The most recent updates to the Public Spending Code which I outlined in March this year were informed by a review process involving key stakeholders. The expected impacts of these changes are to:
• Reduce the administrative burden in delivering major projects
• Allow for projects below the major project threshold of €200m to proceed more speedily through the appraisal and evaluation process compared to those of greater scale and complexity
• Allow departments responsible for delivering projects greater freedom to pursue the delivery of their priority projects.
The Public Spending Code for capital investment was reviewed and revised in 2019. The key strategic aim of the review was to ensure greater Value for Money for public investment.
While many long-standing arrangements for capital project management remained unchanged, the new arrangements sharpened the focus on risk and cost management, reduced the compliance burden on low-risk projects and brought Ireland into line with leading international approaches to major project delivery.
This review resulted in much better engagement on the application of the Code and a range of Departments and agencies have developed sector-specific arrangements within the parameters of the overall Code.
At the same time however, concerns have been expressed that the application of the Code may have been causing unnecessary delays in project implementation under the NDP, and may not have fully reflected the role of Accounting Officers in assessing risk and overseeing project implementation.
To address this, a high-level review among Secretaries Generals in key capital spending departments was commenced in April 2022 in order to review the requirements of the Code. Following a series of meetings, this group set out a series of six key principles to be referred to a practitioner group of experienced public servants across Government departments to consider. The practitioner group was tasked with considering the principles and returning to the Secretary General group with recommendations as to how the PSC could operate in a more streamlined manner and take account of the appropriate legal responsibilities of Accounting Officers.
This review led to some specific changes, announced in March and implemented through DPENDR circular 06/23, designed to streamline the project lifecycle and approval process, in particular for major projects.
• The general threshold for major projects increasing from €100m to €200m.
• The reduction of the number of approval stages prior to implementation from 5 to 3.
The expected impacts of these reforms apply to both new projects being developed and projects already progressing through the project lifecycle.
