Minister McGrath publishes the second tranche of the Spending Review papers for 2021

THE Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Michael McGrath TD, on Friday August 13th, published the second tranche of Spending Review papers as part of the 2021 Spending Review process.

The spending review is a key platform for evidence for policy making across the Civil Service. Supported by Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service (IGEES) staff now working directly in all Departments, the process has become a focal point for the broad range of analysis ongoing across the Civil Service.

Welcoming these reviews, the Minister stated:
“The spending review process continues to build the evidence base across a range of critical policy areas. It is a key policy tool for informing debate and decision making in the context of the State’s response to key policy challenges such as Brexit and Covid-19.”

The Minister added:
“Each of the papers published today are joint or collaborative pieces of research across different Departments in the Civil Service. I welcome this collaboration. Sharing analysis across Departments enhances our understanding of data and evidence, resulting in high-quality work that informs and fosters debate among decision makers and stakeholders.”

In total there are 11 spending review papers for publication over the summer months covering a diverse range of policy areas such as health, business supports, education and social policy. An additional tranche of spending review papers will be published in October.

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The papers published today, in addition to spending review papers published previously, are available on the Spending Review website.

Summaries of Spending Review papers:

Introduction
Executive Summaries – Tranche 2 Publications
This document sets out the executive summaries for the second tranche of 2021 spending review papers.

Education
Teacher Allocations: Developing a model for Mainstream Teacher Projections
This paper was produced collaboratively by staff in the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. It uses analysis from a 2020 Spending Review paper to develop a model designed to project mainstream teacher allocations over the medium-term using school level enrolment projections.

Health
Review of the High-Tech Drugs Scheme
This paper was produced collaboratively by staff in the Department of Health and Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. It focuses on High-Tech Drug (HTD) expenditure, a State pharmaceutical procurement and dispensing arrangement for patients with health needs initially met in the hospital setting.

Focused Policy Assessment of Reducing Harm, Supporting Recovery (RHSR): An analysis of expenditure and performance in the area of drug and alcohol misuse
This paper was produced collaboratively by staff in the Departments of Health and Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. It profiles labelled drug expenditure, characterises for the first-time unlabelled expenditure on drugs, including lost productivity costs due to drug use, and assesses the performance of the RHSR under the five goals of the strategy.

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