Irish Water Utility Company Staffing - Essential to have Engineers

melon_collie · 18-04-2012 1:39pm #1

Being an engineer myself and having read the new proposals for the new Irish Water utility company it appears that the government's transition strategy for the new public utility is to appoint an interim board and project management office in 2012 until Irish Water is established under it's own statute by mid 2013.

Does anyone out there know what the qualifications, experience and other job requirements will be for the management members of the board and other menbers/staff of the project office?

Who is going to recruit these people and when is it going to happen?

I'm trying not being biased but, I do think that it is essiential that qualified engineers and experienced water industry professionals should be on the board and in the make up of the project office and be large part of the new water utility if it is to be a success.

Having read the governments 'Reform of Water Sector in Ireland' position paper and flicked through the PWC reports, it appears that this board and project office will determine the staffing and skills required for the new organisation.

I believe that the skilllset required for the members of the board and the project office is not restricted to just management as this is a complex technical industry. So it is essential that the required skillset has a strong emphasis on technical knowledge and expertise.

In my opinion a good engineer has the ideal technical management skillset. I'd be interesting in hearing your views.

Heroditas · 18-04-2012 5:18pm

The idea is that staff in the local authorities who currently work in the water departments will be transferred over to Irish Water.
As a result, they shouldn't need to hire too many people and the senior management could very well consist of some of those corpo senior engineers.

Joko · 18-04-2012 7:27pm

The engineering departments of the various councils have been working on water metering for years now. I worked on a domestic metering project with the local council back in 2005!

Road-Hog · 18-04-2012 11:02pm

melon_collie wrote: »

Being an engineer myself and having read the new proposals for the new Irish Water utility company it appears that the government's transition strategy for the new public utility is to appoint an interim board and project management office in 2012 until Irish Water is established under it's own statute by mid 2013.

Does anyone out there know what the qualifications, experience and other job requirements will be for the management members of the board and other menbers/staff of the project office?

Who is going to recruit these people and when is it going to happen?

I'm trying not being biased but, I do think that it is essiential that qualified engineers and experienced water industry professionals should be on the board and in the make up of the project office and be large part of the new water utility if it is to be a success.

Having read the governments 'Reform of Water Sector in Ireland' position paper and flicked through the PWC reports, it appears that this board and project office will determine the staffing and skills required for the new organisation.

I believe that the skilllset required for the members of the board and the project office is not restricted to just management as this is a complex technical industry. So it is essential that the required skillset has a strong emphasis on technical knowledge and expertise.

In my opinion a good engineer has the ideal technical management skillset. I'd be interesting in hearing your views.

Concurr 100% with your views, but with gombeen politicians making ridiculous statements over the past couple of days it would give you no confidence whatsoever in how the staffing/recruitment will be undertaken, most likely irish warter will be stuffed with cronies and have a non technical executive, I'll be watching out closely for the 2000-3000 jobs that inda and big phil have been sh1tting on about, having spent 10 years plus in developing water service type projects I will be very interested in what transpires

antoobrien · 19-04-2012 10:05am

O.P. you couldn't have that, the job might get done efficiently.

jackamoe · 07-08-2012 4:09pm

I think it will be essential to have properly qualified and experienced people staffing this new Irish Water Utility - Uisce Eireann if it is to be a success, not too much information out there on whether this is happening or not!

Just seen where in a tiny article in the Indo online (from the 22nd June 2012) where a former government press secretary <name removed> will start a new role in july as part of the new body set up to bring in water metering and charges - Irish Water.

Anyone else hear anything else about staffing this new body? Has a single job been advertised yet?

Scipio76 · 11-08-2012 12:32pm

jackamoe wrote: »

I think it will be essential to have properly qualified and experienced people staffing this new Irish Water Utility - Uisce Eireann if it is to be a success, not too much information out there on whether this is happening or not!

Just seen where in a tiny article in the Indo online (from the 22nd June 2012) where a former government press secretary <name removed> will start a new role in july as part of the new body set up to bring in water metering and charges - Irish Water.

Anyone else hear anything else about staffing this new body? Has a single job been advertised yet?

The company will be established with the staff who formerly comprised the water services divisions in the local authorities. I don't know the exact details however without a certain amount of redundancies no economies of scale with be achieved and we could see the kind of over-administrated mess that we got when the HSE was established.

jackamoe · 13-08-2012 12:37pm

Scipio76 thats the fear - that it would end up like the HSE...aaaahhhhh.........I live in hope that they can learn from past mistakes and do a good job on it as it has the potential to be very good if done right.

From some reports, I dont think the Local authorities are in favour of the new utility company and the existing water services staff will be last to find out about the move. It looks like an accountancy exercise to get all these people off the state payroll and make it look like there are big changes in the public srevice!!!

But it is a bit disheartening to see the first person appointed to it is a PR guy, often referred to as a spin doctor!

unit 1 · 14-08-2012 6:43pm

As a coco worker myself I think that those involved in the water side should probably relish the idea of getting away from the godawful mess that la's are.

A new body, even with many of the existing staff, that is properly set up with the intention of doing the fairly simple tbh task of supplying water and treating wastwater without the continual petty interference of the myriad of la issues should be a better working environment.

As the gov will be the paymasters untill iw becomes fully self funding it does seem likely that they will transfer all water staff so as to "reduce" public sector numbers. This will probably postpone the overstaffing issues for about 5 years with a move towards full privatisation in abour 10, by which time they will have a complete grasp of what they actually own and can sell.

Going Forward · 20-11-2014 11:38pm

melon_collie wrote: »

Being an engineer myself and having read the new proposals for the new Irish Water utility company it appears that the government's transition strategy for the new public utility is to appoint an interim board and project management office in 2012 until Irish Water is established under it's own statute by mid 2013.

Does anyone out there know what the qualifications, experience and other job requirements will be for the management members of the board and other menbers/staff of the project office?

Who is going to recruit these people and when is it going to happen?

I'm trying not being biased but, I do think that it is essiential that qualified engineers and experienced water industry professionals should be on the board and in the make up of the project office and be large part of the new water utility if it is to be a success.

Having read the governments 'Reform of Water Sector in Ireland' position paper and flicked through the PWC reports, it appears that this board and project office will determine the staffing and skills required for the new organisation.

I believe that the skilllset required for the members of the board and the project office is not restricted to just management as this is a complex technical industry. So it is essential that the required skillset has a strong emphasis on technical knowledge and expertise.

In my opinion a good engineer has the ideal technical management skillset. I'd be interesting in hearing your views.

You some kind of a prophet??:)

Sam Russell · 21-11-2014 2:29pm

I thought Irish Water was a not-for-prophet organisation.:)

Irish Water Utility Company Staffing - Essential to have Engineers

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