The Government's Civil Service Renewal Plan includes a commitment to undertake a programme of Organisational Capability Reviews (OCR) of Government Departments and Offices to enhance their organisational development.
An OCR of the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation (DBEI) was carried out during 2018 by a Capability Review Team (CRT) from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER). Within DBEI, a Principal Officer with responsibility for Business Services was assigned to work with the CRT.
The CRT’s work involved reviewing a range of documentation and conducting a series of interviews and workshops, internally within the Department and Offices, and externally with a range of stakeholders including various other Government Departments. The work of the CRT was overseen by an external peer review group and the process was overseen by a group of Secretaries General from a number of Government departments.
As is required through the Capability Review process, the Capability Review report and the Department’s Implementation Plan were approved by the Secretary General of the Department of An Taoiseach and the Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in March 2019. The Capability Review report and the Department’s Implementation Plan were noted by Government at the Cabinet meeting of 16 April 2019.
The OCR set out over 50 recommendations in the following five areas:
• Responding to a high number of projected retirements
• Embedding policy capability and capacity
• Further enhancing Governance and Risk Awareness
• Utilising ICT as an enabler of innovation
• Further enhancing communications and our outward focus
I am pleased to inform the Deputy that the overall findings of the Review were very positive. Over 50 recommendations were made and my Department implemented these over the next 15 months following publication of the Review. I believe the OCR process gives departments an excellent platform to implement reforms, enhance processes and undertake new innovative ways of doing things.
My Department continues to deliver to a high standard, but we remain acutely aware that the Department is on a continuous journey of improvement, reform and adapting to change, in line with current and future Government priorities.
In respect of the agencies that come within my remit, they are statutorily independent in their functions, and this is an operational matter for them. I have, therefore, referred the Deputy's question to the agencies for direct reply.
