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Public Sector Efficiency at the Companies Registration Office...

  • 24-05-2010 01:15PM
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 585 ✭✭✭


    I've just tried ringing the CRO on their lo-call number: 1890 22 06 26... I'm listening to a voice mail here that says the following:

    Our office is currently closed, opening hours are 10:00AM-12:30PM and 2:30PM-4:00PM Monday-Friday.

    They start at 10:00AM, work 2.5 hours until 12:30PM, take a 2 hour break until 2:30PM, work 1.5 hours until 4:00PM and then that's their working day done.

    As a private sector employer I find this absolutely infuriating to look at. It's 2010, these people don't work weekends, they start work when I've in all seriousness half a days work done by 10:00AM, a two hour lunch break, with the whole office shutting down and no staggered breaks to provide cover during lunch?!?!?!?!?!?

    If people in the public sector want to know why people like myself despise them at the moment, then this is a pure example of why I feel the way I do towards some of our public sector workers.

    At at time when people like myself are literally handing over my own salary to staff things are that tight, we have the highest paid public sector workers in Europe, sauntering into work at 10:00AM, two hour lunch breaks where the whole office shuts down, no lunch cover provided, waltzing off home at 4:00PM, there isn't a private sector small enterprise operating in Ireland on these kind of terms, it would be out of business within a month.

    It's an absolute f*cking disgrace that this goes on in this country, I've had enough of it, it's disgusting. I'd actually be ashamed to take a wage doing a job like this, I'd be mortified working in a place that shuts down for 2 hours every day for lunch and feels so smug that the phones can be switched off and Joe Public can go off and take a sh*te for himself, and this is the mentality behind this level of sh*t public service...


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Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,553 ✭✭✭Banned Account


    They will say that this is the only time they take calls as they are soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo busy doing other things - we will not believe them, they will cry witch hunt and tell the unions on us yadda yadda yadda


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 585 ✭✭✭MrDarcy


    The person in government who stands up to this lunacy, be it a Fianna Fail person or not, will get my vote on the next occasion. I honestly feel violated as a tax payer that this is what I'm ultimately paying for, an absolutely SH*T standard of public service, all pushed along nicely with a "f*ck you Jack", attitude to the tax payer.

    Jesus Christ, I'm in work since 6:00AM this morning, I still have to have a break, I won't get out of here until 8:00PM tonight, and I work six days a week. The idea of the phone ringing out here or not being answered ONCE is alien to everyone who works here.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,819 ✭✭✭dan_d


    Feeling your pain MrDarcy. You wouldn't mind the wages if there was a decent service, or you could see the returns for your money. But you don't. It vanishes into a black hole and nothing ever changes.
    Btw, the motor tax office operates similar hours. As does the births and deaths office....and the list goes on....
    Even the post office manages a 9.30 to 5.30 day, with an hour for lunch + Saturday mornings.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 355 ✭✭Persiancowboy


    Presumably the hours you have quoted for the CRO are the hours the public desk in that office is open as against the Office itself. Despite your obvious extreme frustration arrangments of that nature are not at all uncommon.

    If you want an experience of total head-wrecking in terms of telephone access to a public body try ringing South Dublin County Council.....they are in a league all of their own. Then again you try ringing that paragon of private sector efficiency and brilliance...Ryanair...and see how long it takes you to get "served."

    In any event I predict a very short life for this thread as it simply another in the increasingly tiresome rants of private sector good versus public sector bad.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 585 ✭✭✭MrDarcy


    dan_d wrote: »
    Feeling your pain MrDarcy. You wouldn't mind the wages if there was a decent service, or you could see the returns for your money. But you don't. It vanishes into a black hole and nothing ever changes.
    Btw, the motor tax office operates similar hours. As does the births and deaths office....and the list goes on....
    Even the post office manages a 9.30 to 5.30 day, with an hour for lunch + Saturday mornings.

    It's just revolting I think. It's like some kind of obscene joke, where one half of the country are keeping their mouths shut and getting on with things, as difficult and all as they are, and the other half, that incidentally are making the most noise, are living in some sort of parallel universe where phones can be shut off for two hours for lunch and remain unanswered, where nobody appears to give the slightest sh*t for the customer, it's out the gap at 4PM and good luck and God bless to you...


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 585 ✭✭✭MrDarcy


    Presumably the hours you have quoted for the CRO are the hours the public desk in that office is open as against the Office itself. Despite your obvious extreme frustration arrangments of that nature are not at all uncommon.

    If you want an experience of total head-wrecking in terms of telephone access to a public body try ringing South Dublin County Council.....they are in a league all of their own. Then again you try ringing that paragon of private sector efficiency and brilliance...Ryanair...and see how long it takes you to get "served."

    In any event I predict a very short life for this thread as it simply another in the increasingly tiresome rants of private sector good versus public sector bad.

    It's 2010 for Christ's sake, do you expect me to get on a Luas and turn up at a public desk to get a simple query that can be answered in a minute, actually answered?!?!?

    As for Ryaner, I don't contribute to the costs of running Ryanair, I'm not a customer so I couldn't give a fiddlers how they run their operation...


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,364 ✭✭✭ei.sdraob


    The only efficient public service

    are the Revenue Commissioners

    I love how they send you "preliminary estimate" notice to pay them more money than you actually earn :D and make it sound like its the end of the world if you dont pay up


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 959 ✭✭✭changes


    Alot of dole offices are the same... open to public from 10 to 12 and then from 2 to 4.

    This doesn't mean that they start work at 10 take 2 hrs for lunch and are away home at 4 though.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,819 ✭✭✭dan_d


    MrDarcy wrote: »
    It's just revolting I think. It's like some kind of obscene joke, where one half of the country are keeping their mouths shut and getting on with things, as difficult and all as they are, and the other half, that incidentally are making the most noise, are living in some sort of parallel universe where phones can be shut off for two hours for lunch and remain unanswered, where nobody appears to give the slightest sh*t for the customer, it's out the gap at 4PM and good luck and God bless to you...

    Emmm....I've seen those in the private sector out the door at 4pm and good luck too........they don't tend to be a majority I suppose, but they do exist alright.
    And the Revenue Commissioners are highly efficient!!!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 785 ✭✭✭zootroid


    changes wrote: »
    Alot of dole offices are the same... open to public from 10 to 12 and then from 2 to 4.

    This doesn't mean that they start work at 10 take 2 hrs for lunch and are away home at 4 though.

    It does mean a very poor service is being offered to the public though if they are only open 4 hours a day.

    Edit: that's in relation to the CRO office


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 355 ✭✭Persiancowboy


    MrDarcy wrote: »
    The person in government who stands up to this lunacy, be it a Fianna Fail person or not, will get my vote on the next occasion. I honestly feel violated as a tax payer that this is what I'm ultimately paying for, an absolutely SH*T standard of public service, all pushed along nicely with a "f*ck you Jack", attitude to the tax payer.

    Jesus Christ, I'm in work since 6:00AM this morning, I still have to have a break, I won't get out of here until 8:00PM tonight, and I work six days a week. The idea of the phone ringing out here or not being answered ONCE is alien to everyone who works here.


    hopefully you'll feel a bit better tomorrow....today is obviously not a good one for you.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    zootroid wrote: »
    It does mean a very poor service is being offered to the public though if they are only open 4 hours a day.

    Edit: that's in relation to the CRO office

    The problem with this kind of definitive statement is that there's a whole heap of missing variables.

    For example:

    1. does the CRO receive enough funding to have sufficient staff both to process all the paperwork and be 100% customer-facing eight hours a day?

    2. if the CRO does not receive enough funding to do both the above (and why should it, given it's hardly politically sensitive?) which would you prefer to lose - keeping up with the paperwork or being customer facing?

    3. do you know whether the current public desk hours represent a compromise between processing the paperwork and being customer facing? In other words, is running a customer services desk 8 hours a day the most productive use of available resources? Is it even necessary?

    If you don't know whether it's actually possible to run an eight-hour public-facing service and process the paperwork, the complaint that they don't do both is a little meaningless.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 761 ✭✭✭ClayDavis


    Their website is pretty good, did you look up stuff there? As per Scofflaw's post, maybe there isn't demand for 8 hours direct customer service?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 585 ✭✭✭MrDarcy


    Scofflaw wrote: »
    The problem with this kind of definitive statement is that there's a whole heap of missing variables.

    For example:

    1. does the CRO receive enough funding to have sufficient staff both to process all the paperwork and be 100% customer-facing eight hours a day?

    2. if the CRO does not receive enough funding to do both the above (and why should it, given it's hardly politically sensitive?) which would you prefer to lose - keeping up with the paperwork or being customer facing?

    3. do you know whether the current public desk hours represent a compromise between processing the paperwork and being customer facing? In other words, is running a customer services desk 8 hours a day the most productive use of available resources? Is it even necessary?

    If you don't know whether it's actually possible to run an eight-hour public-facing service and process the paperwork, the complaint that they don't do both is a little meaningless.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw

    This "either have this service or that service" approach to the delivery of efficient customer service, I think is part of the problem here. Clearly the working arrangements in the CRO are so utterly backward, that they can't even agree for one person or two people to stay at work while others on the team go on lunch. You simply can't run a business or deliver any service or product to a consistently high standard with this type of inflexible, intransigent and bullsh*t mentality.

    I genuinely think that it's long past time that Prime Time took a look at the kind of constant firefighting that is going on in an awful lot of private sector businesses, and gave our brethern in the public sector a long overdue eye opener. I'm genuinely not trolling here, it feels so fundamentally unfair to be seeing such blatantly defective business management in operation, knowing that you are paying for it.
    ClayDavis wrote: »
    Their website is pretty good, did you look up stuff there? As per Scofflaw's post, maybe there isn't demand for 8 hours direct customer service?

    Extremely doubtful, when I eventually got through at 3:30PM today, I was 20 minutes waiting after being told by the automated system that I was 9th in the queue!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 761 ✭✭✭ClayDavis


    MrDarcy wrote: »

    Extremely doubtful, when I eventually got through at 3:30PM today, I was 20 minutes waiting after being told by the automated system that I was 9th in the queue!

    Fair enough, I've never had to call them, I tend to only use the website.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 585 ✭✭✭MrDarcy


    ClayDavis wrote: »
    Fair enough, I've never had to call them, I tend to only use the website.

    I use the website for filing, OK fair enough to them they have that end of it working fine... But not everything can be answered via a website, if I'm dealing with a business here in the private sector, or thinking of doing business with a company, and I call up at lunch hour and get told that the whole business is shut for lunch, there endeth that!

    The difference here is that in the private sector, if headcount is cut or resources are cut, people HAVE to work harder and the job ultimately gets done to the same standard, albeit under more stressful conditions.

    In the public sector, the it appears to me that the decision gets made immediately that when resources get cut, services get cut. In order for a private sector business to survive, this default position is simply not an option, not unless the business is positioning itself for closure.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    MrDarcy wrote: »
    I use the website for filing, OK fair enough to them they have that end of it working fine... But not everything can be answered via a website, if I'm dealing with a business here in the private sector, or thinking of doing business with a company, and I call up at lunch hour and get told that the whole business is shut for lunch, there endeth that!

    The difference here is that in the private sector, if headcount is cut or resources are cut, people HAVE to work harder and the job ultimately gets done to the same standard, albeit under more stressful conditions.

    In the public sector, the it appears to me that the decision gets made immediately that when resources get cut, services get cut. In order for a private sector business to survive, this default position is simply not an option, not unless the business is positioning itself for closure.

    The response of a private company to a resource cut depends on many things, though, including the size of the company. In a large company where that business unit is not profit-making, the response will be exactly the same as in the public sector.

    In a small company, it depends on why the company is suffering a resource squeeze - the usual reasons are a lack of customers or an increase in costs. The response in the latter case, however, is usually to raise prices, often leading, in turn, to a drop in the customer base. The thing about a drop in the customer base is that it won't automatically lead to a reduction in your level of service if you stay with them, because there are fewer customers to be serviced, which means the company can devote fewer resources without a loss of service to the retained customers. Indeed, identifying and pruning customers who generate a net loss is a worthwhile exercise at all times.

    In the case of somewhere like the CRO, they don't have the option to raise prices (since their funding probably doesn't come directly from their work anyway), and they don't have the option to refuse service. The CRO is never allowed to say "we won't take on any more work, we're swamped".

    Now, if one wants to argue that we're getting a bad deal here, one should show that a private company doing the CRO's job would be as cheap, as efficient, and as honest, within the limits of a universal service obligation. It's quite possible that's the case, but it has yet to be demonstrated.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,353 ✭✭✭✭jimmycrackcorm


    Where in the private sector can you find a company that will only make themselves publicly accessible for a few short hours daily.

    I suspect that it's principally a union thing which is probably why many post offices cannot manage even one staff member on a lunchtime counter either.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,444 ✭✭✭Absurdum


    MrDarcy wrote: »
    They start at 10:00AM, work 2.5 hours until 12:30PM, take a 2 hour break until 2:30PM, work 1.5 hours until 4:00PM and then that's their working day done.

    It isn't as straightforward as that; you go in there at 12:29, and you will see that they will continue serving customers until they get through the queue. Lunch will more than likely be from 1:30 or 2:00 until 2:30. I can't vouch for the CRO staff because I don't work there, but to state that their working day is just 4 hours is nonsensical and ignorant .


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,089 ✭✭✭✭P. Breathnach


    Where in the private sector can you find a company that will only make themselves publicly accessible for a few short hours daily.

    Many financial institutions have limited opening hours. So does my local surgery (and I need an appointment to avail of them).

    While maintaining a public record is part of the CRO's brief, it is not primarily a public access business in the same way as, for example, a grocery shop.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 725 ✭✭✭rightwingdub


    County council offices are only open from 10am till 4pm, its a joke the level of restricted opening hours that exist in the public service.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 212 ✭✭steof1984


    It's obviously not a union thing, as SFA and Revenue open during lunchtime. So it is obviously a management decision, perhaps a supply/demand thing

    If a report came out that they manned the office during breaks at a cost of €X amount and only 3 or 4 people phoned during lunch, people would cite that as how wasteful the PS is. You just cant please everyone.

    To say only Public Sector works restricted hours is stupid. Doctors who are Private Sector workers work very restricted hours, my doctor opens on a Friday at 10 and closes at 12:30. So it also happens in the Private Sector

    What hours would you like to see them open?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 806 ✭✭✭bonzos


    If you think yesterday was bad try ringing any state office during cheltenham!!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 693 ✭✭✭douglashyde


    It hasn't been mentioned yet in this post:

    While the Public Sector do (and they do) work less hours than their Private Sector equivalents, they also:

    1. Get paid more. (on average)

    2. Are extremely inefficient. (but refuse reform the system)

    3. Will never lose their job

    4. And are no better qualified than Private Sector (and my own personal suspicions would be that they are less qualified

    The person who stand up to unions and gets their hands dirty will be Irelands' savoir.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 761 ✭✭✭ClayDavis


    It hasn't been mentioned yet in this post:

    While the Public Sector do (and they do) work less hours than their Private Sector equivalents, they also:

    1. Get paid more. (on average)

    2. Are extremely inefficient. (but refuse reform the system)

    3. Will never lose their job

    4. And are no better qualified than Private Sector (and my own personal suspicions would be that they are less qualified

    The person who stand up to unions and gets their hands dirty will be Irelands' savoir.

    Yeah! All private sector workers are harder working, more efficient, lower paid, more flexible, more innovative, less secure and just god-damn prettier than all public sector workers. That's cleared that up for me.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 40,751 Mod ✭✭✭✭Gumbo


    County council offices are only open from 10am till 4pm, its a joke the level of restricted opening hours that exist in the public service.

    Dublin City Council is 9am to 5pm Mon-Fri. I think they cover lunch too.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 212 ✭✭steof1984


    @DouglasHyde

    A recent CSO report shows that over half of the Public Sector have a 3rd Level qualification, compared to 34% of Private Sector workers

    Looks like your suspicions are wrong.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,914 ✭✭✭danbohan


    steof1984 wrote: »
    @DouglasHyde

    A recent CSO report shows that over half of the Public Sector have a 3rd Level qualification, compared to 34% of Private Sector workers

    Looks like your suspicions are wrong.

    his facts are wrong {maybe}but his suspicions are well founded. you judge people by their ability and how their doing their job , not some qualification , on that basis most of the public sector fail dismally


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 212 ✭✭steof1984


    Read what he wrote, he said that his suspicions are that the Public Sector workers are less qualified than Private Sector workers.

    He is wrong, plain and simple

    If he wants to say, “while they may be more qualified, in my experience they are lazy and don’t use those qualifications”

    Fine I have no problem with that. But he said simple that the Private sector has a more qualified workforce, and this is just wrong


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,819 ✭✭✭dan_d


    A simple solution this problem in public sector offices that do interface with the public would be to open longer hours maybe 2 or 3 days of the week, and restricted hours on other days. Even opening late (til say 7) one night of the week would be a huge benefit to a lot of people.Obviously you'd never keep everyone happy, but at least they could point to that option and say it's available, now it's up to you to work with it.
    Probably shouldn't hold our breaths on that though.


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