Alan Dukes: Reinventing the public sector
The country needs an efficient public sector. The blueprint exists, but it needs to be implemented, says Alan Dukes
Some very interesting information has emerged into the public arena about issues discussed during the recent abortive talks between the Government and ICTU on Congress's "unpaid leave" proposal.
According to a report in the Sunday Tribune of December 13th, Congress was willing to sign up to the following public service reforms:
- Redeployment of staff across the public and civil service.
- Awarding of increments based on performance.
- Promotions to be based purely on merit.
- Centralising functions such as payroll, procurement and purchasing, IT and human resources.
- The introduction of an extended working day in the health service covering the period 8am to 8pm.
- An overhaul of staff rostering in health so staff could work any five days in a seven-day week.
- The establishment of an independent review process to deal with disputes on loss of earnings caused by the reforms.
- A review of staffing ratios to spread efficiency across the service.
- The provision of community-based health and social care services at night and at weekends.
- Incentivised schemes for public service staff to take early retirement and career breaks.
- Flat rate overtime for the first eight hours of each month.
It was reported that there were also some new provisions about unpaid leave days.
To me, this looks like a very rational set
of reforms which should be proceeded with straight away. So rational do these
reforms seem that I have to ask why we haven't already had most of them for
quite some time. There seem to me to be evidence of extraordinary dilatoriness
on the part of successive Governments and public service managers.
It is unwise to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it seems to me that some elements, at least, of these reforms were supposed to have been incorporated in benchmarking deals in the past. I seem to remember that it was once agreed that there would be performance bonuses for senior civil servants.
The story may be apocryphal, but I understand that there was one Departmental Secretary who took it seriously and awarded performance bonuses according to the formula. He was the only one who did: all the others awarded bonuses to all the staff grades concerned. The result was extreme disgruntlement in the only Government Department in which the scheme was applied as intended.
I have long argued that the State needs its own "in-house" capacity to formulate the information technology needs of joined-up government and to assess competently the proposals from information technology systems providers. The PPARS debacle was surely evidence enough of this need.
Systems must be designed on the basis of functioning, hands-on, inside knowledge of the functional needs of cross-Departmental coordination in the use of information to guide policy formulation and implementation.
Having looked the gift horse in the mouth, I will be even more churlish and go on to say that, as taxpayers, we have the right to expect that all of these reforms be implemented forthwith as part and parcel of what we have the right to consider as the proper, effective management of our public services.
Every one of these "reforms" would be considered normal, progressive management practice in the private sector. Not a single one of them could possibly be described as "revolutionary".
As always, however, these things are not straightforward in this great little country of ours. As I understand it, Congress has said that these commonsense matters are off the table, because the rest of the deal did not happen. This is the spoilt child who is not doing well in the game picking up the football and walking off the pitch. That is just not good enough and we must not allow it to happen.
Even if we did not have economic, fiscal and banking crises to deal with, we would be entitled to expect this level of effective organisation and work practices in our public services.
At a time of crisis, when the restoration of our competitive capacity is so central to the hopes of new entrants to the labour market and to the tens of thousands who have become unemployed in the last two years, playing games with the efficiency of key public services is simply unacceptable. The Government and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions must now get back to the table, not to negotiate these reforms, but to draw up an agreed and rapid programme for their implementation.
