ionapaul wrote: Are there statistics kept on how many hours, per week and on average, civil servants on flexitime work? Around 40, like the rest of us, I imagine, right?
ionapaul wrote: I work for one of those IT outsourcing / contract staffing companies who stand to gain if and when decentralisation goes ahead.
eoineen wrote: Yes, it is called the Benchmarking Reports and are available from the Dept of Finance. CSO also gather wages and hours data for all sectors of the economy. Public service jobs compare very favourably in both aspects.
eoineen wrote: I don't understand the question
NewDubliner wrote: This is new, it wasn't part of the government's announcement. Can you tell us more? I'm sure the public would be concerned about the increase in IT costs & how decentralisation is being used as a smokescreen for privitisation of public administration. I'm familiar with the work of one of the out-sourcers. Whatever they might pay their staff, they cost the public a lot more money. The average charged is €1,000/daily for 'foot-soldiers', even more for those with talent. The long hours you quote mean nothing as this is a product of a culture of 'presentism' where they're expected to be seen working long hours so that the big fees can be justified. It's also part of the war of attrition being waged against the existing managers. They come in early to out-flank the host staff. It's well recognised that the contractors will do whatever they can to enlarge their beacheads in host clients & ensure that they cannot be dispensed with. Once in position, the fees increase even more. So before you start dissing public service IT staff, have a look around your own glasshouse first. EK
ionapaul wrote: That is obscene, most experienced IT support staff are less than €300/day on contract.
Plus longer hours in the department I referred to is a result of the contract signed between my employers and the Government body, and not because we work harder and longer to make the existing employees look bad!
ionapaul wrote: As it currently stands, if the moves go ahead, the senior people stay in Dublin and cannot be let-go, surely the Government will still have to hire new (and probably inexperienced) people to fill all the vacant positions down the country? So is it on the cards that the numbers of civil servants employed will sky-rocket in the short-to-medium term, with a huge number in Dublin, employed but with no work to do?
uncivilservant wrote: Revenue Commissioners - Kilrush 50 / 70Revenue Commissioners - Newcastle West 50 / 109 All well and good
NewDubliner wrote: Not what it seems, I'd say they're all from Revenue's Limerick office & already live near those towns. At least they may have suitable experience. If any estate agents are expecting to make a killing, they'll be disappointed. EK
uncivilservant wrote: Office of Public Works - Trim - 328/378 While massively over subscribed for clerical grades (180 posts, 310 applications), OPW's Technical staff figures make for interesting reading. 8 Architects are required in Trim - zero applications. 22 Architectural Assistants - 5 applications. 4 Assistant Principal Architects needed - 1 applied. 21 Senior Architects - 2 applied. An assortment of 30 Engineer posts are needed - 11 applied. These are all highly skilled technical staff, with nowhere else to go.
Victor wrote: Well at least lots of the lads down the golf club will be able to get secure jobs.
eoineen wrote: I work in local government, get 28 days paid holidays and work a 36 hour week exclusing lunchbreaks. I receive Sustaining Progress payments and benchmarking payments like thousands of others and having to accept overdue organisational change at a faster pace than most private industries, then agian there are two different motives.....profit and people . This is not an ideological viewpoint, merely fact
Sleepy wrote: I wonder what's making it so expensive to do? Relocation expenses perhaps? Or are the civil servants organising the decentralisation as useless as those they're moving? :rolleyes:
Civil offices move to cost €900m: Parlon 27 October 2004 16:19 The Government expects to spend at least €900 million on providing office space for over 10,000 public servants being decentralised out of Dublin, the Minister for the Office of Public Works, Tom Parlon, has said. Mr Parlon told an Oireachtas committee that while precise figures were not possible at this early stage, the Government expects to spend up to €100 million to acquire sites in regional locations. It plans to spend a further €815 million to construct and fit out appropriate office accommodation, he told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance & the Public Service. However, he noted that that figure does not include the cost of information and communication technology or other specialised requirements. Mr Parlon said that his department estimated that up to 210,000 square metres of office space would be needed for the entire decentralisation programme. However, the move outside Dublin would also free up over 200,000 square metres of office accommodation in the capital. He told the committee that he expected that some of that property would be disposed of by selling it, which could raise up to €400 million.
Parlon is planning to spend €815m of taxpayers’ money buying sites and building offices for up to 10,000 “decentralised” civil servants at more than 50 locations across the country. That is the equivalent of almost €90,000 per relocated employee, equal to three years’ wages for a typical worker in the manufacturing sector. The minister should wake up and smell the coffee. His “big idea” will put a dent in the exchequer’s finances — and experience suggests that it will cost a lot more than the amount budgeted for — and if the move is intended to stop Dublin’s advance it is doomed to failure.
Parlon believes his decentralising wheeze will be self-financing and plans to sell Dublin office property and engage in the early release of leases in order to pay for the dislocation required to move 10,000 public servants. Not only will it be considered a miracle if this project is brought in on budget but it must be stressed that some 4,000 of the “volunteers” who are willing to relocate are not even working in the Greater Dublin area, meaning the volume of “freed up“ space arising from Parlon’s caper will probably be a little more than 50% of what was intended when the idea was rubber-stamped in last year’s budget.
The nonsense of moving 10,000 civil servants — almost half of whom come from locations outside of Dublin — to 50 villages will not address planning problems in a country where employment is growing organically by 40,000 per year and where much of the employment growth is in the service sector in Dublin and surrounding counties.
