An Bord Snip Nua — How Might It Affect State Agencies?
Last week the much anticipated report by the Special Group on Public Service Numbers and Expenditure (commonly known as Bord Snip Nua) led by UCD economist, Colm McCarthy, was published. The group had four main objectives under its terms of reference, one of which had direct relevance to the number of state agencies:
Examine and make recommendations for further rationalisation of State agencies beyond the rationalisation proposals and principles set out in Budget 2009.
The McCarthy report identifies 43 specific rationalisations, over and above the 41 rationalisations announced in Budget 2009 last October. Some of McCarthy’s proposals involve outright abolition while others involve mergers into parent Departments. The report says that, collectively, the rationalisations will deliver €170m in savings.
These recommendations extend a Government aim to reduce the number of state agencies, and follow on from the OECD Review’s (2008) concerns regarding the number of state agencies; the absence of a clear rationale for creating agencies or ‘agencification plan’; and the fact that the growth in the number of agencies has increased the complexity of public service delivery and overall government coherence for the citizen.
Elsewhere, McCarthy also argues that accountability for performance must be improved for non-commercial bodies. Presently, there are no output statements or service level agreements, the report says, though it acknowledges that Output Statements are being introduced through the Transforming Public Service plan. McCarthy says that there should be a ‘common, coherent framework for results focused management and governance in Irish State Agencies’.
Similarly, all regulators should be required to submit annual budgets and funding levy proposals to the Department of Finance, along with output statements ‘to make clear what exactly the body is aiming to achieve with its resources’.
The report says that there is ‘considerable scope for increased resort to both shared services and outsourcing in the Irish public service’. Outsourcing to private providers in particular should be actively pursued, it says, while centralised shared services are urgently needed in the area of ICT, where millions are spent each year on external consultants.
Finally, the report recommends that the Public Appointments Service be given the additional task of implementing a system transfer and the reallocation/redeployment of surplus staff across the civil and public sector.