ICT Specialists (Executive Officer level) in Civil Service

The_Conductor

Zipppy wrote: »

I find it strange that software dev is done in house....most PS organisations out source mostly....

Most PS organisations are bringing strategic developments back inhouse again. The most high profile of these- has to be Revenue's ROS system.
What has happened with a lot of outsourced and contract work- is the developers have been obsfuciating their code- making it incredibly difficult to follow and/or maintain. I.e. essentially giving themselves a job for life. One of the major consultancies is reknowned for this (I'm not going to name them- as I don't want to end up in court) and has seriously blackened their name- they offered to do significant amount of development work for the civil service and other public organisations on a pro-bono basis- to get a few of their people into organisations- and then any further maintenance or development work has in practice proven to be astronomically expensive and *has* to be done by the consultancy in question- as they haven't shared their notes with anyone.

Added ontop of that- you have 2 of the largest suppliers of IT contractors suing one another for plagiarising developmental work in the civil service (even presentations on the developments were fair game- however they stupidly didn't thoroughly trawl through them to ensure all logos were removed).

Its so much simpler- to bring it inhouse, to develop it to open methodologies, and to maintain it with staff who know the product and have to to follow developmental methodologies religiously.

Numerous major PS projects have already had to be reverse engineered- this is something that should not be happening.

Calina

Zipppy wrote: »

I find it strange that software dev is done in house....most PS organisations out source mostly....

Off-topic but the trend to outsource or not can be driven by fashion in management science rather than actual technical benefits. My understanding is there is some desire within the Irish authorities to bring these things back in house because of the occasionally exponential increase in cost of systems update and maintenance. It is much easier to control costs and quality when they are in-house.

One of the biggest issues with outsourcing dev work, from what I can see, is getting a contract in place that protects the purchaser from things like poor level development, subcontracting to unknown subcontracting dev operations and ensuring code bases are well managed and coherent. I have a bugbear about unmaintainable code whether the result of deliberate obfuscation or just poor quality.

One of the things I would LOVE to do, from a data point of view (which I'll never get the chance to do) is a major detailed analysis of systems used by the various arms of the civil service.

Zipppy

Gotta agree 110% there...no inhouse (or very little) dev done in my org...no staff dev or training either...management ethos is on outsourcing and cut backs...even though outsourcing tends to be ridiculously expensive....madness...good to hear CS is rethinking...

Like your suggestion on analysis of systems...scope of wider PS would be better...I can only imagine the mess in the HSE..

madrabui

Zipppy wrote: »

Gotta agree 110% there...no inhouse (or very little) dev done in my org...no staff dev or training either...management ethos is on outsourcing and cut backs...even though outsourcing tends to be ridiculously expensive....madness...good to hear CS is rethinking...

Like your suggestion on analysis of systems...scope of wider PS would be better...I can only imagine the mess in the HSE..

Have a read of The Public Service Reform Plan : http://www.reformplan.per.gov.ie/

and

Public Service ICT Strategy http://ictstrategy.per.gov.ie/

They might answer a few more questions that you might have.

Yenwod

The_Conductor wrote: »

Most PS organisations are bringing strategic developments back inhouse again. The most high profile of these- has to be Revenue's ROS system.
What has happened with a lot of outsourced and contract work- is the developers have been obsfuciating their code- making it incredibly difficult to follow and/or maintain. I.e. essentially giving themselves a job for life. One of the major consultancies is reknowned for this (I'm not going to name them- as I don't want to end up in court) and has seriously blackened their name- they offered to do significant amount of development work for the civil service and other public organisations on a pro-bono basis- to get a few of their people into organisations- and then any further maintenance or development work has in practice proven to be astronomically expensive and *has* to be done by the consultancy in question- as they haven't shared their notes with anyone.

Added ontop of that- you have 2 of the largest suppliers of IT contractors suing one another for plagiarising developmental work in the civil service (even presentations on the developments were fair game- however they stupidly didn't thoroughly trawl through them to ensure all logos were removed).

Its so much simpler- to bring it inhouse, to develop it to open methodologies, and to maintain it with staff who know the product and have to to follow developmental methodologies religiously.

Numerous major PS projects have already had to be reverse engineered- this is something that should not be happening.

While I know many a problem with consultants and their seemingly never ending contracts, I didn't realise a lot of that was going on. Especially the plagiarising.

It's about time they start bringing this work in-house or even if they have proper ICT people in-house to speak to the developers. The amount of non-IT staff who are left to make a decision based on what an outside contractor has bamboozled them with is ridiculous. I don't blame the staff member who ends up making that decision as they, of course, have been placed there incorrectly.

I wonder will they start specialising throughout the grades. HEO-ICT Specialist?

Slydice

Yenwod wrote: »

I wonder will they start specialising throughout the grades. HEO-ICT Specialist?

It's kinda strange. They had 2 specialist grades before:
- EO (Junior Systems Analyst)
- HEO (Senior Systems Analyst)

I don't know why they've decided to go with the new name "EO (ICT Specialist)". Though it does sound better not to have the word "Junior" in a job title.

Jonathan

Slydice wrote: »

It's kinda strange. They had 2 specialist grades before:
- EO (Junior Systems Analyst)
- HEO (Senior Systems Analyst)

I don't know why they've decided to go with the new name "EO (ICT Specialist)". Though it does sound better not to have the word "Junior" in a job title.

This isn't quite correct.

EO (Junior Systems Analyst)
HEO (Systems Analyst)
AP (Senior Systems Analyst)

These grades only exist in certain departments. Agriculture for example has them.

Slydice

Cool, thanks! Maybe I saw a competition for "HEO SYSTEMS ANALYST HIGHER" and got that stuck in my head.

Moocifer

There also used to be CO & SO programmer grades in Agriculture as well but they did away with those.

The_Conductor

Moocifer wrote: »

There also used to be CO & SO programmer grades in Agriculture as well but they did away with those.

They're still there
I know 2 CO Programmers.

fguinan

Hopefully they will start placing people on this soon...

Zipppy

fguinan wrote: »

Hopefully they will start placing people on this soon...

and interviewing more

fguinan

Zipppy wrote: »

and interviewing more

Got a letter when I got home saying that revenue would contacte directly about my appointment.

At least its moving along!

Zipppy

Any updates?

fguinan

Zipppy wrote: »

Any updates?

I have a start date in early June.

Best of luck to everyone!

Zipppy

fguinan wrote: »

I have a start date in early June.

Best of luck to everyone!

Ah good stuff..well done you

rostalof

Had my interview early last week. Didn't go too well. I'll elaborate further in due course. How long did it take for a reply? From what I can see here, the consensus is about 2 weeks.

fxotoole

Anyone know if any more are being called for interview?

schmillson2

rostalof wrote: »

Had my interview early last week. Didn't go too well. I'll elaborate further in due course. How long did it take for a reply? From what I can see here, the consensus is about 2 weeks.

They can't issue results until everyone has been interviewed. I think the last interviews are tomorrow Friday 15th. I contacted PAS who said we would probably hear back next week.

Zipppy

fxotoole wrote:

Anyone know if any more are being called for interview?

A few more would suit me

Zipppy

Any more start dates?

rostalof

Zipppy wrote: »

Any more start dates?

Still waiting to hear back from my interview....

rostalof

To those who have made it through to the panel, did your email specify you would be placed in a position or merely that you have been "placed 'n' on the panel. We will be in contact with you should you come under consideration for assignment to a position."?

Moocifer

Just got my interview results email as expected it was a big fat no!!! Good luck to everyone who got through.

fxotoole

One of my colleagues got positioned within the top 10.

Does this mean that D/PER are ready to start calling the next batch, or is this it?

Zipppy

Moocifer wrote: »

Just got my interview results email as expected it was a big fat no!!! Good luck to everyone who got through.

Sorry to hear that......fierce competition I'd say.....next time..

Yenwod

fxotoole wrote: »

One of my colleagues got positioned within the top 10.

Does this mean that D/PER are ready to start calling the next batch, or is this it?

It all depends how many positions get sanctioned. I know the panel from the first set of interviews was exhausted and the departments requesting them didn't get the amount of EOs they were looking for so I'd say the second batch could move along swift enough. Wouldn't surprise me if more were called

Yenwod

Has anybody here been officially assigned from this panel yet? It would seem people's offers & contracts are for "the role of Executive Officer" without any mention of ICT which seems curious and maybe a little worrying?

Sudden transfer to a general EO grade since you didn't sign an EO (ICT) contract? Or am I being a way too paranoid civil servant??

The_Conductor

It is a role of Executive Officer (with an ICT tag).
It is incredibly unlikely, given how difficult it is to recruit an EO ICT, that you would in an area other than an ICT area (however- its not impossible).

Most EO ICTs would simply say they were an EO- as would personnel, or anyone else. On peoplepoint- there would be a distinction though- it would have your technical tag associated with the post- if you were to view your profile.

Yenwod

The_Conductor wrote: »

It is a role of Executive Officer (with an ICT tag).
It is incredibly unlikely, given how difficult it is to recruit an EO ICT, that you would in an area other than an ICT area (however- its not impossible).

Most EO ICTs would simply say they were an EO- as would personnel, or anyone else. On peoplepoint- there would be a distinction though- it would have your technical tag associated with the post- if you were to view your profile.

Yea I figure it would be highly unlikely to be moved elsewhere but given some things that have happened recently, I'm being (probably overly) cautious.

I guess seeing CO (technical), SO (programmer) in the dept, why not EO (ICT)