period. It does not strike me as performance validation.
Sometimes we are criticised for being too slow and now, apparently, we are criticised for being very up with the game.
The Minister of State is being deliberately obtuse. He is saying he will set out action plans and will then see whether they have been delivered. They will not be delivered in the space of two weeks, if there is anything meaningful in them.
All the relevant action plans we are discussing have already been published.
They have not. I will quote from ministerial replies for the Minister of State. The Minister for Health and Children said that the health boards have still to complete the action plans and expect them to be completed in early November. The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform has still not published its action plans and is trying to decide when or whether it will publish them. They are just two of the Departments concerned. Clearly, if the Minister of State is saying that we will see real reform on the back of these action plans, one would expect a considerable period between the announcement of the programme and its achievement.
The situation is that all of the action reports have been agreed and published, although they may not yet have appeared on the website.
The Minister of State should read the parliamentary replies on 16 October.
Yes, but we have moved on quite a bit since then. Things have not just been idle.
A number of days.
It is an urgent priority.
The Minister of State is saying that the health boards will not only have decided their action plans and published them but will also have achieved them in the space of three weeks.
That is a matter for the performance verification groups.
Come on; pull the other one.
This is ridiculous, Chairman. On the one hand we are being accused of being too fast with the process but we are opening up the outcome of the performance verification groups to FOI, so it will be fully transparent. If, when they come forward with their recommendations, the Deputy says it is ridiculous, then fine. Perhaps he will have some grounds for saying so, or perhaps not, but I am certainly not going to pre-empt it.
The Minister of State is missing my point. If he says he is going to undertake actions and publishes them on 1 November, it is ridiculous to think that a group can decide whether they have been achieved three weeks later. If they are to bring about serious reform, these actions will not be achieved in three weeks.
Are we not lucky that the Freedom of Information provisions are being extended so that the Deputy will be able to obtain the information and make an informed judgment on that?
You are putting a bold face on it, Chairman.
There is some confusion here.
There is.
The verification process concerns the commitment of workers, not the health boards, as to what it is they are prepared to do and what they are doing. My understanding is that what the health boards are going to do will not come under the verification process. It is simply that the workers have a commitment and what they are supposed and required to do has certainly been published. As regards the education plan, Deputy Burton raised issues concerning parent-teacher meetings and other issues like that.
Action plans often describe changes that are already well under way.
But then they are not serious reforms.
Reform is an ongoing process.
Will the Minister of State answer my question about local government and county councils? It is rather similar to Deputy Bruton's last question. Local government is unique in that in last year's budget it was not given funds to meet the benchmarking payments. The Government made a point of that but the verification group has already met with the city and county managers. The Minister of State is saying that there is no relationship between the payment of salary increases agreed for workers and the Government discussing with the city and county managers how the increases will be paid. Will they have to raise extra charges to pay for them? How will it impact on the verification process? It is a genuine question.
It is a genuine question but it is totally irrelevant to what we are discussing.
It is not.
I will not pre-empt what the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, will be bringing forward in his budget estimates, which are now up for discussion with local authorities.
We know what happened last year. It is now in the local authorities' Estimates and that is the problem.
This will be decided in the course of the budget discussions.
On a point of information for the Deputy, the Estimates process undertaken by the local authorities matter for every individual local authority. Some local authorities provided it fully and properly within their own resources, while others did not.
Yes.
That is a matter for the individual local authorities. The Deputy is referring to agreements on benchmarking but whether such payments should come from the Exchequer or from local government is a different issue. It is not the issue we are discussing here today.
I would like to clarify the role of the performance verification groups. They are there to assess the achievement of the commitments that were agreed under Sustaining Progress. They are not concerned with funding, which is entirely an issue for the Minister for Finance. That is a bigger debate altogether but it is not the role of the performance verification groups to determine whether the Minister can afford the payments. It is within the benchmarking guidelines to decide whether the commitments that were agreed to have been achieved by the public service workers.
How can they be achieved in three weeks' time?
This process has not just begun; progress was taking place before the actual plans. Clearly, quite a bit of preparation was involved in getting the final plans published but work has been continuing on an ongoing basis.
I am not so sure.
It will proceed. The PVGs, Performance Verification Groups, will be in place until 2005 and this is just the beginning of the process.
Are there any other questions about the Freedom of Information Act, as opposed to general Finance and Exchequer questions?
On the extension of the Freedom of Information Act regulations, what about the discussions and documentation which I am sure must take place in the Department of Finance as it is the Department dealing with financial management? Surely, there must be a benchmarking section somewhere in the Department? Will we be able to access those papers to get the Department's evaluation of the value for money offered by the benchmarking process? We heard earlier that the Department did not want to receive the detailed information about how benchmarking was constructed.
We were not allowed.
Will the Department's assessment, which I am sure it will carry out, of the verification process and the delivery of value for money be available under the freedom of information legislation?
All documentation within the Department of Finance is available under the freedom of information legislation. In terms of the detail and the data used by the benchmarking body, it retained that information. One is talking about digging up detail going back 16 months. That is irrelevant at this stage but if the Department of Finance comes forward with views on benchmarking, that entire documentation will be available under the freedom of information legislation.
In a partnership process, it is not acceptable to the union side that the Department of Finance should determine value for money. In such a process, the verification groups, which include the Department of Finance, Government, the client or consumer groups, management and the unions, all have an input into it. The verification group will state whether the work is being done. If it is not being done, the workers will not be paid their increases. That does not just begin and end on 1 January. That is a process which will continue until it is completed. It does not mean everything will happen on that day.
There was not proper negotiation of a reform agenda. This came out of——
That is not true.
It is true. This document is all about co-operation with ongoing change and modernisation. It is not about driving a new reform agenda which would deliver €970 million worth of additional achievement.
It has delivered the most modern, progressive and efficient public service——
That is what it was supposed to do. That is all looking backwards.
——in Europe.
That is looking at history.
We have the most modern, efficient and productive public service in Europe.
This was to be something new. That is the difference.
From March of next year, the process of negotiating another pay deal, much of which will affect the public service, will begin and will conclude in June. My question is reasonable. What evaluation will the Department of Finance undertake on how the current benchmarking process is working out? The Department of Finance will be one of the players advising the Government side on what to negotiate. We are approaching the next pay deal. How are we supposed to make serious judgments on what is happening? I hope Senator O'Toole is right and that the benchmarking deal will deliver significant gains as we go into the next deal. We are talking about freedom of information and not the merits or demerits of the case. That is why we need this information. I welcome the Minister of State's undertaking that the information in the Department of Finance on benchmarking and the Department's evaluation of it, if it undertakes any, will be covered by freedom of information legislation.
I am not relating any new information. That is the situation.
I am concluding the discussion on this item on the agenda, that is, the consideration of the Freedom of Information Act 1997 (Prescribed Bodies) Regulations 2003.