Minister Donohoe publishes the first tranche of papers developed for the 2023 Spending Review
-
From: Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation
- Published on: 22 September 2023
- Last updated on: 12 April 2025
The Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform, Paschal Donohoe, has today (Thursday), published the first tranche of papers as part of the 2023 Spending Review process.
The Spending Review process is a key platform for generating evidence for policy making across the Civil Service. Supported by the Irish Government Economic Evaluation Service (IGEES), the process has become a focal point for a range of analyses across government departments and their agencies. The publication of these latest four papers brings to one hundred and seventy-seven (177) the total amount of papers published under this process since 2017.
Welcoming the publication of these reviews Minister Donohoe said:
"In line with the overall objectives of the Spending Review process, the publication of this first tranche of papers for 2023 shows that departments continue to examine policies and programmes in support of evidence based policy making. Again there is a wide variety of topical research undertaken within these four papers and many papers, to be published later in the year, are presently feeding into the Budget deliberations.
"As always, the collation and assessment of data in this way better informs policy makers and allows us to make better decisions for the taxpayer.
"The four papers published today, in the areas of Social Protection, Hospital Care and Innovation in the Public Service, provide valuable insights across the policy areas reviewed and are a welcome addition to our evidence base."
The 4 papers published today, plus all previous papers are available to view on the Spending Review website.
Notes
Summary of Papers
Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform
1. A Review of the Public Service Innovation Fund
Since its introduction the Public Service Innovation Fund has helped to guide efforts in fostering and sustaining innovation across the Public Service. This paper examines how the fund operated between 2019 and 2021, analyses PSIF outputs and trends and considers potential future funding options for the initiative.
2. An Assessment of the Disability Allowance Scheme Trends and Characteristics
The number of Disability Allowance (DA) recipients grew by 55% in the decade to 2022. The aim of this Spending Review is to further build on the scheme's established evidence base by using the latest available data to analyse the underlying causes of this growth as well as to develop insights from an in-depth examination of DA recipients' that may be used to shape future policy direction and discussion in this area.
3. The Structure and Usage of the Public Employment Service
This Spending Review sets out the structure of the Public Employment Service (PES) as it is currently organised, using the latest available data to present a snapshot of PES users across the services and schemes as at December 2022/January 2023, and considers available evidence from the literature on the effectiveness of employment supports.
Department of Health
4. Unscheduled Care: An Analysis of National and Hospital Level Trends
This paper provides an analysis of patient level Unscheduled Care data recorded in the Patient Experience Time dataset over the period 2017-2022. It provides numerous insights into patient characteristics and outcomes in Unscheduled Care environments, including in relation to their age, admission probability, clinical need, mode of arrival and whether they have a referral. The findings of the paper either have overt or indirect implications for strategic policy development for Unscheduled Care in Ireland.