Thousands of companies that do business with the state could lose out under new proposals to centralise procurement in the public service, according to the Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.
Robert Watt told an Institute of Public Administration conference today that the Government needed to be more efficient in handling the annual €15 billion public procurement bill.
At present, they secure economies through centralised contracts for areas like electricity, gas, paper and furnishings.
However, in future all Government bodies will be forced to comply with centralised procurement.
He acknowledged that there could be "angst and upset" where agencies already have existing contracts with local suppliers, but said they would have to make difficult decisions to save money for the exchequer.
They will publish every procurement contract in excess of €20,000 so that citizens can see what their money is being spent on.
Mr Watt also announced that the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform would shortly circulate a detailed paper on implementing shared services for functions including human resources, payroll finance and pensions.
He said such shared services could extend to means tests and debt collection.
They also plan to assign one agency to manage the public service property assets more efficiently.
Mr Watt also proposed that the Data Protection Act will have to be reformed to permit more efficient sharing of information as part of the public-sector reform process.
He said that at present, if a citizen gives information to one body, that information cannot be shared - forcing him or her to repeat the information to different agencies.
He said they planned to extend the scope of the public services card from the Department of Social Protection to the whole of the public service.
The card would reduce the need for people to give the same information to different agencies time and time again.
Mr Watt also said more redeployment would be required to fill gaps as public service numbers fell.
He said that so far, 1000 Community Welfare Officers had moved from the HSE to the Department of Social Protection, as had 700 FÁS staff.
500 staff had moved generally between different Government departments.
1000 primary teachers had moved school, as had several hundred secondary teachers.
He also cited 400 staff in the Department of Agriculture who had moved.
He said it was a facile analysis that everything in the public service was broken and in such chaos that every bit needed to be rebuilt.
