Coming in the wake of reports on the Leinster House bike shed and the security hut beside the Department of Finance, the the Comptroller & Auditor General’s(C&AG) annual report was always going to attract significant interest. And true to form it has uncovered a range of instances of poor or questionable management of the public finances. These are probed with the forensic eye which the C&AG brings, informed by the detailed procedures set down for the management of the public finances.
Some context is needed here. The State spends more than €100 billion each year, much of it in an entirely satisfactory fashion. The bulk of the money spent is voted through the Dáil and departmental spending plans are overseen by Oireachtas committees. The Public Accounts Committee has a role in probing where problems arise.
Still, value for money is an issue given the rapid increase in spending in recent years. And so the C&AG’s conclusions are important, both for their narrow application to the areas examined, but also the wider messages they contain.
The overruns and difficulties in providing modular homes for Ukrainian refugees, for example, carry lessons about the use of this form of accommodation, but also about the need to ensure proper planning of the vast sums being spent on housing and the difficulties and uncertainties caused by planning delays. Providing further evidence of this, a programme to fund local authorities to develop the infrastructure required for house-building has not delivered as expected, again partly due to the planning process.
There are special guidelines in place for major investment projects and it is vital that they are followed. In relation to the MetroLink for Dublin, the C&AG found that they have been. The report acknowledged the huge delays in progressing the project, however, and the money written off in earlier versions of it. However, for the Limerick to Foynes rail project, it finds that a number of the key requirements under the guidelines were not followed. With massive spending on transport infrastructure due in the years ahead, it is vital that what proceeds is justified by proper cost-benefit analysis and that projects then move properly through the various required approval phases.
While most of the focus in relation to Tuesday’s budget has been on payouts to households, it will also contain further significant increases in both day-to-day and investment spending. The lessons from the C&AG report are the obvious ones. Money is easily spent but value for money is hard won. It requires not only keeping to the rules but ongoing, common-sense management of public funds. And a drive to remove key blockages is essential, notably in the planning system. All too often, this creates uncertainty in investment plans and causes delays which, as the C&AG observes, inevitably lead to cost overruns.