Decentralisation

Nearly 80% of the OPW’s specialist posts – including engineers, architects and heritage experts – will be unfilled if a recommendation to decentralise the organisation to Trim is implemented, according to IMPACT. The union says the recommendations of the Decentralisation Implementation Group, published today (Wednesday), have simply ignored the problem in order to force through the Government’s ill-thought-out decentralisation plans.

The union also said a consultants’ report on the costs of decentralisation, also published today, contained absolutely no figures, even though the taxpayer will have to meet the wage costs of civil servants who remain in Dublin when their organisations move.

The proposed OPW move to trim would see almost 80 per cent of specialist posts unfilled, while qualified architects, engineers and heritage experts are left behind in Dublin at the taxpayer’s expense. IMPACT says that 149 of the 328 OPW posts earmarked for Trim are specialist – not interchangeable administrative posts. But only 34 specialists – less than 23% of the required number – have volunteered to move there.

Similar problems exist in other departments and offices earmarked for early relocation in today’s report. They include the Department of Communications, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Education and Science.

IMPACT’s figures are based on official statistics produced by the Department of Finance Central Applications Facility (CAF) earlier this year.

They disaggregate trained and qualified staff – many from disciplines experiencing labour market shortages – from the general CAF figures now being used as the basis of decentralisation plans. These staff cannot be replaced from within the civil service. Problems will arise in a number of departments earmarked for early decentralisation in today’s report, including:

• OPW – only 23% (34 of 149) of required specialist staff will move to Trim.
• Communications – only 26% (6 of 23) of required specialist staff will move to Drogheda, and only 53% (9 of 17) will go to Clonakilty.
• The prison service – Only 12% (4 of 34) of required specialist staff will move to Longford.
• Agriculture – Only 25% (14 of 57) of required specialist staff will move to Portlaoise.
• Environment – only 19% (3 of 16) of required specialist staff will move to Wexford.
• Education – Only 4% (1 of 26) of required specialist staff will move to Mullingar and none will move to Athlone.
• Defence – only 20% (1 of 5) of required specialist staff will move to Newbridge.
• Communications and Rural Affairs – no specialist staff will move to Knock.

IMPACT national secretary Peter Nolan said the Government should not decentralise organisations that depend heavily on specialist staff, regardless of today’s report. “It would be highly arrogant of the Government to put its ill-thought-out decentralisation plans ahead of quality public services. Today’s report is simply ignoring a real threat to services. If implemented, its recommendations would create skills shortages across the civil service while skilled professionals sit idle in Dublin. We need a fundamental review of this programme,” he said.

BolBill some time ago wrote:

5. The buildings outside of Dublin that the Depts are moving to will be generally owed by TDs themselves or associates of TDs hence somebody makes a lot of money from leasing out these buildings.

The article, published in Ireland on Sunday on July 25, highlighted links between Deputy Parlon, his adviser Matt Moore and Mr Moore’s brother, builder Pat Moore in relation to a business opportunity presented by government plans for decentralisation.


Mr Pat Moore is planning to provide office space for some 110 civil servants who are to be decentralised to Portarlington.


Tom Parlon, who claimed much of the credit for the decentralisation of civil service jobs to Laois, is now in charge of securing property for the programme itself.


As Pat Moore is the brother of Mr Parlon’s adviser Matt Moore, questions have been raised about the transparency of the property deals.

NewDubliner wrote:

The bit in the Flynn report about 'pipelining' staff in the ICT areas was amusing. They have no idea what's going on.

RTE's 9pm news raised the often hidden issue of cost & the fuzzy thinking about it.

2.4 ICT
The Decentralisation Programme is likely to give rise to upfront ICT costs for
example, the cost of setting up and testing the IT environment in the new locations; additional network equipment (servers, desktop PC’s); additional
telecommunications equipment etc.

However we understand that the operating model for ICT services provided to
decentralising organisations has not been finalised. Although it has been decided to establish three ICT staff centres in Portlaosie, Drogheda and Kildare (and two data centres to house the equipment) it is not clear at this stage the extent (if any) to which of the staff centres / data centres will be used by the Government Departments and Agencies, other than the Dept of Agriculture, DSFA, Revenue, LGSB, Reach and CMOD.

Clearly this could have a significant impact on the overall provision of ICT services for decentralising organisations and the steps required to transition to this model.

Given the lack of clarity on the ICT operating model at this stage it was not possible to consider potential ICT costs / savings. We recommend that a separate exercise be carried out when the ICT strategy for decentralising Departments / Agencies is clarified.