Accountability amongst the upper echelons of the Civil Service

There is none. Think the cervical smear scandal,the Hep C scandal, the monumental cock-up that is the HSE, the collapse of the forest industry in Ireland, the failure to rein in the banks, and then the arrogant refusal of Robert Watt to come before the Accounts Committee of Dail Eireann, but rather to attend by video...from just a few metres away, proof if needed that these people consider themselves immune to accountability.

Now, we do have piss poor politicians, and despite its failings, the HSE mostly delivered during COVID, the education system turns out well-qualified graduates, and the social net is commendable.

But overall, why is there no accountability?

Hermy

Is it just down to voter apathy, an electorate that doesn't demand change in sufficient numbers, instead voting in the same politicians election after election, resulting in a complete lack of appetite for systemic change?

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058270183/accountability-amongst-the-upper-echelons-of-the-civil-service

Why should there be? Civil servants are no different to the employees of any other organization. You want accountability go hold your elected representative to account. In that respect what have you actually done to do that?

• Visited them at their local office to express your views?
• Campaigned against them at election time?
• Donate to candidates you feel represents your views
• Join a party and actively participate in politics

or just sit behind a keyboard and vigorously type to the limit voter view on social media that in reality accounts for very little in a general election.

Accountability requires you to do something physical beyond typing on a keyboard. And if you are not willing to do that then you only have yourself to blame for the lack of accountability.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119827130#Comment_119827130

You're making a hell of a lot of assumptions.

I have lobbied politicians on a particular topic, and over the issue they say to a man" I'm getting this in the neck over this from my constituents". They know what's happening is wrong, but also say "have you ever heard of a senior civil servant being fired or resigning?".

All that I can say is there there isn't a TK Whitaker amongst any of them. What was that about turds rising to the surface?

Here we go again

https://www.rte.ie/news/investigations-unit/2022/1102/1332847-hse-doctor-organ-retention-babies/

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119827016#Comment_119827016

Thye mandarins quietly strangle any attempt at reform

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/reforming-the-civil-service-1.45664

Larbre34

As Michael McGrath said this morning, in relation to Eoin O'Broin's civil servant comment; civil servants must be free to advise as they see fit at the time. The decision to act, or not, on that advice, is a matter for the elected Government and the Dáil.

As others have said, the accountability is your ballot and that little HB pencil, yet we have a solid 30% of eligible voters who never do.

Whats the betting that the correlation between that 30% and the cohort of society most disadvantaged by direct Government decisions, is strong? It would make interesting study for sure.

The buck stops with the Minister. Not the civil servants. The Minister has the power and the final say in all decisions. The civil servants can only advise.

So any elected representative who tells you

"they know what's happening is wrong, but also say "have you ever heard of a senior civil servant being fired or resigning?"

is fobbing you off.

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119827200#Comment_119827200

So you have done one out of four things and clearly not enough voters agree with you enough to make the politicians take action.... there is still more to do if you are actually that concerned, but most are not.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119827246#Comment_119827246

Can you elaborate?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119827521#Comment_119827521

What are the other three things>

THe thrust of O'Broin's comment was that McCarthy was too orthodox and out of touch. Fair point. Does McCarthy have to get involved in CPD? I spoke with a former and very familiar politician and asked him why politicians get elected to Dail Eireann with the best of intentions and aspirations, but achieve very little. He said its the fault of top civil servants. They want to maintain the status quo, and will thwart change at every opportunity. He quit in disgust.

HerrKuehn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119827246#Comment_119827246

Unfortunately TD's and ministers for all their self importance are basically sales people. It is a real struggle to change the state sector and the reason for that is down to the employees at all levels.

HerrKuehn

A great example is the HSE hack, Richard Browne was the acting head of cyber security as they were searching for a suitable candidate at the time. They couldn't find a suitable candidate, doubled the salary and appoint Richard Browne as head. So, he was in charge when the attack happened, gets a promotion and double salary.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119827650#Comment_119827650

Ineffective politician blames someone else for his failures. Quelle surprise.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119827238#Comment_119827238

As others have said, the accountability is your ballot and that little HB pencil, yet we have a solid 30% of eligible voters who never do.

Is it?

Genuine question, but how many elections have led to a shake up in the civil service?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119827130#Comment_119827130

 Civil servants are no different to the employees of any other organization. 

Don't think this is true.

In a private company, it is extremely unlikely that a new leader would come in and keep the exact same people and the exact same structures underneath him. Private companies have re-orgs all the time, especially when leadership changes. If a particular leader or structure is ineffective, it is changed and they are replaced.

I think the OP has a point that there is limited accountability in the civil service. In theory, ministers should be coming in and structuring their departments to meet their priorities, in reality I don't think this happens in Ireland. We change the people at the very top (ministers), but the system underneath stays the same. Perhaps the biggest example of where this system is broken is the Dept of Health.

Though I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong.

Augme

A system where a Minister can hand pick who he likes doesn't sound appealing though. Job's for the boys and corruption are the first two things that immediately jump to my mind when I imagine that scenario.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119827781#Comment_119827781

Browne has/had nothing to do with HSE. He’s head of the NCSC.

This is a great example of people who are happy to blame civil servants for everything despite not having a clue about what those civil servants do.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119901067#Comment_119901067

He didn't say Browne had anything to do with the HSE. He said Browne temporarily was in charge of the NCSC when the HSE hack happened, then got his salary doubled and made permanent.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119901020#Comment_119901020

There has to be a happy medium as we see all too often governments struggle to introduce any sort of reform or modernisation in our public services.

Changing the person at the very top, and keeping everything underneath exactly the same? We can hardly be surprised when it's so difficult and slow for government's to get anything substantial done.

Augme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119901211#Comment_119901211

What's the alternative? Have no one in the role?

Augme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119901238#Comment_119901238

From my experience there's always a massive lack of political will to get anything done though.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119901267#Comment_119901267

Getting your salary doubled when there's no competition for your role is quite something.

Augme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119901306#Comment_119901306

The fact there was no competition for the role at the original salary says a lot though.

doc22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119901306#Comment_119901306

They needed to appearantly double the salary to get the right candidate(properly qualified candiate). There was a competition for the role and funny enough the best person was the internal man. I don't think the gov will be breaching set payscales again.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119900819#Comment_119900819

Nonsense.

This discussion a bit too close to the bone for you?

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119901211#Comment_119901211

Stop rewriting history. He didn’t mention NSCS at all.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119901306#Comment_119901306

There was a competition for the role at the original salary. No one who knew their arse from their elbow applied.

eggy81

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119827627#Comment_119827627

Did you not read above. If you haven’t done everything short of starting your own political party and running in opposition to the politician or party you feel aggrieved by, winning that election and opening an enquiry into said public service member, finding them guilty of some sort of offence or mistake and having them held accountable accordingly then you are to blame for lack of accountability.

Thems the rules. Hop to it.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119901389#Comment_119901389

I have interviewed an awful lot of people for fairly senior public service jobs and to say that 99% of the outsiders who apply don't have a clue is being generous to them.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119900929#Comment_119900929

From my experience, junior to mid (and even reasonably high) level roles in the private sector are very much the same. It simply is not that common to get fired for strategic reasons.

The difference comes at the higher levels - e.g. in charge of a business unit. In those scenarios you know the risk in the private sector, however they also get paid a premium that the equivalent people in the civil service simply don't - be it in salary or stock. Call it a risk premium, but they are better set up to endure periods of unemployment following a restructuring. I don't imagine introducing similar levels of pay and benefits into the higher echelons of the civil service would get much support though...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119902646#Comment_119902646

A clue about what? A clue about the subject matter, or a clue about how to play by civil service rules i.e. don't make waves?

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119900929#Comment_119900929

You cannot really have wholesale reordering of departments every time a minister changes. If you did, literally nothing other than navel gazing would be achieved. Civil service provides the continuity required to actually run a country.

deirdremf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119827212#Comment_119827212

Assuming SF get into government, I'd guess that they will find any attempts at meaningful change will be stymied unless the first reform they carry out is at the top levels of the civil & public service.

deirdremf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119908738#Comment_119908738

AFAIK it is common in many countries for a new government to appoint the whole upper management of the department they run. Clearly at a lower i.e. non-decision-making levels, people are kept on as they are merely cogs in the engine.

We use the English system that was left to us at independence. But our system has one major difference from the English/British civil service: prior to independence, our civil service was run for the class that came over with Cromwell, and who mostly no longer live here, as a great many of them sold their land under the late 19th century land acts to the tenant farmers and invested the proceeds elsewhere. Much of our civil service seems to act as though they are still working for the people who came over with Cromwell, and have to keep the Paddies in their place.

purifol0

There is a very simple solution that 400,000 Irish people wont like.

Make a public sector workers vote count as half one vote.

The people that are taxed to pay for the running of the country should have more say at the ballot box than those who take their taxes, form massive unions that are "friendly" with each other, and vote en masse such that they can effectively vote in (& out) the entire govt.

Any govt Minister that would seek to reform them would find themselves out of office in short order eg Nurses/Teachers/Garda strike & RTE backing the unions propaganda as they get paid from the same source.

Heck those groups threaten strikes all the time just get their pay bumped up outside of pay agreements. National debt? They dont care.

Weighted voting - simplez

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119921883#Comment_119921883

No, what will happen is that their idiotic ideas will have real figures (not their own fantasy ones) put against them and they will have to come up with the solutions for the hole they'll blow in the public finances.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119921944#Comment_119921944

What countries do this?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119922240#Comment_119922240

So should we put your anti democratic proposal to a vote?

I don't mean to attack ordinary public servants. My focus is on the upper echelons, the Robert Watts and his ilk , the pigs of Animal Farm.

kippy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119922240#Comment_119922240

And this uninformed and irrational thinking is a good reason for leaving our democratic system at least we'll enough alone.

You phrase that post in a way that anyone who wasn't aware,would think that public servants didn't pay taxes.

I reckon there's a good book waiting to be written which will expose the culture and occasional **** ups of this group of Irish people. Robert Watt reminds me of Charlie Haughey, whose corruption on top seeped down to the others. Watt's arrogance and fcuk-you attitude to his would be political masters has infected many of his fellow mandarins who take their cue from him. Monkey see, monkey do.

purifol0

You phrase that post in a way that anyone who wasn't aware,would think that public servants didn't cost taxpayers money to employ, didn't have uncosted and unfunded pensions, and didn't strike at the stop of a hat despite having job security that does not exist in the private sector.

Tell me where was democracy when the public sector and politicians colluded handing even more of the public funds to themselves? I don't remember getting a say in where my taxes were going.

Also your "pay taxes" analagy is specious. Sure why don't we pay each one a million euro salary, and take 950,000 off them. Then they could say "we pay more taxes than you". Obviously ridiculous, yet this is what teachers unions have pulled this exact same stunt!

So, my point stands tall. The people paying for all this, should get a greater say via a stronger vote, then those taking from them.

kippy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119923690#Comment_119923690

The people 'taking from them' are getting paid to do a job, they themselves are 'paying for all this' as well.

Your base logic is plain daft.

purifol0

Correction, they are overpaid and MASSSIVELY over pensioned, to do jobs that in many cases should not exist.

Taxpayers are being absolutely fleeced to pay for this largesse, and yet the insiders continue to get away with it, because they can force out any politician who dares to take on their unions.

ParkRunner

From my experience within the civil service around a third of the work day can often be spent on accountability related work (PQs, ministerial reps, FOI, AIE, preparing for Minister’s attendance in the Houses of the Oireachtas and multiple public events, providing stats/info for the usual publications, PMDS process, defending judicial reviews etc).

Without all that a lot more policy work and other tangible output would get done but it is what it is in order to be as transparent as possible.

It’s often the case i find that the very people who want something done make so much noise and generate so much correspondence/PQs that they’re causing a significant barrier to actually getting what they want done.

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119902646#Comment_119902646

The biggest problem with any large organisation be private or public is the 'not invented here' syndrome as you clearly demonstrate.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119923718#Comment_119923718

Which particular public sector jobs should not exist?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119923690#Comment_119923690

Democracy was when you voted at the ballot box for parties to implement their policies, remember that?

Tell me more about these "strikes at the drop of a hat" please? What strikes are you talking about?

purifol0

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119923796#Comment_119923796

You have some cheek to misquote me. I said "threaten strikes".

Secondly this version of democracy where those that pay for everything get the same vote as those that take patently unfair.

Imagine a household where parents who work give their kids an allowance. But instead of taking x amount the kids take a little bit more, and give that bit back, and then proclaim they should have the exact nsame say in the how the household finances are spent!

Oh and how exactly do you know who I voted for, because the last 4 govts had zero of my candidates in them.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119923995#Comment_119923995

You didn’t mention “threaten” at all in the post. The relevant section was; “and didn't strike at the stop of a hat despite having job security that does not exist in the private sector.”.

So I’m simply asking what strikes you are referring to? I suspect the answer is ‘none’ but perhaps you can clarify.

You seem confused about the basics of democracy. Your candidates didn’t get into government because very few people share your views and your voting strategy. That IS democracy, because the candidates reflecting the majority views got elected.

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119902646#Comment_119902646

I never knew you were a public servant! A senior one....right. To be honest I take everything you post with a pinch of salt based off previous misinformation. You do love the status quo no matter how utterly dysfunctional.

You spend your day on Boards defending FFGG and attacking SF. How do you square that with your job?

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119923995#Comment_119923995

That is arrant nonsense.

The whole democratic system we have is based on one vote per person. We even extend it to be STV so those with a smaller support base can get elected, and could get a voice at Gov. This balances out so that every reasonable voice is heard.

You are suggesting that those with the most should have the loudest voice - or even the only voice. I would not want to live in a society that had that kind of system - the closest to it is the Republican view in the USA - no thanks. Billionaires deciding the fate of those further down the wealth spectrum - just look at twitter and the chaos being caused by a nutter new owner who cares nothing for the workers.

When the Titanic hit the iceberg, the crew locked the third class passengers below decks while they tried to save the first class passengers - is that the world you want to live in? I presume you assume you would be in first class.

purifol0

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119924010#Comment_119924010

"Your candidates didn’t get into government because very few people share your views"

Ahahhaaahahhaah. Wrong again! Highest amount of first preferences votes out of all parties! So they did indeed get elected, the reason they didnt get into government is because FF FG merged, something they swore blind they'd never do!

the people with the strongest, simplest and most certain views of something like the role and workings of the entirety of the civil service as it sits within our system of governmental administration are always the ones with the dumbest possible follow up responses to anyone challenging those views.

i dunno is that telling. i feel like it might be.