As part of her role on the Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service, Deputy Joan Burton has called for the committee to consult outside academic establishments, such as Smurfit Business School, as part of its review of Government policy initiatives.

As reported in the Irish Times, the committee is to examine the annual output statements that were provided by Government Ministers for the first time last year, but Ms Burton said yesterday that the new system was a fundamental change to public accounts procedures and would require expert analysis.

“My background is in accounting and I know enough to know that there is a lot here that I do not know,” Burton told the committee.

“The aim of the statements is to improve transparency and value for money in public sector spending, and the first update on last year’s statements is due shortly. But the statements, which set out what each department is to achieve with the public money granted to them, are very challenging to assess.”

“They say that this and this has been done, but it may be that the services on the ground are not as complete as the output summaries indicate. For example, there is a statement on bus corridors which makes no mention of the number of buses servicing the routes.”

Burton later commented that “ensuring that all significant government policy initiatives are subject to a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis, with expert outside input, such as from academic institutions, would be one sure-fire way of avoiding a repeat of debacles like e-government, PPARS and so on. Getting this sort of expert input could go some way towards cutting down on the waste of tax-payers’ money”