uncivilservant wrote: Unions representing civil servants have reacted angrily to suggestions by the Department of Finance that promotion prospects might be limited to staff who sign up for decentralisation. The department said such discussions were still at an early stage, but that policy on promotions had to take account of the reality of decentralisation. It is less than a month since the Government announced its first phase of decentralisation, the relocation of 3,500 civil servants to 20 locations outside Dublin by 2008. The Government intends decentralising around 7,000 more jobs in the Civil Service and State agencies. The Civil Public and Services Union said the protection of Dublin-based staff was a condition of its continued support for decentralisation. The Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants and the Public Service Executive Union have also expressed their total opposition to any attempts to limit promotion prospects to staff who sign up for decentralisation.
smccarrick wrote: I'm not even sure why I'm responding to the ritriole but anyway: If you are genuinely interested in reading about the mandate for government and what it is acknowledged to contain- please read the following:http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/attached_files/upload/publications/1480.pdf You will note much mention of spatial strategy- and a statement that "we will move forward decentralisation of government offices and agencies taking into account the National Spatial Strategy"- that is the sole mention of decentralisation in the entire 36 page document. As you will note- this, the fifth wave of decentralisation, totally ignores the national spatial strategy- so unfortunately I have to conclude that your entire point about it being mandated is moot. Public sector unions are not challenging decentralisation- if you cared or even bothered to read some of the literature from the unions you would note that the CPSU and the PSEU were among those who had agreed decentralisation added (against the wishes of politicians) to the government agenda. The government has the right to decentralise the civil-service- agreed- but in consultation with those affected, as per agreed in the last partnership document "Sustaining Progress"- which by the way the civil service also gave up the right to strike in (we already gave up the right to arbitration that is available to the private sector- including the labour court). So- the civil servants are not threatening to strike- we are stating however, that the current decentralisation proposals, as drip fed to the media, are in breach of the spirit of the agreement (if not the factual content). As per previously you are insinuating that civil servants are on a gravy train, that we all have nice houses in Dublin and can sell up and make a killing down the country...... the only people making killings on houses are the builders and those hoarding land. The average civil servant qualifies for assistance on the affordable housing scheme- because we cannot afford to purchase accomodation at all (though quite a lot of people end up buying a little apartment with assistance from relatives and deposits from credit unions- and then renting out rooms to students and fellow employees to try to pay their bills). The vast bulk of civil servants are in clerical grades- and earn (after 16 years) a maximum of Euro 605.83 per week before tax (31,612 per annum before tax)- i.e. we cannot afford to buy houses in your beloved Wexford- whether we want to or not. Source:http://www.finance.gov.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=2713&CatID=28&StartDate=1+January+2004&m=c As for the will of the people- you are very very good at making grandiose statements without anything behind them. If you genuinely think the will of the people of Ireland is massively in favour of decentralisation- perhaps you can explain how the PDs ran 16 candidates in Laois-Offally, Tom Parlon's home territory- and he the architect of decentralisation- delivering among other things, the Department of Agriculture and Food to Portlaoise- and guess how many of their candidates were elected? Zero.... Source:http://www.politics.ie/modules.php?name=XForum&file=viewthread&tid=1932&page=2 The only part of your gift horse that bears any semblence to reality is protruding from it's posterior.
arcadegame2004 wrote: Well first of all, this country is more than just Laois-Offaly. Also, "averages" can often be misleading, because they can mask wide statistical divergences between portions of the sample. Also, don't forget people living with parents and living in homes they have inherited from their parents. I can understand why persons in Dublin would oppose decentralisation e.g. fears of job-opportunities in the civil-service going to other parts of the country. However, unemployment in Dublin is only 2% and places like Co.Donegal (unemployment 10-20%) are more than due a fairer regional policy that recognises the existence of other areas of the country other than Dublin.
arcadegame2004 wrote: Well first of all, this country is more than just Laois-Offaly.
arcadegame2004 wrote: The Government has every right to decentralise the civil-service. It was a campaign promise in the last General Election and so they have a mandate to implement this reform. The movement of entire departments to the regions outside Dublin will mean more job opportunities for persons in those regions in future as they will already be living in the area.
arcadegame2004 wrote: I can understand why persons in Dublin would oppose decentralisation e.g. fears of job-opportunities in the civil-service going to other parts of the country. However, unemployment in Dublin is only 2% and places like Co.Donegal (unemployment 10-20%) are more than due a fairer regional policy that recognises the existence of other areas of the country other than Dublin.
.......And speaking of decentralisation, the impact of that decision a year ago has yet to emerge in terms of the technology deployment strategies. Quite apart from the organisational and operational headaches that face our public administrators, this act of fragmentation — which is really what the Irish form of decentralisation is — has presented the IT communities in government departments and semi-state bodies with considerable headaches, not least of which is the implications for an already serious shortage of skills and expertise. This situation sees frequent use of the large consultancy houses, many of whom are using public service contracts as training grounds for their rookies. The trend in the decentralisation process next year will see some developments of IT centres outside (but perhaps not too far) from Dublin and within in easy reach of each other — ‘stylisation’ perhaps?.......
No agreement reached at decentralisation talks 11 January 2005 20:32 Union leaders have met with Department of Finance officials to discuss their opposition to the Government's latest proposals on decentralisation. The Department has proposed limiting promotions in the civil service to those willing to move to decentralised offices, but the unions say they want the proposal dropped. The meeting was described as robust. No agreement has been reached but union leaders say there is no room for manoeuvre on what they believe will turn Dublin into a wasteland for civil servants.
true wrote: Quote This is really only common sense. For example, according to the 2002 Census there are 45,250 persons employed in Wexford. The decentralisation proposes to increase this (eventually) by 375. I think its intuitively clear that Wexford with a workforce of 45,250 will be in much the same situation as Wexford with a workforce of 45,625. Equally, Dublin will not be much impacted if its workforce of 508,030 is reduced by 10,000 - it would nearly gets lost in the rounding. Most of the towns the jobs are going to are small eg population 10,000 or 15,000. A few hundred people will help these towns, and will attract and support other jobs ...eg service jobs. ( restaurants and shops for the civil servants etc ). Quote “ …the difference between Dublin and other places is much greater than a comparison of population size would suggest. …... The study shows that even the large urban centres outside Dublin offer relatively poor environments either for new service firms or for other firms wishing to interface with a range of good quality services. The comparative advantage of Dublin is evident in regard to all aspects of service activity but it is perhaps best exemplified in respect to the leakage to Dublin for the purchase of producer services i.e. business consultancy, PR, marketing and advertising. …… There is a high level of leakage from provincial towns towards the capital in terms of both financial flows and employment. The reasons for not using local firms related principally to the poor quality of the local supply and to protect confidentiality.” I do not know about that, the skills found outside Dublin in the bigger towns often equal if not exceed those found in the capital. The well educated workforce around Ireland do not want to see all of their taxes going to employ their homesick relations and friends in the far away , smoky, traffic congested city of Dublin.
true wrote: Most of the towns the jobs are going to are small eg population 10,000 or 15,000. A few hundred people will help these towns, and will attract and support other jobs ...eg service jobs. ( restaurants and shops for the civil servants etc ).
true wrote: Most of the towns the jobs are going to are small eg population 10,000 or 15,000. A few hundred people will help these towns,
true wrote: and will attract and support other jobs ...eg service jobs. ( restaurants and shops for the civil servants etc )..
true wrote: I do not know about that, the skills found outside Dublin in the bigger towns often equal if not exceed those found in the capital..
true wrote: The well educated workforce around Ireland do not want to see all of their taxes going.
true wrote: to employ their homesick relations and friends.
true wrote: in the far away , smoky, traffic congested city of Dublin.
smccarrick wrote: Any news in the last week or two? All quiet on the Western Front?
How did you fill in your CAF form? What CAF form? I'm staying in Dublin! 164 Happily submitted my preferred locations. 34 Said I'd go with my Department, but no plans to leave Dublin. 21 Submitted, but with no locations. I'm staying in Dublin! 6 Total votes: 225
... the PSEU Representative raised the fact that the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources had set out proposals to make all internal promotions conditional on people being willing to re-locate, despite the fact that there was no central agreement to this approach and that it was absolutely clear that if any agreement was to be reached it could not and would not involve acceptance of the total elimination of Dublin promotions.
The PSEU Representative also made reference to the proposals as regards change of preferences. In particular it was noted that staff had made choices without full information. In some cases staff had listed locations close to each other and their first preference was not in the list of ‘early movers’ and their second preference location was in that list but was now over-subscribed by first preferences. Similarly the Department of Social and Family Affairs had made changes to their proposals after staff had made their choices. ... The Official Side Representatives stated that all staff had made choices with the same information. To some extent, they noted a ‘chicken-and-egg’ situation in that one criterion to determine ‘early movers’ had been the high level of applicants for that location.
... the PSEU Representative pointed out that there were staff serving currently in Dublin outside of the city-centre and many of these staff had chosen deliberately to locate near their homes. It was noted that it would be a bitter irony if the programme of Decentralisation was to result in people being forced to re-locate into the centre of the city, contrary to their wishes.
Rift over IT in public sector 10.02.2005 - Deep divisions between departmental IT heads and central policy makers became clear in a government briefing held by research analysts from Gartner last week. The first of three speakers, John Kost, managing vice-president, was clearly bemused at the exchange of opinions that erupted when he canvassed views from delegates. “Based on the comments today, there doesn’t seem to be a strong central focus on the IT aspects of decentralisation and that’s symptomatic of a bigger problem,” he told siliconrepublic.com after the event. He was ostensibly there to talk about shared services but soon found himself embroiled in a discussion on Ireland’s current position on e-government and its plans for decentralisation in particular. “I was surprised by the reaction. Given the profile of the Flynn Report I would have assumed that there was a fairly substantial managerial effort in making sure it was executed properly,” he said. “The surprising part to me was that in many ways departments seem to have been left to their own devices to figure out what’s the answer that works best for them.” Several high-profile public servants were terse in their analysis of decentralisation, describing it as a crazy political decision where logic didn’t apply. “All that seems to matter is where you do your work, not what you do or how you do it,” said one delegate. Andrea Di Maio, Gartner research vice-president, said the process of decentralisation would affect Ireland’s wider e-government agenda. He reasoned that the move to more integrated services would inevitably be hampered when “minds might be somewhere else”. As one delegate put it: “There is a vision [around e-government] that has been discussed at secretary general level but decentralisation has muddied the waters.” A particular aspect of decentralisation that irked the audience, and one that was addressed in the Gartner briefing, was the uncertainty surrounding technology staff. Around 75pc of the skilled IT employees based in Dublin do not want to be relocated under the terms of the decentralisation programme. According to Gartner research, employment issues inevitably arise from decentralisation. “There is a critical mass when the right skills are in the right place, serving the right organisations. You keep the highest demand employees where the skillsets are in the largest supply,” said Kost. The Flynn Report came up with a plan for three regional IT clusters but the view from the floor at the Gartner event was that this was a pragmatic response in the absence of real discussion. There was concern that having the right people in the right place was going to be a rarity and that there would have to be a greater dependency on contract work. Discussions with the unions about re-evaluating the role of IT personnel had been carried out centrally by the Department of Finance but had come to nothing. The Centre of Management and Organisation Development within the department — came in for some criticism, not only for letting this issue fall off the agenda but for a general inability to engage in discussion with departmental secretary generals. As one senior civil servant put it: “We had discussion but there was no dialogue.” “Given the reputation of Ireland as a software leader, one would have the impression that there was an enlightened leadership,” commented Kost. “There is nothing wrong with decentralisation as a political agenda. There is nothing wrong with the strategy or objectives but there are lots of ways to execute it wrong from an IT perspective. There has to be a clear, integrated enterprise strategy on how to do this properly, otherwise the result, particularly around IT, could be significantly less responsive than what they have now.” Managing technology and defining a strategy in the public sector is something that Kost knows a good deal about. From 1992-1996 he worked in Michigan as the first state chief information officer (CIO). Creating a central CIO for the entire Irish public sector is an option that has been discussed and it’s an approach that Kost obviously has some sympathy with. “The idea of a central CIO makes a great deal of sense if the leadership at the top of Government is paying enough attention. But having a CIO doesn’t guarantee anything except a focal point for conversation. If the Government doesn’t want that conversation about IT, because they don’t care or maybe because they don’t understand it, then it’s all pointless.” He argued that the quality of IT leadership is driven in part by the quality of overall management and the execution of government. “Regardless of whether it’s a country or a state in the US, the fundamental thing is about who is responsible for the day-to-day execution and whether they understand the issues.” In his presentation Di Maio shared the assertion that someone in a CIO-type function had to take responsibility for what he referred to as the first tier of e-government, simple integration between different agencies. Both speakers agreed that the biggest obstacle to progress was not technology but the “turf wars”, the management and interdepartmental power struggles. Judging by the mood of attendees at this particular event, turf wars are a problem that the Irish Government is more than familiar with. By Ian Campbell
ishmael whale wrote: many of whom live in the greater Tuam area.
KILDARE is facing a major crisis if measures are not put in place to cater for its huge population explosion, councillors warned yesterday. The county is growing so fast, it has almost overtaken the latest Regional Planning Guidelines (RPGs) for 2008. There are between 170,000 and 175,000 people estimated to be living in the county compared to expected RPG forecasts of 181,000 in three years' time. Councillors began their review of the draft Development Plan 2005-2011 yesterday. The county manager's report also included a recommendation for an investigation into the possibility of a relief motorway from Naas to Dublin. Cllr Tony McEvoy stressed 22,600 additional houses were being accommodated in the lifetime of the plan, bringing an estimated population of 240,000 by 2011. Cllr Catherine Murphy said she could see transport and education crises if steps were not taken.
uncivilservant wrote: It hasn't gone away, you know.... It should be borne in mind that no indication is given of where these applications are coming from (i.e. are they existing job holders moving with their own jobs or not?), or if these applications from people currently working in Dublin, or if these people will actually jump or not when the time comes.
