Gov Policy of Civil Service Decentralisation

Georgiana

I hope this topic is okey in this forum as I have not posted before.
I would like to know what people's opinion is of Minister McCreevy's plans to decentralise the civil service.

ishmael whale

We've discussed this topic before, and I'm trying to recall some of the details. I honestly can't think of a good thing to say about it. I can think of so many negative things to say that its hard to find a place to start.

Prehaps the place to start is to simply say that one of the advantages of being a small country should be that we can manage our affairs without too much complexity. Scattering Government offices all over the place throws this advantage away. Recall that true decentralisation is about moving power to the regions, say making local authorities responsible for running schools. But the Government are proposing to move centralised services to locations without any thought to how accessible they will be to the people who need to deal with them.

The proposed decentralisation costs money without bringing any benefits that stand up to scrutiny.

Georgiana

Couldn't agree more. It is also unfair to use civil servants as politial footballs and cause unnecessary personal and family disruption. The quality of the service has to deteriorate, given that thousand and thousands of civil servants will be transferred to different work as part of the process. In many cases more than 90 per cent of an office's staff will be new to the function-simply there because they are willing to live in a particular location.

cyclopath2001

>>I would like to know what people's opinion is of Minister McCreevy's plans to decentralise the civil service.<<

It's a smokescreen.

ishmael whale

While undoubtably this announcement is a stunt, the irony is that Dundalk IT already has a Centre for Renewable Energy so there actually might be some synergy in this proposal. It’s the 10,000 heads that they plan to scatter across fifty odd locations that makes no sense.

http://www.examiner.ie/pport/web/ireland/Full_Story/did-sgp7c6r0uCWnIsgHuTLc4nqWo2.asp

Decentralisation plan 'despicable election stunt'
By Michael O'Farrell, Political Reporter
PLANS by Communications Minister Dermot Ahern to decentralise 42 extra staff to his own constituency were yesterday branded a "cheap and despicable election stunt" by the opposition.
The Irish Examiner understands that in addition to these 42 staff, Mr Ahern is also planning to decentralise another 100 civil servants to a location on the east coast which has yet to be finalised.

The Government is to add to its decentralisation plan by relocating 42 staff from Sustaining Energy Ireland (SEI) to a new facility at the Dundalk Institute of Technology. These jobs were not part of the Government's decentralisation announcement in the December Budget.

The Irish Examiner also understands that legislation being finalised will see a number of the Communications Department's coast guard and water safety functions amalgamated to create of a new State agency provisionally called Coast Watch. This will involve another 100 civil servants from the Department of Communications being relocated to the east coast.

While the SEI move was welcomed by SEI chairman Frank Convery, it was immediately criticised as a cheap election stunt by the opposition. Fine Gael environment spokesman Bernard Allen said: "this is nothing but a cheap election stunt. The Government is using the civil service as a private army to gather votes where they think they need them. It's despicable to use civil servants like that for political purposes and it undermines the spatial strategy completely," said Mr Allen.

The measures were also criticised by Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants general secretary Seán O'Riordan, who said the Government would have no indication of take-up for decentralisation until a new internet applications service was set up next month. "We were always of the view that you should have the survey first and then announce the locations and not the other way around as they are doing," he said. But Mr Ahern defended the Louth move: "I know that the local authorities, chambers of commerce and community groups in Louth will work closely with SEI and the Institute of Technology to ensure that Louth can lead the way in the renewable field."

SEI chairman Frank Convery said the new location would benefit the development and implementation of an all-island sustainable energy strategy. Dundalk DIT director Tim Collins also welcomed the move

cyclopath2001

While there might be synergy with Dundalk, would'nt there also be an existing synergy with Dublin and its businesses?

There's no mention if the Minister has inquired if staff will move, perhaps he does not value their experience? In the service sector, it is commonly held that the staff are the primary asset, strange therefore to just throw them away like used chattels.

If the SEI staff decide to stay in Dublin, what will they do & how much will it cost to re-train them?

Taken as a whole, if some 30,000 staff need to be re-trained to make it happen, how much will that cost per head for training & in lost working days?

Let's say it will cost 10,000 euro per person, that puts the cost of this part of the plan at around 300 million euro?

This does not include the cost of accomodation in the new locations and of renting vacant Dublin offices so as not to upset the Dublin commercial rent market.

Georgiana

The crazy plan also includes a proposal to relocate the central civil service training facility. Approx 96 percent of training staff do not wish to relocate-so this means that the central training service will also be in a state of chaos, since there is no provision for getting trained trainers to replace those who dont want to move.

I agree with the view that it is despicable to treat civil servants like this. Civil servants are ordinary decent folk, many with kids in school and college or partners for whom it is impractical to move. If they dont move to the country,they face an uncertain compulsory transfer to a new job which may not suit them at all. Until now there was generally some element of negotiation for internal moves. Mass simultaneous job swapping across Departments, which will now be necessary to make the mad plan work, has never happened before. In addition, civil servants promotion prospects are much reduced.

Although civil servants sometimes have a dull or even negative image, this is more due to the nature of big bureauracy than anything else. In fact civil servants are really and truly dedicated workers who keep the ship of state afloat in fair weather and foul. They might drink a fair share of tea every morning and sometimes wear the wrong clothes, but it is deeply embedded in civil servants to serve the government faithfully. Even now, most civil servants are buckling down to the nuts and bolts of implementing this politically motivated decision which is an insult to themselves and which constitutes a breach of trust by the government in the relationship between civil servants and government ministers. The government can no longer be trusted to be loyal to their most loyal workers.

I could support the principle of decentralisation if it had an honourable motive and if due consideration was given to those directly affected-but I'm afraid "despicable" is the word in the current circumstances.

cyclopath2001

I heard today the story of an official in Land Registry who's been effectively told 'to hell or to Connaught'. He went to Roscommon and discovered that the locals are taking out second mortgages to buy up homes near the town in the hopes of making a killing when the new staff move.

The local auctioneer wanted to sell him a mansion for 1m some miles out of town and told him'shure your house in Dublin is probably worth 1m'.

Any reasonable properties similar to the value of his house in greater Dublin (around e250,000) were in isolated areas and his familiy would need two cars to survive,.

A hidden agenda is that the enormous cost of the project will be recouped out of stamp duty on the house sales & the CGT on the gains made by the local carpetbaggers.

It's shaping up to be quite an ambush.