CPSU refusing to help Social Welfare claim reform?

ixoy

I saw this on RTE news URL="http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0626/welfare.html"]link[/URL:

The Civil and Public Service Union has rejected claims they are refusing to facilitate changes, which would clear the backlog in applications for social welfare benefits.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio, Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin said one issue was that in a pilot scheme in Dundalk the union wanted promotion for every member dealing with new claims.

However assistant general secretary of the CPSU Derek Mullen said the union was willing to cooperate and had offered to hold negotiations on the issue.

What was this pilot change proposal? Extra hours? Why on earth would they deserve promotion for it - honestly can they not facilitate any change in their jobs in this turbulent market without looking for compensation (especially from the State coffers)?

BroomBurner

FFS, making the rest of us look bad :mad:

Haven't heard anything specific myself about it, but if they have to do extra work, then so be it. If they don't like it, collect your P45 on your way out. If they're good enough for promotion, then re-open competition.

loobylou

My understanding of it is...
A number of Civil Servants were drafted in from elsewhere to deal with the backlog in applications for welfare.
Only Civil Servants of a certain grade are allowed to approve welfare applications.
Therefore , under the depts. own rules these "draftees" would need to be promoted to whatever grade it is that will allow them to do the job they have been brought in for.

BroomBurner

Head wrecking time.

It's a difficult thing to figure, seeing as it's prob a management decision on whether or not to ok the application. Which is fair enough, it's quite a responsibility to have to sign off on and whoever does, needs to be held accountable.

Options are:

• Remove the staff and redeploy them back to where they came from
• Draft in extra staff at management level (which is hard as the numbers are lower than COs)
• Temporarily promote them, pay them one additional scale for the duration, then bump them back down afterwards (this has been done in the past)
• Promote them

As a fellow CS, I would p!ssed off at the last suggestion as they would be promoted for taking part in one project and would not have proved themselves capable of being management material through open competition, like the rest of us did (or the majority of us, at least).

ardmacha

I am not familiar with this. But it seems that the Social Welfare sections may have to be increased in size. The way forward might be to promote some people with social welfare experience to make these decisions and bring in more troops from other sections. However I imagine embargoes etc make this impossible in the sort term.

Nolanger

Any grade can award a social welfare claim - CO, SO and EO - there's no promotion involved.

ixoy

Nolanger wrote: »

Any grade can award a social welfare claim - CO, SO and EO - there's no promotion involved.

If that's correct, then they've a damned nerve demanding a promotion. I imagine there'd be plenty of people willing to leap over the counter and take on the position.
I'd love to see a proper reason for all of this because it currently seems to show the very worst of what people think of the civil service and re-enforcing negative stereotypes.

Nolanger

loobylou wrote: »

Only Civil Servants of a certain grade are allowed to approve welfare applications.

I think it's only a 'deciding officer' is allowed to approve welfare applications. There's no promotion involved though the Department usually needs to get written approval from the Minister. May be just a case of someone working in the office taking fresh claims at the counter and then some 'blow ins' arrive and start awarding claims instead of the ones working there for years?

BroomBurner

Nolanger wrote: »

I think it's only a 'deciding officer' is allowed to approve welfare applications. There's no promotion involved though the Department usually needs to get written approval from the Minister. May be just a case of someone working in the office taking fresh claims at the counter and then some 'blow ins' arrive and start awarding claims instead of the ones working there for years?

I'm not really sure what you're saying, do you mean that perhaps it's previous staff that are not getting to sign off whereas the newbies are?

If so, then that is the single most childish reason I've ever heard.

If there's no need for a promotion to sign off on the application, then there is no need for this messing about. They should be told to do their job, or leave the civil service. End of.

Nolanger

MINISTER for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin has accused the Civil Public and Services Union (CPSU) of intransigence and of blocking new initiatives aimed at reducing the time people have to wait to have their applications for claims decided.

However, the union, which represents lower-paid staff in the Civil Service, has rejected the claim.

Ms Hanafin said yesterday a pilot scheme in Dundalk, under which 40 per cent of applicants had had their claims decided on the day, had been stopped because the union made “an unreasonable claim” for promotions.

She said the CPSU had sought that every person deciding on a claim would have to get a promotion from clerical officer to staff officer. “They pulled the plug on a really good scheme that would have made a huge difference to people under pressure.”

On RTÉ’s Morning Ireland yesterday, the Minister said the staff involved were upset about the issue but the union had been “quite intransigent”.

However, the assistant general secretary of the CPSU, Derek Mullen, said the union had not blocked the scheme and the Minister needed to get a briefing from her officials. The question of upgrading for staff had first been raised by management in the department. Social welfare legislation required that certain decisions had to be made by staff at certain levels.

Mr Mullen said the union had had discussions with senior officials in the last two weeks and this week he had written a letter suggesting further talks to determine if the Dundalk scheme could be revived.

Ms Hanafin also said the CPSU was blocking a scheme to allow straightforward jobseeker claims to be decided in branch offices which are operated by private sector managers on a contract basis. The union maintained this represented out-sourcing.

However, Mr Mullen said this was “spin”. The department had agreed to take this issue to binding arbitration and the process should be completed shortly.

The Minister told the Dáil on Thursday that the Live Register had almost doubled between May 2008 and May 2009 to 397,000. Some 300 extra staff had been provided to work in local offices.

MARTIN WALL, Industry Correspondent, Irish Times

roosterman71

Unions have this country screwed

BroomBurner

roosterman71 wrote: »

Unions have this country screwed

If you look at it logically, there is a system in place that is there for a reason. Only someone with a bit of authority should be signing off on applications. This is so that that person can be held accountable and is the reason why (1) they are management and (2) paid more. CO's shouldn't be doing this work, regardless of figures, etc.

I've given one possible solution, of temporary promotions for the duration of the programme but now I don't think that would be workable.

In order to sort it out, they should set a deadline of 5-10 days for each application to be dealt with and increase the number of SO/EO and HEO's in the Department (drafting them in on temp basis). Have one SO/EO per 10-15 CO's. Each CO gives their list of applications to their line manager twice a day. These then are reviewed and signed off by the manager and then processed. The bulk of the work should be done by the bulk of the staff (CO's), with the reviewing and signing off carried out by those paid to take the responsibility, i.e. SO's/EO's/HEO's.

I can see where the unions would be coming from, in fairness, they are just doing their job. It's unfortunate that the Dept wasn't thinking long-term, or even about the ramifications of what might happen if they tried to change the system.

spank_inferno

BroomBurner wrote: »

If you look at it logically, there is a system in place that is there for a reason. Only someone with a bit of authority should be signing off on applications. This is so that that person can be held accountable and is the reason why (1) they are management and (2) paid more. CO's shouldn't be doing this work, regardless of figures, etc.

I've given one possible solution, of temporary promotions for the duration of the programme but now I don't think that would be workable.

In order to sort it out, they should set a deadline of 5-10 days for each application to be dealt with and increase the number of SO/EO and HEO's in the Department (drafting them in on temp basis). Have one SO/EO per 10-15 CO's. Each CO gives their list of applications to their line manager twice a day. These then are reviewed and signed off by the manager and then processed. The bulk of the work should be done by the bulk of the staff (CO's), with the reviewing and signing off carried out by those paid to take the responsibility, i.e. SO's/EO's/HEO's.

I can see where the unions would be coming from, in fairness, they are just doing their job. It's unfortunate that the Dept wasn't thinking long-term, or even about the ramifications of what might happen if they tried to change the system.

........ still though, the unions do have this country screwed.

Sleipnir

BroomBurner wrote: »

This is so that that person can be held accountable....

Sorry but; public service? held accountable?

BWAH HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Every bit of forward thinking or innovation is stifled by the unions unless their members get more money.

gazzer

My understanding is that CO's are not allowed to sign off on a claim. It is the responsibiliy of SO's and EO's. Why didnt the Dept draft in extra SO's and EO's to do the claims instead of taken on CO's.

Nody

Here's a novel idea you might have heard of management responsability; that means someone lower grade screwing up will also reflect on you as a manager. Hence train the COs to take the decision or do the bulk of the work and have a quick glance sign of by the manager. Problem solved; but God forbid we'd use common sense approach to the problem instead of throwing money at the civil service.

But hey, why don't we put HSE to good use? They got a lot of spare management after all...

BroomBurner

Nody, did you even bother to read my post? There are plenty of people working for the PS that have great ideas on how to work things, and a lot of these ideas get through and are worked. But no, once you can mouth off, everythings rosy in your world.

Do you work for the PS? If not, then how can you possibly comment on it in it's entirity based on your own prejudice and this one example?

Nolanger

Nody wrote: »

but God forbid we'd use common sense approach to the problem instead of throwing money at the civil service.

There is no common sense in a dole office.

Darragh29

gazzer wrote: »

My understanding is that CO's are not allowed to sign off on a claim. It is the responsibiliy of SO's and EO's. Why didnt the Dept draft in extra SO's and EO's to do the claims instead of taken on CO's.

XO, SO, CO, LMNOP...

Outsource the task, end of problem.

SkepticOne

BroomBurner wrote: »

Remove the staff and redeploy them back to where they came from

• Draft in extra staff at management level (which is hard as the numbers are lower than COs)
• Temporarily promote them, pay them one additional scale for the duration, then bump them back down afterwards (this has been done in the past)
• Promote them

I don't see how promoting them makes them suddenly capable of approving claims if they were not capable beforehand. They are the same people before and after promotion.

One of the problems with the public sector that needs to be addressed is this obsession with pay scales, titles, grades and so forth when it makes no difference to how capable they are to do a job.

Nolanger

The best bit is that the actual guidelines used in the dole office are on http://www.welfare.ie/EN/OperationalGuidelines/Pages/jb_jobseekben.aspx so anyone can read up on how to award a claim! The IT side is just data entry on a few screens. Then you complete some forms and post out to the customer.

NewDubliner

Darragh29 wrote: »

Outsource the task, end of problem.

To India....

gerry28

They should hold short interviews for all CO's interested and then pay those chooses an acting up allowance until the job/panic is over.

Those chosen will then go back to their CO grade, but will have gained experience at a higher grade and will have recieved a small acting up allowance for the extra work and responsibility.

LoLth

gerry28 wrote: »

They should hold short interviews for all CO's interested and then pay those chooses an acting up allowance until the job/panic is over.

Those chosen will then go back to their CO grade, but will have gained experience at a higher grade and will have recieved a small acting up allowance for the extra work and responsibility.

ah, but then you've the expense of the person performing the interviews... unless you want to draft in a load of COs to do the interviews, but you'd have to promote them. Perhaps they should be interviewed first as well ?

how about a pool of people willing to get experience doing it? email sent round "are you interested in blah-blah-blah , if so, reply to this email and your team leader will be contacted to ensure your availability"

they get 1500 replies. from that group a random selection is made and the team leaders contacted. If the CO can be spared and the rest are willing to cover whatever workload there is, then off they go.

Acting allowance for working as a higher grade.

then once its done, they go back to hteir old position/salary. and when it comes to promotion interview time they have a nice feather in their cap to say that they have experience in that kind of work already.

as for the acting allowance: its very easy to say "ah, just get them to do it ffs!" but then they'll be doing the same work as another worker and being paid less. thats hardly fair or a good incentive. I cant see many people in either sector being happy with that situation. You work doing a job thats higher skilled than you are then you should be compensated for the time performing that work.

Nolanger

The whole point of working in Social Welfare is that they pay you not to think.
Did those fools say a few years back "lets plan for when the recession starts to tackle the huge increase in unemployment claims"?

NewDubliner

Nolanger wrote: »

The whole point of working in Social Welfare is that they pay you not to think.

The general gist of things is that COs work in accordance with well-defined instructions and don't take decisions, they check forms and do calculations or data-entry. SOs are experienced COs who divide out the work items. EOs take small decisions based on guidelines and check the work of COs. HEOs are bigger decision takers and somewhat managerial.

There use be a grade below CO (CA) they did typing and photocopying were not allowed to think at all. Below them were paper keepers (filing clerks), messengers and fire-lighters (in that order...I think).

It's possible they may need to bring back the fire-lighter grade this winter.