Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure & Reform in Ireland has published an updated Public Spending Code: A Guide to Evaluating, Planning and Managing Public Investment. The publication involves a set of roles, procedures, and guidance to ensure Value for Money in public expenditure across the Irish Public Service and The Code applies to all organizations that spend public money.

The code strengthens the existing guidance to better reflect the realities of project delivery with a particular focus on financial appraisal, cost estimation, and risk management. The guidelines specified are as following:

• Support public bodies in delivering greater VFM;
• Provide greater clarity on roles and responsibilities;
• Revise the project lifecycle to reflect the realities of project delivery;
• Strengthen guidance; and
• Increase transparency through publication of business cases and evaluation reports.

The update of the PSC is a key enabling reform for Project Ireland 2040 to ensure better project appraisal mechanisms, more commercial delivery of projects, and better estimation and management of costs.

Guidelines for the use of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) were also published replacing the 2006 guidelines and aligned with the key reforms made to the Public Spending Code.