Public Service Reform Plan Measures

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 21 November 2013

Thursday, 21 November 2013

Ceisteanna (3)

Catherine Murphy

Ceist:

3. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if, in his programme of reforming the public service, he has included a detailed regional or sub-national planning model for the optimal development of the public service around the country into the future; the extent of input his Department is having in the development of a new national spatial strategy; if the public service will be involved in this plan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49557/13]

Freagraí ó Béal (6 píosaí cainte)

Deputy Catherine Murphy

The question is about the planning under way to ensure we have the optimal public service. We are heading into a new national spatial strategy. It is not just a dry strategy based on where one would develop; public services must accompany the development. One of my concerns is that demographic change does not play as significant a role as it should in order for services to be matched with population change.

Deputy Brendan Howlin

I am afraid I am not responsible for the spatial strategy. That is a matter for the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government. I am responsible for the public service reform plan, to which I assume the question refers.

The reform plan was published in 2011 and set out an ambitious agenda for reform across all areas of the public service. Good progress has been made in implementing the plan across a range of cross-cutting areas, including, for example, shared services, public procurement, to which Deputy Seán Fleming referred, public expenditure reforms and political reform. A progress report on implementation of the plan was published in September 2012 and a second progress report will be published early in 2014.

Alongside the overall reform plan, all Departments and major offices have developed their own integrated reform delivery plans which set out the key actions required to ensure the successful delivery of the cross-cutting reforms in the plan, as well as sector-specific reform initiatives and actions from the Haddington Road agreement.

Two years on from the publication of the current plan, it is timely to consider how we can build on the next wave of reform. My Department is developing a renewed and ambitious reform plan for the next two years which will be published early in 2014. The reform programme adopts a whole-of-government approach to reforming public services across all sectors, including health, education, justice and local government, as well as the Civil Service. The reforms at sectoral level are led by the relevant Ministers and their Departments. Owing to the nature of public services, they are delivered from many locations around the country. The Government’s reform programme is about ensuring these services, whether centrally or locally delivered, are efficient and effective. In that context, it is the role of all sectors to continually review how services are organised to ensure they deliver optimum benefit to the people.

On a related point, we need to manage our property portfolio which is the responsibility of the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, in a co-ordinated manner. To that end, the Government published a property asset management delivery plan last July which is being implemented by my colleague, the Minister of State.

Deputy Catherine Murphy

I am pleased to hear there is a whole-of-government approach, as that brings in the national spatial strategy in terms of forward planning. The distribution of public services around the country is most unequal, but I do not need to tell the Minister that because Wexford is a case in point. For example, in terms of local authority staff, County Meath has half the number of staff in County Kerry, yet it has 40,000 more people. Class sizes are considerably higher in commuter belt areas in parts of west Dublin. Garda resources are half the strength in some locations, with County Kildare being the worst. Public service reform must be viewed in terms of having a minimum quality of public services. What we do now is important, but it also requires future planning because one cannot shift people from one part of the country to another in certain categories. The reforms are not visible in terms of equality of distribution, but they must become so.

Deputy Brendan Howlin

I have heard the Deputy make the case before and she makes a compelling case. Services were developed in an ad hoc way in health service delivery, for example, depending on what the priorities were in a health board region. We now have a national integrated health service, but there are still disparities in staffing levels and available services. Reference was also made to the distribution of gardaí. That is a matter for the Garda Commissioner. The distribution of gardaí cannot just relate to population size as crime statistics must be taken into account. There must be a concentration of gardaí where issues arise, as happened in Limerick.

There are two keys to service provision. One is proper integration in order that we have a joined-up system under which we can move people about and services are delivered in the optimum way to citizens. The next wave of reforms we are planning is citizen-focused to make sure people can access services. There is a need to be transparent in order that there is a proper public understanding and a rationale to deal with the platform of public services available to every citizen no matter where they are located.

Deputy Catherine Murphy

The issue is critically important. The Minister did not answer the part of the question about how public service reform would dovetail with the national spatial strategy in the future. I fully understand it is part of the role of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. We have a difficult situation to deal with and a dispersed pattern of settlement. We do not have an equal starting point. It is important that such a relationship is developed in order that whatever mistakes have been made in the past will not be made in the future owing to a lack of forward planning. Adequate attention must be paid to demographic change.

Deputy Brendan Howlin

Again, I agree with the Deputy. I await formal proposals from the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government on the new spatial strategy. Consultations are ongoing between my Department and all other Departments in that regard in order that when the spatial strategy is produced, it will be an integrated document into which everybody will have an input. When we see it, we might have a better debate on the issue.