Savings made by the Croke Park Agreement

Lumbo

So the saving haven't been mentioned yet :rolleyes:

Reports will come out today saying that nearly €600m (€298m in payroll saving and €300m in non pay expenditure) has been saved under the Croke Park Agreement.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0615/breaking1.html

The first review of the Croke Park agreement on public service pay and reform is to be published today by Minster for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin.
The report is expected to say that solid and measurable progress is being made in implementing the deal but that significant challenges lie ahead.

The review report, which was brought to Cabinet yesterday, is expected to say that payroll savings of €289 million have been realised since the agreement was signed.
The Government is also expected to release an independent verification report of savings made in three specific areas of the public service.
The bulk of these savings came as a result of the reduction in the numbers employed in the public service by 5,349 since the deal was introduced.

The report will also state that about €300 million in savings were made on non-pay expenditure. This included about €120 million in the health service and over €80 million in local authorities.

The report will point to about €80 million in costs avoided which would have been incurred if previous work practices had remained in place. This included money saved on new prison officer rosters.
The union representing lower-paid civil servants has said it wants the issue of reimbursing public service staff for pay cuts introduced over the last year or so to be examined in the autumn.

One of the key selling points of the Croke Park agreement on public service pay and reform for many workers was the potential it held out that staff could get money back from the savings which were generated.

General secretary of the Civil Public and Services Union Blair Horan said last night that while he never expected the issue of reimbursement of money to staff to be addressed in the first official review of the Croke Park deal, which was considered by Cabinet yesterday, the issue had not gone away.

Mr Horan said he wanted the issue to be looked at later in the year.

It is understood the review of the agreement does not deal specifically with the issue of reimbursing money to staff as this will be a matter for the Government.

Are people willing to give credit where it's due or is this not enough and will demand still be made for savage cuts in pay & numbers in the Public Sector?

kennethsmyth

I will give credit where its due, its a good start.

However, the payroll savings are from persons not replaced due to leavers. During a recession movement in jobs is vastly reduced and thus the leavers are reduced hence this 298m is an easy give as personel have not been reduced significantly. This start needs to continue and I'm sorry the croke park agreement should never had been made. It ties the hands of the government to only look to tax increases and not expenditure reductions.

dan_d

Well let me put it this way.....

On the face of things, nothing appears to have changed, to the ordinary outside observer. Other than cuts in services.

It's truly amazing that they can hail all this expenditure without anything apparently changing. And somewhat embarassing for them - things were obviously ridiculously bad if they could save that much money without some very serious reform.

I would still maintain that it's not a realistic agreement and simply takes the focus off the main issue - too many people and too much pay.

RichardAnd

I'll wait and see how this pans out. I didn't have much fate in the CP deal but if it can work then I say well done, great. Honestly, I don't want to see anyone in the public sector loosing their job so I would love to see the croke park deal working out.

Welease

Lumbo wrote: »

So the saving haven't been mentioned yet :rolleyes:

Reports will come out today saying that nearly €600m (€298m in payroll saving and €300m in non pay expenditure) has been saved under the Croke Park Agreement.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0615/breaking1.html



Are people willing to give credit where it's due or is this not enough and will demand still be made for savage cuts in pay & numbers in the Public Sector?

You seem to believe that delivering the CPA is for everyone else's benefit.. It's not, its for the benefit of PS employees.

It is unsustainble to continue to have a defecit as large as ours.. Costs need to be reduced considerably.. If the PS can deliver savings/efficiencies that fit within our proposed expenditure going forward then they deserve to be congratulated and pay and conditions kept.. If not, then there is no other option but to cut the expenditure via direct cuts to pay and staff..

Personally i think the initial savings were the "low hanging fruit" and consisted of a lot of non replacement of staff and removal of contracted staff.. It's a great start, but will the momentum be kept up when it comes to the more complicated cuts? I hope so, but I guess time will tell..

gonedrinking

What was the savings target for 1 year? These savings seem way too low given the overall PS bill, considering how much we are borrowing to pay for the PS.

eigrod

Remember that the CPA was put in place AFTER the pay cuts and pension levy, therefore those savings are not included in the above figures.

The real savings that should be put out there are the savings made since mid-2008.

Furthermore, the biggest endorsement on this report that significant savings are being made, is that the Independent haven't bothered to report on it on their website. Hugh Hefner's wedding, a murder plot on some singer in the UK and some non-story about male chivalry are it's 3 headline stories this morning.

nursextreme

The union representing lower-paid civil servants has said it wants the issue of reimbursing public service staff for pay cuts introduced over the last year or so to be examined in the autumn.

One of the key selling points of the Croke Park agreement on public service pay and reform for many workers was the potential it held out that staff could get money back from the savings which were generated.

General secretary of the Civil Public and Services Union Blair Horan said last night that while he never expected the issue of reimbursement of money to staff to be addressed in the first official review of the Croke Park deal, which was considered by Cabinet yesterday, the issue had not gone away.

Mr Horan said he wanted the issue to be looked at later in the year.]

Remarkable how Mr Horan is still hanging on to this belief. More chance of another pay cut than a reimbursement I'm afraid.
The easy pickings such as the previously mentioned low hanging fruit wont be as easy to find next year.

largepants

Remarkable how there are less than 10 posts on this thread. I'm sure if there were no savings we would have 10 pages at this stage. And then the ones who do happen to post are still not happy. Its doesn't matter what the CP agreement achieves the jealousy and envy will never abate.

I's actually quite amusing to see the same stuff being rehashed by the same people.

Drumpot

eigrod wrote: »

Remember that the CPA was put in place AFTER the pay cuts and pension levy, therefore those savings are not included in the above figures.

The real savings that should be put out there are the savings made since mid-2008.

Furthermore, the biggest endorsement on this report that significant savings are being made, is that the Independent haven't bothered to report on it on their website. Hugh Hefner's wedding, a murder plot on some singer in the UK and some non-story about male chivalry are it's 3 headline stories this morning.

Actually, they should got back as far as the early 00's to get the public service bill back to levels that were affordable before the government relied on property related taxes to increase Public service pay . . Then we would have a more accurate adjustment . .

While it doesnt suit the Unions to remember this, benchmarking was mainly funded by the property bubble and the "celtic tiger" that they so desperatly wanted a piece of, funny how they are threatening all out war because the government might have to take some of that money back.

robtri

While I agree the 600 million in savings is good....

overall in the grand scheme of things its feck all...
we are running around 18billion over cost a year at the moment so a miserable 600million is nothing.....

we have to think of the country as a business....

if you ran a businesss like the way a country is being run you would be out of business very sharply...

IMHO the PS needs to be bringing billions of saving a year to make any difference

RichardAnd

nursextreme wrote: »

Remarkable how Mr Horan is still hanging on to this belief. More chance of another pay cut than a reimbursement I'm afraid.
The easy pickings such as the previously mentioned low hanging fruit wont be as easy to find next year.

Whilst I tend to take the side of civil servants in these cases, I have to say that the belief that PS workers will be reimbursed for pay cuts it just crazy,

Welease

largepants wrote: »

I's actually quite amusing to see the same stuff being rehashed by the same people.

Maybe because in the grand scheme of things.. Not much has actually changed..

Cookie_Monster

Welease wrote: »

Maybe because in the grand scheme of things.. Not much has actually changed..

exactly, token savings from easy pickings and no real reform at all.

cosmicfart

So a reduction in staff, 600 million saved, the services maintained, the Croke Park agreement delivering more than what is required under the IMF bailout and guess what.......no sign of acknowledgement that public sector workers are once again doing more than their fair share of getting this country out of the mires. sigh.

fliball123

cosmicfart wrote: »

So a reduction in staff, 600 million saved, the services maintained, the Croke Park agreement delivering more than what is required under the IMF bailout and guess what.......no sign of acknowledgement that public sector workers are once again doing more than their fair share of getting this country out of the mires. sigh.

What do you all want a big clap for people leaving?? there has been very little change in the ps...and thus far have had just a 7% pay cut to deal with during this recession...600million is a small drop in the ocean...people are hanging on in there by the skin of their teeth ..yet they will be expected to pay more taxes via income, VAT, water meters, property tax...and the social will be expected to take a cut...you guys missed the cuts this year and saved 600 million more through redundancy than anything and you want a pat on the back..Well when you hit the 6billion mark in savings I will applaud you..until I suggest all p.s shut up, get on with there work and continue with the savings and if you cant deliver Mr Kenny sharpen that knife

RichardAnd

Bit of an update from RTE.


http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0615/crokepark.html


Take it as it is.

padraig.od

cosmicfart wrote: »

So a reduction in staff, 600 million saved, the services maintained, the Croke Park agreement delivering more than what is required under the IMF bailout and guess what.......no sign of acknowledgement that public sector workers are once again doing more than their fair share of getting this country out of the mires. sigh.

congrats!

Now have a read below. Pension payments to retired public sector workers leave the total Croke Park savings at 7 mil! Go team Ireland!

http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/2011/06/15/progress-report-on-the-croke-park-agreement/#comments

Overall, the pensions bill has increased from €1,350m in 2005 to €2,235m in 2010 representing a 65.6% increase over the period (pay in contrast rose by 10.8%) (Tables V and VI). The pensions bill has increased by 35% since 2008. This is mainly attributable to an increase in retirements in 2009 including those under the Incentivised Scheme for Early Retirement

fliball123

padraig.od wrote: »

congrats!

Now have a read below. Pension payments to retired public sector workers leave the total Croke Park savings at 7 mil! Go team Ireland!

http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/2011/06/15/progress-report-on-the-croke-park-agreement/#comments

So in effect they have reduced payments by giving redundancies and early retirement ...therefore the ps pension bill has shot up...Someone please find me a wall so I can bang my head against it...This is an absolute joke...

dvpower

RichardAnd wrote: »

Bit of an update from RTE.


http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0615/crokepark.html


Take it as it is.

The report from the implementation body:

http://implementationbody.gov.ie/files/2011/06/Implementation-Bodys-First-Progress-Report.pdf

cosmicfart

fliball123 wrote: »

What do you all want a big clap for people leaving?? there has been very little change in the ps...and thus far have had just a 7% pay cut to deal with during this recession...600million is a small drop in the ocean...people are hanging on in there by the skin of their teeth ..yet they will be expected to pay more taxes via income, VAT, water meters, property tax...and the social will be expected to take a cut...you guys missed the cuts this year and saved 600 million more through redundancy than anything and you want a pat on the back..Well when you hit the 6billion mark in savings I will applaud you..until I suggest all p.s shut up, get on with there work and continue with the savings and if you cant deliver Mr Kenny sharpen that knife

No just some acknowledgement that the CP agreement is delivering saving, which it is. I didnt vote Fine Gael so dont go blaming me for what taxes and charges they intend to introduce. If you want to cut more and more from the PS well be prepared for longer waiting hours in AE. The CP agreemnt is to cut 1.2 billion by 2014, if you want to cut 6 billion you will have a PS worse than Yemen. I dunno are you clueless??

cosmicfart

padraig.od wrote: »

congrats!

Now have a read below. Pension payments to retired public sector workers leave the total Croke Park savings at 7 mil! Go team Ireland!

http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/2011/06/15/progress-report-on-the-croke-park-agreement/#comments

7 Million. Have you compared that to some individual bankers pensions??? People who worked all their lives are entitled to their pensions, even PS workers!

spider guardian

cosmicfart wrote: »

So a reduction in staff, 600 million saved, the services maintained, the Croke Park agreement delivering more than what is required under the IMF bailout and guess what.......no sign of acknowledgement that public sector workers are once again doing more than their fair share of getting this country out of the mires. sigh.

How much of the reduction in staff is due to natural wastage rather than forced redundancy?

The government doesn't have the balls to do what needs to be done. It is dressing up piecemeal savings as progress.

At this pace we will see a default before wages are brought down to a manageable level.

The Irish Public Sector, the bubble that just refuses to burst!

fliball123

cosmicfart wrote: »

No just some acknowledgement that the CP agreement is delivering saving, which it is. I didnt vote Fine Gael so dont go blaming me for what taxes and charges they intend to introduce. If you want to cut more and more from the PS well be prepared for longer waiting hours in AE. The CP agreemnt is to cut 1.2 billion by 2014, if you want to cut 6 billion you will have a PS worse than Yemen. I dunno are you clueless??

yeah clueless did you read DVPower post...in effect you have saved all of 6 million when the pensions of the ps are taken into view.......As for the p.s being worse then Yemen...I dont think its a kick in the arse of it as it stands...They are incentivising early retirement which takes the spend away from the ps paybill and slaps it onto the ps pensions...but sure we will be fine eh...lets all get a shed load of sand and slap our collectives heads in it...

cosmicfart

spider guardian wrote: »

How much of the reduction in staff is due to natural wastage rather than forced redundancy?

The government doesn't have the balls to do what needs to be done. It is dressing up piecemeal savings as progress.

At this pace we will see a default before wages are brought down to a manageable level.

The Irish Public Sector, the bubble that just refuses to burst!

The was no forced redundancy, it was voluntary. and the 'natural watage' as you put it is fast becoming extinct as people are having to fill the major gaps left by this redundancy. If want to burst this bubble then be prepared to be going to the well for water yourself!

cosmicfart

fliball123 wrote: »

yeah clueless did you read DVPower post...in effect you have saved all of 6 million when the pensions of the ps are taken into view.......As for the p.s being worse then Yemen...I dont think its a kick in the arse of it as it stands...They are incentivising early retirement which takes the spend away from the ps paybill and slaps it onto the ps pensions...but sure we will be fine eh...lets all get a shed load of sand and slap our collectives heads in it...

People are entitled to their pensions, they pay into them to get them when they retire.

Nijmegen

The €289m reduction comes from people who have left the service and not been replaced. Woop, that's a big success for the Croke Park Agreement - 5,349 people retired, the majority of whom were going to retire anyway, and weren't replaced.

Meanwhile, we still have areas where we have too many staff, and we have other areas now - the famous case of all the chef's in James Connolly leaving - where we don't have enough people to provide basic cover.

Croke Park is a big, blunt instrument, and claiming €289m in 'savings' from people leaving the service is like claiming credit for the fact that the apple that was high up in the tree is now within your reach on the ground: Gravity did the job, Isaac. The average saving per head was €54,000 - Not cheap workers!

What you need to do is cut the people you don't need.

Savings from changes in working practices is great, but the €15.721bn question is in the actual pay we fork out to public sector workers. We have too many, so cut their jobs, and do it in a smart way.

It'd also be nice to see more transparent milestones: What's being saved, where, how, what ideas are being considered, what ideas are being rejected (and why), and so on. This report barely scratches the surface of that.

The cost per head of the workers cut was €54,000.

The cost per head of the workers remaining is €51,800.

Interesting.

PS: Cork Council, in one example given, saved €500,000 in travel expenses for its staff. Go them. But I wonder why they don't publish details of how or why? I'd be really fascinated to know how they've been wasting our money till now. What are the bets they all stayed in 5* Hotels? Anyone?

PPS: Some of these savings make you wonder why we didn't have a recession sooner, they're so simple:

An excellent example of a shared service approach, which will be welcomed by
students and parents, is in the Education Sector where a single student grant
scheme will be in place for the start of the 2011/2012 academic year, replacing
the current system where 4 different grant schemes are administered by 66 bodies.
In future, a single agency will administer the grant scheme.

A pilot electricity procurement initiative involving a number of institutions in
the Mid-West where a tender for electricity for 2010 targeted savings of
almost €1.5m or 35%. A similar initiative among a Dublin group of
universities and Institutes of Technology has achieved a 40% reduction in the
unit cost of electricity for 2010. Savings for TCD alone within this tender are
estimated to be in the order of €1m.

fliball123

cosmicfart wrote: »

The was no forced redundancy, it was voluntary. and the 'natural watage' as you put it is fast becoming extinct as people are having to fill the major gaps left by this redundancy. If want to burst this bubble then be prepared to be going to the well for water yourself!

Apparently we will be paying for our water in the not too distant further...This is an idle threat made by unions and ps alike...ala "ah dont come looking for a gard when you need one"...or "the poor nurse who looks after you in the hospital" etc...its all hot air...Everyone has a bleeding heart story ps, private sector and those on the dole...I just think it unfair to ask people in the private sector who have been hit by increased taxes aswell as hits in hours and wage to pay more...aswell as asking those on the dole to take another cut, whiles the p.s pay remains intact...That I believe is very unfair and not sharing the pain evenly..Look I would love it if the tax take coming in covered all areas of ps and social and all other areas of spend but the brutal fact is, is that is is not and we cannot continue to tax as we are at the point of diminishing returns...The CPA should be torn up in September and the knife sharpened for December...I reckon if the CPA was torn up it may focus the ps a little more knowing that there will be redundancies and paycuts...We can no longer ride this donkey of a public sector using the carrot ..we need the stick

padraig.od

cosmicfart wrote: »

7 Million. Have you compared that to some individual bankers pensions??? People who worked all their lives are entitled to their pensions, even PS workers!

I don't think you understand.

nursextreme

cosmicfart wrote: »

The was no forced redundancy, it was voluntary. and the 'natural watage' as you put it is fast becoming extinct as people are having to fill the major gaps left by this redundancy. If want to burst this bubble then be prepared to be going to the well for water yourself!

If natural wastage is becoming extinct or unsustainable where are next years savings going to come from without bursting the bubble?

spider guardian

cosmicfart wrote: »

The was no forced redundancy, it was voluntary. and the 'natural watage' as you put it is fast becoming extinct as people are having to fill the major gaps left by this redundancy. If want to burst this bubble then be prepared to be going to the well for water yourself!

Don't make me laugh. Perhaps the PS could get rid of their cheque-cashing days in order to fill the 'major gaps'.

The government needs to better manage the PS resources. They should concentrate on the frontline services, get rid of all the unnecessary management (most of which were only promoted based on duration of employment, nothing to do with performance) and tighten up work practices. I don't see how we have a choice in this.

There is still anecdotal evidence of huge wastage all over the country.

fliball123

cosmicfart wrote: »

People are entitled to their pensions, they pay into them to get them when they retire.

Why should my tax ..my hard earned money go to paying overly generous pensions in the p.s when I cannot afford my own?

eigrod

fliball123 wrote: »

I just think it unfair to ask people in the private sector who have been hit by increased taxes aswell as hits in hours and wage to pay more...aswell as asking those on the dole to take another cut, whiles the p.s pay remains intact...That I believe is very unfair and not sharing the pain evenly

For the Umpteenth time when will people understand that public servants took the same tax increases AND took a pay cut AND had an average 7% levy imposed on them.

Whatever your point of view is, please please acknowledge what's gone before and not to come out with ridiculous comments like "p.s. pay remains intact".

dvpower

Very little breakdown of the non pay savings in the report. Here the €308m.

The OPW achieved rental savings of €8.75m and sold property assets for in excess of €5m in 2010
Rental savings is low hanging fruit in this market. We would expect accomodation savings anyway with lower staff numbers. As for selling assets, why is this a CPA saving?

The Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine will achieve non-pay savings of approx €3m in 2011, increasing to €4.5m per annum when its programme of office rationalisation is completed.
Why are they counting future savings?

The OPW secured savings of €8.8m in procurement and assisted a further €39m savings across Departments and Offices
How come we have no breakdown of this €39m when they can mention individual €3m savings elsewhere? They just mention procurement savings - is that a CPA saving?

Local Authorities reported total non-pay savings of €81.1m
We don't get a full breakdown on this €81.1m? They mention procurement savings. Is going out to the market and negotiating better deals in a recession really a CPA saving?

The HSE succeeded in delivering savings of €126m across a wide range of overheads.
A breakdown would be nice. Only €26m is accounted for (procurement savings again and some catering savings)

Projected savings of €33m in health service agency staff services in 2011
Projected? But aren't agency staff services really pay savings anyway?

The Department of Justice & Equality achieved a reduction of over €2.5m in respect of the Direct Provision System in the first two months of 2011
Less asylum seekers = less direct provision payments? How is this being attributed to the agreement?

Dannyboy83

€600m savings.
Let's give ourselves a pat on the back.
3 years in and 600m savings. That's fantastic lads.

I'm 20 stone overweight. I've been dieting for 3 years and lost 6lbs.
I'm going to have a massive heartattack at some stage over the next 2 years which will kill me.
But I lost 6lbs. Maybe I'll go treat myself.

fliball123

eigrod wrote: »

For the Umpteenth time when will people understand that public servants took the same tax increases AND took a pay cut AND had an average 7% levy imposed on them.

Whatever your point of view is, please please acknowledge what's gone before and not to come out with ridiculous comments like "p.s. pay remains intact".

where did I say they didnt...My point is that the private sector are continuing to suffer paycuts and redundancies as shown by figures on the live register, not to mention the countless who have emigrated...Yet we will be expected to pay more in tax...and those previously employed in the private sector who now find themselves on the dole..will be expected to take a cut...yet no more cuts for the ps until after 2014 under the cpa.........The levy is a contribution to a defined benefit which in this case is an overly generous rock solid pension..The private sector would have to pay 4/5 times as much to get the average pension in the ps. Not to mention the fact that the gov is now targeting private sector pensions on contributions already made...Hows that for some acknoledgement..

Rabidlamb

This is seriously pissing on a fire.
Public service are a great bunch & all but their putting their self protection ahead of the country.
It can't seat easy with their members that the country is burdening itself with debt to pay their wages.
The government don't want the backlash of cutting PS pay & pension 30% so there'll be a prearranged dance with the IMF to make them look like the bad guy.
All the rumblings have been about softening up workers.

Cookie_Monster

dvpower wrote: »

Very little breakdown of the non pay savings in the report. Here the €308m.

to include what most of what you've listed there is pretty dodgy accounting to say the least...
a lot of it is only guestimated on future saving for the rest of the year with absolutely zero guarantee that they'll actually occur.

I was sceptical of the report this morning and you post just back up that scepticism.

eigrod

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

€600m savings.
Let's give ourselves a pat on the back.
3 years in and 600m savings. That's fantastic lads.

I'm 20 stone overweight. I've been dieting for 3 years and lost 6lbs.
I'm going to have a massive heartattack at some stage over the next 2 years which will kill me.
But I lost 6lbs. Maybe I'll go treat myself.

The amount of uninformed comments on here is just ridiculous.

Where are you getting 3 years from ? The CPA was signed off in March 2010.

Multiples of these savings were made from 2008 up to the signing of the CPA in March 2010 by pay cuts and pension levies, but I guess that doesn't suit your argument.

robtri

eigrod wrote: »

Whatever your point of view is, please please acknowledge what's gone before and not to come out with ridiculous comments like "p.s. pay remains intact".

I will acknowledge this, but can you give some info here...

what was the PS pay in 2005, 2007 and current?? (average pay per employee???) lets see how much it has gone down.....

fliball123

eigrod wrote: »

The amount of uninformed comments on here is just ridiculous.

Where are you getting 3 years from ? The CPA was signed off in March 2010.

Multiples of these savings were made from 2008 up to the signing of the CPA in March 2010 by pay cuts and pension levies, but I guess that doesn't suit your argument.

And yet there was still pay increments going on in areas of the p.s .... How does that work...How does the fact that we are borrowing the money to pay the wage which in not a uninfomed comment but the one that needs to be looked at most.....Does this fact suit your argument or do we continue borrowing to pay the wage...At what point do we stay stop???

dvpower

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

to include what most of what you've listed there is pretty dodgy accounting to say the least...
a lot of it is only guestimated on future saving for the rest of the year with absolutely zero guarantee that they'll actually occur.

I was sceptical of the report this morning and you post just back up that scepticism.

There is an awful lot being put down to procurment savings.
There is something in the report about the OPW implementing 'standard frameworks for rapid tendering of commodity and specialist goods and services' and put €8.8m against this, but a lot of it just seems to be getting better deals from suppliers.

This seems like very low hanging fruit, especially in a recession.
It looks like much of these savings aren't down to structural reform in the public service at all; they're savings made by squeezing others.

fliball123

dvpower wrote: »

There is an awful lot being put down to procurment savings.
There is something in the report about the OPW implementing 'standard frameworks for rapid tendering of commodity and specialist goods and services' and put €8.8m against this, but a lot of it just seems to be getting better deals from suppliers.

This seems like very low hanging fruit, especially in a recession.
It looks like much of these savings aren't down to structural reform in the public service at all; they're savings made by squeezing others.

Aggreed ..basically they are saving money doing what should of been the normal practise and they then expect a slap in the back for this..I think the p.s has run out of sympathy with the vast majority of people in the private sector and those on the dole...Sorry guys but its time for cuts

eigrod

robtri wrote: »

I will acknowledge this, but can you give some info here...

what was the PS pay in 2005, 2007 and current?? (average pay per employee???) lets see how much it has gone down.....

Well, that would be a huge project for me to give figures per employee given the vast amount of grades & professional posts etc that are there.

The pay deduction introduced on 1/1/2010 was :

5% on first €30,000 of salary
7.5% on next €40,000
10% on next €55,000

The pension levy was introduced on 1/5/2009 and detailed examples can be found at http://www.finance.gov.ie/documents/publications/other/2009/pensiondedtablemay09.pdf

And of course Public Servants were also subject to the same increases in tax and the introduction of the USC as private sector workers.

Speaking personally, I took a huge hit but I also appreciate that I still have a job while many others don't.

I've no problem with debates where people have a point of view that all of these public service pay cuts were not enough, but statements like the above "while p.s. pay remains intact" infuriate me.

kippy

I had a brief read of the report.

Someone above stated that if the PS can manage to save that much in a short space of time then one can only imagine the level of waste that was there and that's a very fair observation.
The reality, as I see it, are that there's a lot more money to be saved.
The tip of the iceberg hasn't been seen yet.
Unfortunately however, I dont see much more being saved without pay and staff cuts. The skills and indeed the attitude needed to do this simply ISNT THERE.
Especially when it comes to centralising shared services, data sharing, better use of IT.
Even the cuts in numbers if they were to come about - aren't done with any level of competence. Last in first out still rules the roost - which is a joke when you are trying to make the services more efficient.

Nijmegen

Eigrod, I would agree that pay of individuals should no longer be the focus point.

It should be public sector size and numbers.

We need to cut jobs that we don't need or could live without.

As it is, €15.7bn of our spending is public sector pay. Maybe we need to face facts and reduce the size of our PS by 1/3 of that?

Just throwing it out there.

The idea of unsupported cuts in numbers - Eg. Somebody retires and is not replaced - leads to cuts in services where they are needed, while other areas carry on regardless.

We need to trim the size of our state so that it fits into our tax collection envelope. Even our new, improved, pay for your water bigger envelope.

nursextreme

dvpower wrote: »

Projected savings of €33m in health service agency staff services in 2011
Projected? But aren't agency staff services really pay savings anyway

Exactly this amounts to wages but is considered procurement. The HSE use agency staff in areas to cover staff shortages due to the retirements and moratorium this substantial cost approx €184 million is considered procurement and not reflected in the wage bill. The Agency wage bill would take the gloss off the savings in wages if factored in.

fliball123

nursextreme wrote: »

Exactly this amounts to wages but is considered procurement. The HSE use agency staff in areas to cover staff shortages due to the retirements and moratorium this substantial cost approx €184 million is considered procurement and not reflected in the wage bill. The Agency wage bill would take the gloss off the savings in wages if factored in.

The crux is that nurses are overpaid compared to other countries...If their wage was cut and used to hire new staff, there would be no need to pay agency inflated prices..thats what a normal business would do...but under the cpa wages cannot be touched

nursextreme

dvpower wrote: »

This seems like very low hanging fruit, especially in a recession.
It looks like much of these savings aren't down to structural reform in the public service at all; they're savings made by squeezing others.

The same savings will not be achievable in procurement in subsequent years!

Nijmegen

Focusing on emergency services - like nurses, Gardai, etc - distracts from the primary arguments around the public sector.

The vast majority of public servants will not be involved in saving your life in the event of a calamity.

Nurses do great work. A simple way to avoid this distraction of a debate from unions is protect the pay of the emergency services. It's a good cause and prevents unions from holding the emergency services baby up as a defence for the fat and inefficient desk jockies elsewhere.

nursextreme

fliball123 wrote: »

The crux is that nurses are overpaid compared to other countries...If their wage was cut and used to hire new staff, there would be no need to pay agency inflated prices..thats what a normal business would do...but under the cpa wages cannot be touched

Agreed, money paid to agencies is wasted. Newly hired Nurses would have a 10% cut in their starting wages also bring the wage more in line with other countries (UK for example).