Civil service head Mario Cutajar today said that 73 per cent of the budget measures for this year had been implemented.

Addressing a press conference, Mr Cutajar said certain measures required more than one year to be implemented. 68 per cent of measures introduced in the 2015 budget had come into force, he said. Unimplemented measures would be followed up and worked on, Mr Cutajar added. 

The civil service head said that proper planning and monitoring of budget measure implementation was lacking under the previous government. The new system in place would allow for even more measures to be implemented in future, Mr Cutajar said.

He also added that the government would also be publishing a report on its efforts to reduce bureaucracy, as well as its reply to administrative shortcomings identified by the National Audit Office (NAO).

A working group between the public service and NAO had been set up to examine and update certain public sector rules and regulations, he told reporters.  Some of the rules were archaic, Mr Cutajar said, and the NAO was only doing its job by flagging any instances when they were not obeyed.

Mr Cutajar said these outdated rules would be updated, and a leaner public service management code introduced. He said the current code rivals the Bible in size.