Decentralisation

uncivilservant

ionapaul wrote:

I work for one of those IT outsourcing / contract staffing companies who stand to gain if and when decentralisation goes ahead. For what it is worth, we have had word from a senior civil servant that despite all the problems with the decentralisation process, at least one major department will be 'fully' (whatever that means) decentralised before the next general election.

You might consider getting a better 'source'. Like you say, it depends on what he/she means by 'fully'.

Some of our staff find it very hard to stay in certain government IT positions (as contract staff) as they work longers hours and feel they have to put in more effort than the civil servant IT staff who 'swan' (not my words, please note!) in around 10am and out after 5pm due to flexitime.

Why is it that seemingly intelligent people have such problems grasping the basic concept of flexible working hours? Briefly:

- The core flexitime hours (ie mandatory attendance) are normally 10am-12.30pm; 2.30pm-4pm.
- An average of 6 hours 57 minutes must be worked each day, plus a (mandatory) minimum 30 minute lunchbreak.
- Outside of the core hours, there must be enough staff present to manage the section.
- Over a 4 week period you must work approx 140 hours (~137.5 iirc)
- up to 11.5 hours can be carried over to the following 4 week period & taken as time off.

If you have any further queries about how the flexitime system operates within the Civil Service, feel free to ask.

Most IT workers in the private sector would love to work in certain civil service positions, because of the shorter (in comparison) working hours.

There's nothing stopping them, as long as they're qualified. And in comparison to other people's working hours, the hours might be quite long. What's your point?

I imagine the pay is better in the private sector, and rightfully so, if they work harder and longer.

'If' would be the key word there.

Even with both parents in lifelong civil service and a younger brother just started, have to say I think benchmarking was a farce and overly generous to those in the civil service - money for nothing in my parents' cases.

Benchmarking looked at more than just your parents' cases.

ionapaul

Are there statistics kept on how many hours, per week and on average, civil servants on flexitime work? Around 40, like the rest of us, I imagine, right?

uncivilservant

ionapaul wrote:

Are there statistics kept on how many hours, per week and on average, civil servants on flexitime work? Around 40, like the rest of us, I imagine, right?

it works out at 6 hours 57 minutes per day, not including a lunchbreak

eoineen

Yes, it is called the Benchmarking Reports and are available from the Dept of Finance. CSO also gather wages and hours data for all sectors of the economy. Public service jobs compare very favourably in both aspects.

NewDubliner

ionapaul wrote:

I work for one of those IT outsourcing / contract staffing companies who stand to gain if and when decentralisation goes ahead.

This is new, it wasn't part of the government's announcement. Can you tell us more? I'm sure the public would be concerned about the increase in IT costs & how decentralisation is being used as a smokescreen for privitisation of public administration.

I'm familiar with the work of one of the out-sourcers.

Whatever they might pay their staff, they cost the public a lot more money. The average charged is €1,000/daily for 'foot-soldiers', even more for those with talent. The long hours you quote mean nothing as this is a product of a culture of 'presentism' where they're expected to be seen working long hours so that the big fees can be justified. It's also part of the war of attrition being waged against the existing managers. They come in early to out-flank the host staff.

It's well recognised that the contractors will do whatever they can to enlarge their beacheads in host clients & ensure that they cannot be dispensed with. Once in position, the fees increase even more.

So before you start dissing public service IT staff, have a look around your own glasshouse first.

EK

eoineen

I work in local government, get 28 days paid holidays and work a 36 hour week exclusing lunchbreaks. I receive Sustaining Progress payments and benchmarking payments like thousands of others and having to accept overdue organisational change at a faster pace than most private industries, then agian there are two different motives.....profit and people . This is not an ideological viewpoint, merely fact

uncivilservant

eoineen wrote:

Yes, it is called the Benchmarking Reports and are available from the Dept of Finance. CSO also gather wages and hours data for all sectors of the economy. Public service jobs compare very favourably in both aspects.

specifically?

eoineen

I don't understand the question

uncivilservant

eoineen wrote:

I don't understand the question

You say they compare "favourably" - could you elaborate?
edit: also, how do you get 28 days holidays? is that pure annual leave?

also: i'm desperately trying to think of something to drag this thread back on topic.

eoineen

Well I don't have the figures to hand but if you check thisthis it is not a bad start

uncivilservant

to be honest i'd like something a bit more granular - i'm always wary of "average" public sector earnings figures, considering they include everything from a CO on the first point of the scale to a prison officer on 40 grand overtime a year. Not really indicative of anything.

eoineen

A fair point but the same figures are routinely trotted out for a host of other things like house prices, average industrial wages, unemployment etc. My point is that public service pay is now linked with similar salaries in the private sector, that is what all the fuss of a Benchmarking Process that we went throughabout five years ago. While there is a bit of dead wood where I work and it could do with a good cleaning out, the vast majority of my colleagues are hard working and, yes we probably do have more benefits than most but Government has always been a better employer than private capital.

ionapaul

NewDubliner wrote:

This is new, it wasn't part of the government's announcement. Can you tell us more? I'm sure the public would be concerned about the increase in IT costs & how decentralisation is being used as a smokescreen for privitisation of public administration.

I'm familiar with the work of one of the out-sourcers.

Whatever they might pay their staff, they cost the public a lot more money. The average charged is €1,000/daily for 'foot-soldiers', even more for those with talent. The long hours you quote mean nothing as this is a product of a culture of 'presentism' where they're expected to be seen working long hours so that the big fees can be justified. It's also part of the war of attrition being waged against the existing managers. They come in early to out-flank the host staff.

It's well recognised that the contractors will do whatever they can to enlarge their beacheads in host clients & ensure that they cannot be dispensed with. Once in position, the fees increase even more.

So before you start dissing public service IT staff, have a look around your own glasshouse first.

EK

Well, all I meant is that my employers stand to gain if and when decentralisation takes place, as overall it may be less expensive (and much more convenient, as we take care of benefits, HR, elimate sick-days or leave by using other employees in their place, etc...) to use our workers than to employ someone full time, and it is certainly more economical for smaller government bodies to use managed services (not just ours, also those offered by our competitors) instead of dedicated IT staff. Our rates are no where near €1,000 per day per contractor, not even half that. Though maybe we are talking about different levels of IT staff, we do not supply IT managers or higher on contract if that is what you mean. Sorry for going way off-topic

Just re-read and noticed you mentioned €1,000/day for 'foot-soldiers'....really? What company charges that? That is obscene, most experienced IT support staff are less than €300/day on contract. Plus longer hours in the department I referred to is a result of the contract signed between my employers and the Government body, and not because we work harder and longer to make the existing employees look bad!

uncivilservant

ionapaul wrote:

That is obscene, most experienced IT support staff are less than €300/day on contract.

Just how much do you think civil servants working in IT support areas are paid??? I'd be very surprised if they cost €1,500 a week, even with employers overheads included.

Plus longer hours in the department I referred to is a result of the contract signed between my employers and the Government body, and not because we work harder and longer to make the existing employees look bad!

I can see the headlines now in Public Sector times: "Government Department in extracting value for money scandal"....

uncivilservant

In an attempt to get this thread back on topic...

I took a look at some of the figures for the list of departments floated in that Irish Times article yesterday, using the recently (un)released CAF figures.

Departments of Enterprise, Trade and Employment - Carlow - 312 posts / 201 applications
Communications - Drogheda - 47 / 66
Social and Family Affairs - Drogheda - 556 / 609
Finance - Tullamore - 134 / 109
Defence - Newbridge - 199 / 385
Revenue Commissioners - Kilrush 50 / 70
Revenue Commissioners - Newcastle West 50 / 109

All well and good - some places are even oversubscribed! Lets ignore for now the fact that nobody (apart from Finance!) knows how many of these applications are from staff either currently with the relevant departments, or even if they are, if they are working in the appropriate sections.

However, working with the available data, it gets really interesting when you look at it in a bit more detail:

Irish Prison Service - Longford - 158/145
Taking the Prison Service as an example, they are grossly undersubscribed at Principal (14 required, 1 application) & Assistant Principal (22 required, 5 applications) level. At HEO level, things aren't much better - 31 required, 9 applications. Things start to pick up at EO level (23 required, 17 applications). 7 Staff Officers are needed, 3 have applied. Only at CO level is there oversubscription, with 45 applications for 24 positions.

No currently serving Governor 2, Assistant Governor or Deputy Governor grades have applied (8 required in total), but 45 Prison Officers have applied for 5 positions needed in Longford. No Head of Psychology; no senior psychologists (3 needed altogether) either.

On the positive side, they can avail of the services of a Senior Auditor, a Finance Controller & a Law Clerk that they don't actually have positions for.


Office of Public Works - Trim - 328/378
While massively over subscribed for clerical grades (180 posts, 310 applications), OPW's Technical staff figures make for interesting reading. 8 Architects are required in Trim - zero applications. 22 Architectural Assistants - 5 applications. 4 Assistant Principal Architects needed - 1 applied. 21 Senior Architects - 2 applied. An assortment of 30 Engineer posts are needed - 11 applied. These are all highly skilled technical staff, with nowhere else to go.


Anyone still think these are sensible moves?

ionapaul

Damn you for getting value for money! Damn you to hell!

Yes, the tax-payers would surely revolt if they heard about the nefarious practice of saving their money

ionapaul

As it currently stands, if the moves go ahead, the senior people stay in Dublin and cannot be let-go, surely the Government will still have to hire new (and probably inexperienced) people to fill all the vacant positions down the country? So is it on the cards that the numbers of civil servants employed will sky-rocket in the short-to-medium term, with a huge number in Dublin, employed but with no work to do?

uncivilservant

ionapaul wrote:

As it currently stands, if the moves go ahead, the senior people stay in Dublin and cannot be let-go, surely the Government will still have to hire new (and probably inexperienced) people to fill all the vacant positions down the country? So is it on the cards that the numbers of civil servants employed will sky-rocket in the short-to-medium term, with a huge number in Dublin, employed but with no work to do?

I don't think anyone's proposing to recruit virgin Principal Officers. What will most likely happen is people will be promoted to fill the vacancies, not based on ability but on willingness to move to a certain location.

As things stand, it certainly looks like there will be a surplus of staff left in Dublin with no work to do.

I don't know why i'm worried about this - I'll still be paid the same regardless. I should be welcoming my impending early-retirement-in-all-but-name.

NewDubliner

uncivilservant wrote:

Revenue Commissioners - Kilrush 50 / 70
Revenue Commissioners - Newcastle West 50 / 109

All well and good

Not what it seems, I'd say they're all from Revenue's Limerick office & already live near those towns. At least they may have suitable experience. If any estate agents are expecting to make a killing, they'll be disappointed.

EK

uncivilservant

NewDubliner wrote:

Not what it seems, I'd say they're all from Revenue's Limerick office & already live near those towns. At least they may have suitable experience. If any estate agents are expecting to make a killing, they'll be disappointed.

EK

Unfortunately it appears that those kind of statistics were only released to individual departments.

Victor

uncivilservant wrote:

Office of Public Works - Trim - 328/378
While massively over subscribed for clerical grades (180 posts, 310 applications), OPW's Technical staff figures make for interesting reading. 8 Architects are required in Trim - zero applications. 22 Architectural Assistants - 5 applications. 4 Assistant Principal Architects needed - 1 applied. 21 Senior Architects - 2 applied. An assortment of 30 Engineer posts are needed - 11 applied. These are all highly skilled technical staff, with nowhere else to go.

Well at least lots of the lads down the golf club will be able to get secure jobs.

uncivilservant

Victor wrote:

Well at least lots of the lads down the golf club will be able to get secure jobs.

and those architects & engineers not willing to be relocated can spend the extra spare time improving their swing - it's a real win-win situation!

NewDubliner

From today's Independent:

On the move with decentralisation - but not on time

AT LEAST four Government departments and a raft of State agencies are to be decentralised in a first batch of moves to be announced today, the Irish Independent has learned.

Some of them will be fast tracked to be ready for the election in 2007.

Junior Finance Minister Tom Parlon is expected to say as much today in his address to the Dail's Finance and Public Service Committee.

He is expected to state that the Government is on track to deliver on its decentralisation promises, but that the job will not be completed in the original time frame of three years.

The minister is set to announce that departments and agencies will be moved in batches, with a first batch to include the Departments of Communications, Social and Family Affairs, Finance and the OPW.

A total of 603 civil servants will move to Drogheda, 556 to Social and Family Affairs and 47 to Communications. Some 134 staff will move to the Department of Finance in Tullamore and 328 staff will move to the OPW HQ in Trim in Co Meath.

The Department of Defence, with 199 people moving to Newbridge in Co Kildare, could also be on the advance list along with the Revenue Commissioners, who have 629 jobs going to Athy and Kildare Town, and the Prison Service, with 158 jobs going to Longford.

The Government is hoping that by moving in stages, there will be enough senior civil servants to go around for the first batch of transfers, and that others might be persuaded to go in the future.

Last night Mr Parlon said he "could not say for definite" which departments would move first, as he was awaiting a report from former union head Phil Flynn.

"His report will contain certain recommendations, I hope to have it in the next few weeks."

Tom Felle

"You can learn a great deal from a newspaper, if you read it with the proper contempt."

Sleepy

eoineen wrote:

I work in local government, get 28 days paid holidays and work a 36 hour week exclusing lunchbreaks. I receive Sustaining Progress payments and benchmarking payments like thousands of others and having to accept overdue organisational change at a faster pace than most private industries, then agian there are two different motives.....profit and people . This is not an ideological viewpoint, merely fact

Ah, the very area of the civil service I deal with most... You're right, ye have a lot of dead wood that needs shedding.

"having to accept organisational change at a faster pace than most private industries"
What are you basing this on? Most modern companies go through structural overhauls every 3 to 5 years. It's just that the private sector generally has less personal fifedoms, and far less internal politics that the public sector. Strangely, it is usually the deadwood that has most to lose from any organisational change - I mean, these people have been doing next to nothing for the last twenty years, why on earth should we expect them to change now?

gazzer

Originally Posted by eoineen
I work in local government, get 28 days paid holidays and work a 36 hour week exclusing lunchbreaks. I receive Sustaining Progress payments and benchmarking payments like thousands of others and having to accept overdue organisational change at a faster pace than most private industries, then agian there are two different motives.....profit and people . This is not an ideological viewpoint, merely fact


Ah, the very area of the civil service I deal with most... You're right, ye have a lot of dead wood that needs shedding.


dont get exactly what you mean here. Is it that you only deal with Civil servents who get 28 days holidays a year and work 36 hours a week???? So you only deal with management?

eigrod

Sleepy wrote:

I wonder what's making it so expensive to do? Relocation expenses perhaps? Or are the civil servants organising the decentralisation as useless as those they're moving? :rolleyes:

Pathetic.

1. There are no removal expenses.

2. I would much rather deal with a Government department than much of the Private Sector these days. You are much more likely to get left waiting frustratred on a telephone nowadays with the likes of vodafone, eircom, Dell, Chorus, NTL, SKY etc than you are with a state/govt agency.

3. Have you tried getting a builder or carpenter recently ? Great level of service - NOT.

4. The banks, of course, are covering themselves in glory these days.

5. While not perfect, the Civil Service has come on hugely in the last 15 years or so and in most areas of Customer Service they are much better than the private sector. However, given the nature of the business, they will never get credit for it.

NewDubliner

From RTE:

Civil offices move to cost €900m: Parlon

27 October 2004 16:19

The Government expects to spend at least €900 million on providing office space for over 10,000 public servants being decentralised out of Dublin, the Minister for the Office of Public Works, Tom Parlon, has said.

Mr Parlon told an Oireachtas committee that while precise figures were not possible at this early stage, the Government expects to spend up to €100 million to acquire sites in regional locations.

It plans to spend a further €815 million to construct and fit out appropriate office accommodation, he told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance & the Public Service.

However, he noted that that figure does not include the cost of information and communication technology or other specialised requirements.

Mr Parlon said that his department estimated that up to 210,000 square metres of office space would be needed for the entire decentralisation programme.

However, the move outside Dublin would also free up over 200,000 square metres of office accommodation in the capital.

He told the committee that he expected that some of that property would be disposed of by selling it, which could raise up to €400 million.

It's quite likely that they will not raise the 400m as some of the properties will be needed to accomodate refuseniks. The costs of acquiring & fitting the new properties will rise (it always does).

Not included is the cost of IT fit-outs, moving the existing data centres nor the huge costs of re-training staff & loss of productivity.

How many hospital beds will be cut to finance this?

uncivilservant

edit: snap!

It should be borne in mind that a substantial portion of that 200,000 square metres will be leased. Leases cannot be simply walked away from on a whim.

It should also be remembered that it will take a miracle to get 10,000 Dublin based workers to relocate - currently, 4,000 dublin staff have applied to relocate. The balance is made up from people already working in the regions.

By all accounts Minister Parlon's appearance before the committee veered between FF fawning and Labour goring. One can but hope the highlights are covered on Oireachtas Report.

uncivilservant

http://www.rte.ie/news/2004/1027/6news/6news56_4.smil

Report from RTE 6.1 news on todays committee hearings.

uncivilservant

Nothing new in this article from yesterday's Sunday Times, but an interesting read nonetheless:

Parlon is planning to spend €815m of taxpayers’ money buying sites and building offices for up to 10,000 “decentralised” civil servants at more than 50 locations across the country. That is the equivalent of almost €90,000 per relocated employee, equal to three years’ wages for a typical worker in the manufacturing sector. The minister should wake up and smell the coffee. His “big idea” will put a dent in the exchequer’s finances — and experience suggests that it will cost a lot more than the amount budgeted for — and if the move is intended to stop Dublin’s advance it is doomed to failure.

Parlon believes his decentralising wheeze will be self-financing and plans to sell Dublin office property and engage in the early release of leases in order to pay for the dislocation required to move 10,000 public servants.

Not only will it be considered a miracle if this project is brought in on budget but it must be stressed that some 4,000 of the “volunteers” who are willing to relocate are not even working in the Greater Dublin area, meaning the volume of “freed up“ space arising from Parlon’s caper will probably be a little more than 50% of what was intended when the idea was rubber-stamped in last year’s budget.

The nonsense of moving 10,000 civil servants — almost half of whom come from locations outside of Dublin — to 50 villages will not address planning problems in a country where employment is growing organically by 40,000 per year and where much of the employment growth is in the service sector in Dublin and surrounding counties.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2095-1336825,00.html