Comptroller auditer general sudddenly awakes.

dunsandin

What a typically Irish situation - suddenly the CAG wakes up and raises a stink over "past" excessses by govt departments. Why is it that we are so damn good at spotting what was wrong with 5 years ago, and so poor at spotting what is wrong RIGHT NOW. The waste is continueing, money is being peed away left right and center, and yet all we hear about is what is done, not what should be done, and fast. Why the hell dont they start looking at excess and real savings, NOW. The crapional incompetence center is a typical example - a bust developer, heavily into NAMA, and yet recieving multi-hundred million payments from the state. Wasters of the highest order. And yet again, sure nobody is to blame, everyone did their best, nobody gets fired.(And if they did, they would receive a huge pay-off) Sickening stuff.

imme

But OP the C & AG deals with history, if he were dealing with spending at present he'd be a Govt Department or a Programme Manager or a Minister.

Essentially the C & AG is Irelands' accountant. Do accountants run businesses in the real world?

P. Breathnach

imme wrote: »

But OP the C & AG deals with history, if he were dealing with spending at present he'd be a Govt Department or a Programme Manager or a Minister.

Essentially the C & AG is Irelands' accountant. Do accountants run businesses in the real world?

Sean Fitzpatrick is an accountant!

Your point is right, however. The CAG functions as auditor, and does indeed look at past events. He does not make policy or spending decisions, but reviews the financial actions of the government and public bodies and reports on them.

imme

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Sean Fitzpatrick is an accountant!

let's not drag the thread down, please:D

Cookie_Monster

indeed they audit, but they should be able to produce an audit of all of last year before the end of this year tbh, not 3,4,5,6+ years later

The_Honeybadger

dunsandin wrote: »

Why is it that we are so damn good at spotting what was wrong with 5 years ago, and so poor at spotting what is wrong RIGHT NOW.

On primetime last night it was suggested that the CAG's powers be extended to deal with the problems, or set up a new department of public sector reform to deal with it. While I feel we have enough departments and useless agencies, this one has the potential to pay for itself many times over in a reasonably short period of time, say a few years. Anybody see any reason why this shouldn't / won't happen? I don't think any public servant deliberately goes to work in the morning with the intention of wasting money, but clearly there is a flaw in the system somewhere, given that these things keep occuring. A relative of mine held a very senior poisition in the PS up until a few years ago and while discussing this with him once, he made a very telling statement, "sure money was being thrown at us, and we couldn't spend it fast enough for them". That culture needs to change utterly, my suggestion would be a bonus for staff based on what % they come in under budget for the year, of course this would have to be independently reviewed to ensure services don't suffer, but it might incentivise staff to seek value for money in terms of procurement etc. I would imagine that many people, including public servants who use this forum see money being blatantly p**sed away on a daily basis, their input could really help in making things better.

P. Breathnach

mickeyk wrote: »

... I don't think any public servant deliberately goes to work in the morning with the intention of wasting money, but clearly there is a flaw in the system somewhere, given that these things keep occuring. A relative of mine held a very senior poisition in the PS up until a few years ago and while discussing this with him once, he made a very telling statement, "sure money was being thrown at us, and we couldn't spend it fast enough for them". That culture needs to change utterly, my suggestion would be a bonus for staff based on what % they come in under budget for the year, of course this would have to be independently reviewed to ensure services don't suffer, but it might incentivise staff to seek value for money in terms of procurement etc. I would imagine that many people, including public servants who use this forum see money being blatantly p**sed away on a daily basis, their input could really help in making things better.

I agree that public finances need to be reformed, but I don't wholly agree with your approach.

The greatest problem is the political one. Dáil Éireann passes a budget drawn up by the Minister for Finance in consultation with ministerial colleagues and with inputs from the civil service. That's the source of "money being thrown at us". So we need a change in the political culture.

I don't think we should ever aim to underspend (or overspend) a budget. That makes a nonsense of the very idea of budgeting. Life being what it is, some underspends or overspends will arise. But if you incentivise people to save on budgets, you will be tempting them to pad budgets so that there will be scope for making a saving.

We do need some culture change in the public service. For example:

• Some people like empire-building, and having control of a larger budget is part of the game.
• Public servants can also be very ingenious in finding ways of funding their pet projects by employing creative ways of categorising things.
• I think it is well-recognised that a budget underspend in any particular area has been regarded as a bad thing, mainly because it might lead to smaller budgets in future years.
• In my (non-expert) opinion, accounting and financial management procedures in the public service are unduly cumbersome -- for example, I was asked to cost operations without being given any information on the resources available or the costs associated with them; it's part of the phenomenon that most public servants are generalists, and in some areas specialists are required.

Pharaoh1

MickeyK is spot on that there is effectively no incentive to be prudent with public money. The person who does his or her best to get the best deal will probably get the same increment and opportunity for promotion as the wasteful individual.
In addition there is effectively no system of sanction at any level for those that mess up.
The sad part is that neither of these basic principles will be addressed by any enquiry. There is no will to change anything fundamental.
We are doomed to have repeat the whole thing.

Nijmegen

What's this "suddenly" business all about? The C&AG office produces a report every year. We just ignored them completely during the good times.

The public service is a rut of poor spending decisions, with no political will, leadership or skill having been inputted to fix it.

As was said on Prime Time, from both OECD reports and in general, is that Ireland suffers from IDD - Implementation Deficit Disorder. We have tonnes of reports on reform and no action gets taken.

I'd say that "Yes, Minister" is likely still, 30 years later, the best rendition of what it looks like at the top of the civil and public service.

• No cost/benefits done properly
• No punishment for poor spending, missing targets, etc
• No incentives relating to real efficiency
• No follow up to reform reports
• No line-item scrutiny

I saw an interesting comment last night that we should have a department of public sector reform and efficency, that should have real teeth and be staffed by really, exceptionally critical auditors who are hated and feared throughout the public sector.

Speaking from a business point of view, I know companies that have saved themselves millions through this sort of approach.

bbam

imme wrote: »

Do accountants run businesses in the real world?

Unfortunitely they pretty much do..

As has been said auditors generally look backwards rather than forwards.

I think we need an "Office of the Management Accountant General" but maybe I am a bit biased being a management accountant and all.

dunsandin

We seen to be specialising in the useless and expensive art of posessing 20-20 hindsight. We should be developing that rather more useful talent-foresight. Its badly lacking. (Maybe they could set up a quango to investigate why Ireland has lacked foresight during the last 10 years).

cyclopath2001

Nijmegen wrote: »

The public service is a rut of poor spending decisions,

Such as deciding to move offices/people out of Dublin into scores of country towns, instead of concentrating staff in one place where they could be easily redeployed from role to role?

Cookie_Monster

imme wrote: »

Essentially the C & AG is Irelands' accountant. Do accountants run businesses in the real world?

no, they are the auditors, the dept of finance are the accountants. and yes every major company in the world is run by it accountants. Cost and profit dictate everything.

The Raven.

Shane Ross has written an interesting article in today's Sindo.

Shane Ross: Watchdog's wasted efforts

IS the watchdog a waster?

Last week the grandly named "Comptroller & Auditor-General" produced more than 1,000 pages of masterly finger-wagging.

He gently took the usual suspects to task for wasting State funds.

John Buckley must have the easiest job in Ireland. Ireland's wasters' industry is endemic.

Wherever he looks he will find a waster. Serial offenders crop up year after year.

All he needs is an annual pilgrimage to Fas. That would give him a full chapter. Next he should press the 'consultants' button for another chapter. CIE could fill chapter three. After that, a few spectaculars -- like the millions on the National Convention Centre or the €340,000 spent on an unpublished history of the Office of Public Works -- titillate the media.

There is one area where he never shines the spotlight. In the mirror. He never wonders if the watchdog himself is a waster.

Buckley's report costs 14 grand to produce. It can be bought by any innocent member of the public in three volumes for €21. All 226 members of the Oireachtas were sent free copies last Thursday. That's nearly five grand and 250,000 pages down the drain for a start. Two copies in the Oireachtas Library would be plenty for the needs of the slow learners in Leinster House.

While Buckley knows how to raise the nation's blood pressure, it is a pity that no one in power takes effective action to follow up on his findings. He pinpoints overpayments at Fas, breaches of procurement in the Department of Finance, late returns of annual accounts at CIE and empty State buildings brought about by decentralisation.
...
Plenty of vultures are enjoying the feast served up by the rotting economy. The Department of Finance -- or other equally generous organs of the State -- have paid more than €11m to solicitors Arthur Cox, over €6m to accountants PwC and over €7m to investment bankers Merrill Lynch, supposedly to plot a route out of our banking catastrophe.
...
One foreign dignitary with a big reputation, Andrew Large, was paid €120,000 for scouring the globe and finding the new Financial Regulator, Matthew Elderfield.
...
Last year it cost €250,000 a week to keep the Comptroller's office operating. Is the office that pursues wasters worth its €12m-a-year budget?

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/shane-ross/shane-ross-watchdogs-wasted-efforts-2343599.html

This wastage is appalling - and it seems that the more it goes on, the more taxpayers' money is spent on exorbitant fees to the 'experts' to feign putting an end to it. These vultures have an interest in keeping it going!

P. Breathnach

The Raven. wrote: »

Shane Ross has written an interesting article in today's Sindo....

The most interesting thing about Ross's piece is how poor a piece of journalism it is.

The CAG is a constitutional officer who has a function in scrutiny, but not in decision-making. The office covers, often in considerable depth, a wide range of activities involving the spending of many thousands of millions of euros each year.

And as for objecting to the idea of copies being furnished to Oireachtas members, that's cheap populism: of course they should receive the reports. The formal reporting line for the CAG is to Dáil Éireann. It is to be hoped (if not expected) that the members will actually look at them.