The Corporate Governance of Agencies in Ireland Non-commercial National Agencies

277 Pages·2005·1.36 MB·English

CorporateGovernanceAgencies-Prelims.qxd 22/11/2005 17:32 Page 1
The Corporate Governance of
Agencies in Ireland
Non-commercial National Agencies
CorporateGovernanceAgencies-Prelims.qxd 22/11/2005 17:32 Page 2
CorporateGovernanceAgencies-Prelims.qxd 22/11/2005 17:32 Page 3
CPMR Research Report
6
The Corporate Governance of
Agencies in Ireland
Non-commercial National Agencies
Anne-Marie McGauran
Koen Verhoest
Peter C. Humphreys
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First published in 2005
by the
Institute of Public Administration
57-61 Lansdowne Road
Dublin 4
Ireland
in association with
The Committee for Public Management Research
www.ipa.ie
©2005 with the Institute of Public Administration
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording
or any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library.
ISBN 1-904541-30-5
ISSN 1393-9424
Cover design by M&J Graphics, Dublin
Typeset by the Institute of Public Administration
Printed by BetaPrint, Dublin
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ix
About the Authors x
Executive Summary xi
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
1.1 Setting the scene 1
1.2 Structure of the report 2
Chapter 2: Agencies - what and why? 4
2.1 What are agencies? 4
2.2 Agencies: why? 4
2.3 What are agencies set up to do? 7
2.4 How is agencification occurring internationally? 8
2.5 What factors influence the establishment of agencies
internationally? 10
Chapter 3: Characteristics of agencies 14
3.1 Autonomy of agencies 14
3.2 Accountability/performance contracting 17
3.3 Factors which influence the autonomy and
accountability of agencies 20
3.4 Do agencies ‘work’? 22
3.5 What problems occur with agencification, in terms of
public governance? 24
3.6 Conclusion 27
Chapter 4: Research objectives and methodology 29
4.1 Terms of reference 29
4.2 Some key definitions and concepts 30
4.3 The survey 33
4.4 The case studies 35
Chapter 5: An overview of Irish public
sector agencies 38
5.1 Number and types of Irish agencies 38
5.2 Legislative establishment 40
5.3 Trends over time 42
5.4 Parent departments and offices 43
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5.5 Policy areas 45
5.6 Functions 46
5.7 Summary 48
Chapter 6: Non-commercial national level agencies
-creation and features 50
6.1 Functions and policy areas 50
6.2 Age of agencies 51
6.3 Size of agencies 51
6.4 Legal status and form of agencies 52
6.5 Reasons to set up an agency 55
6.6 The process of setting up an agency 56
6.7 Assessment and recommendations 57
6.8 Summary 65
Chapter 7: The autonomy and accountability of non-
commercial national level agencies in relation to human
resources 67
7.1 Introduction 67
7.2 Numbers 70
7.3 Salaries 73
7.4 Recruitment 75
7.5 Promotion and tenure 76
7.6 Accountability of agencies on HR issues 78
7.7 Conclusion and recommendations on HR issues 81
7.8 Summary 85
Chapter 8: Autonomy and accountability of non-
commercial national level agencies in relation to
financial management 87
8.1 Source of funding 87
8.2 Overview of financial management autonomy 88
8.3 Shifting budget between functions 91
8.4 Carrying budgets from year to year 92
8.5 Savings and provisions 94
8.6 Taking out loans 95
8.7 Setting tariffs 96
8.8 Accountability of agencies in relation to the use of
financial resources 97
8.9 Financial Reports 100
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8.10Summary 110
Chapter 9: Policy autonomy and accountability of
non-commercial national level agencies 112
9.1 Introduction 112
9.2 Role of agencies in the national policy cycle 114
9.3 Types of agency strategy documents 116
9.4 Accountability - reporting 119
9.5 Accountability - targets and performance indicators 120
9.6 Accountability - rewards and sanctions 121
9.7 Conclusion and recommendations on policy issues 122
9.8 Summary 123
Chapter 10: Governance structures in the non-
commercial national level agencies 125
10.1 Boards and governance of agencies 125
10.2 Functions and role of boards 125
10.3 Board appointment mechanisms and composition 127
10.4 Monitoring the CEO 131
10.5 The role of the CEO 132
10.6 Conclusions and recommendations 133
10.7 Summary 134
Chapter 11: The relationship between the non-
commercial national level agencies and their parent
departments: a case for relationship management 136
11.1 Introduction 136
11.2 New roles for the parent department 137
11.3 Contacts between department and agencies 142
11.4 Liaison units at two levels 143
11.5 Skills, capacities and attitudes for building trust-
enhancing relationships 144
11.6 Performance agreements 146
11.7 Conclusions 149
11.8 Summary 149
Chapter 12: Towards a new approach to agencies 151
12.1 Summary of the main findings 151
12.2 Summary of recommendations 156
12.3 Three scenarios for the governance of agencies 162
12.4 Putting the recommendations into practice -
a scenario for the governance of Irish agencies 172
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Notes 175
References 179
Appendix 1 The database of 601 agencies operating in
Ireland in Autumn 2003 185
Appendix 2 The 211 non-commercial agencies operating
at national level (the survey database),
Autumn 2003 215
Appendix 3 The survey questionnaire and cover letter 226
Appendix 4 Validity of the survey data 246
Appendix 5 Explanation of matrices 249
Appendix 6 Case study interview schedule
- main topics discussed 253
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We owe a large debt to the agency and department
personnel who took part in this research, and without
whom there would be no study of Irish agencies! We are
grateful to all of those who completed questionnaires on
their organisation, and to those who took part in the case
study phase. We thank you for your time, interest and
enthusiasm, both for your work and for our study.
Above all, the authors would like to thank the
Committee for Public Management Research for its support,
encouragement and guidance throughout this study, which
is the first phase in a major and innovative programme of
cross-national research.
At the Instituut voor de Overheid, the Institute of
Public Administration would particularly like to thank
Professor Geert Bouckaert, who played a key role in
supporting this study as part of his programme for an
international study of the importance of state agencies. We
would also like to thank Bram Verschuere, Anita Van Gils
and Inge Vermeulen for their work on the web version of the
survey questionnaire. We also thank the FWO Vlaanderen
(Flemish Scientific Board) whose funding facilitated Koen
Verhoest’s stay in Ireland.
We would like to thank Karen Isaac and Jeanette Mair
for their research assistance compiling the agency database
and tracking down survey responses.
Anne-Marie McGauran
Koen Verhoest
Peter C. Humphreys
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dr Anne-Marie McGauran is a Research Officer at the
Institute of Public Administration, Dublin, where she
manages the study investigating the autonomy and
accountability of Irish agencies. She is also a Research
Associate and part-time lecturer at the Centre for Gender
and Women’s Studies, Trinity College Dublin. From 1999 to
2004 she worked as Head of the NDP Gender Equality Unit
in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.
Dr Koen Verhoest is Assistant Professor at the Public
Management Institute (Catholic University of Leuven,
Belgium) where he specialises in research on public
management and governance, including relationships
between the state, agencies, companies and community
and voluntary organisations. In 2005 he worked as a
Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Public
Administration, Dublin, on the governance of agencies. He
is involved in the ‘Comparative Public Organization Data
Base for Research and Analysis - network’ (www.public-
management- cobra.org), which is a cross-national research
network on the governance of agencies.
Dr Peter Humphreys is Executive Director: Research at the
Institute of Public Administration. He has nearly thirty
years’ professional research and management experience at
local, regional, national and international levels both in
Ireland and the UK. Between 1989 and 1997, he was
National Director of Research and Statistics at the Equal
Opportunities Commission in Britain. Since returning to
Ireland in 1997, he has authored or co-authored a number
of major studies on the Irish public sector, particularly in
the areas of quality management, HRM, equality/diversity
and the changing structure and role of the Irish public
sector.
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