'Good Governance Is Directing All Public Efforts in the Interests of Stakeholders'
Good Governance in the current environment
Referring to recent work by his Office the Comptroller & Auditor General, John Buckley said that good progress has been made in creating a regime that gives assurance in regard to State body compliance in the area of governance and its association with the accountability process helps ensure that all conformance matters are on Boards’ agendas.
Wider aspects of performance now need to be addressed and a framework developed that balances the operational independence of State bodies with the need for focused delivery. It may be useful to focus attention on achievement of outcomes in formulating this framework. A copy of the presentation by John Buckley is available on the link below
Jim Power described the current position of the Irish economy and what, in his view, needed to be done. We were experiencing the deepest recession in our history and there was a long hard road ahead. The restructuring of public finances has to continue and the Government cannot succumb to pressures which diluted the need to create sustainable public finances. The Banking crisis has to be sorted and a debate about a new banking model was needed. Competiveness was a central requirement for economic recovery and the ‘competitiveness agenda’ has to be pushed on to the Dail agenda. A copy of the presentation by Jim Power is available on the link below
Richard Boyle drew on international research to illustrate common problems which contributed to serious service failures. These included poor leadership, low levels of accountability and poor information for decision makers. He referred to four dimensions of good governance: standards of behaviour; organisational structures and processes; control; and external reporting. On the issue of Board appointments he said that the processes for board selection and composition were vital elements. On the issue of external reporting there is a need to insure that Departments charged with the monitoring of agencies have the capacity required to discharge the role. A copy of the presentation by Richard Boyle is available on the link below
Several topics were raised in an open discussion with Members of the Forum and other participants. These include the difficulties in measuring outputs in areas such as education and health, the tendency of some Departments to focus on micro management rather than the overall purpose of bodies and the apparent difficulties around agreeing the parameters for performance frameworks.
Members and participants are very welcome to contact the management of the Forum at the IPA to discuss any of the issues raised at the briefing