Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 28 November 2023
35. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform if he plans to legislate to bring senior civil servants under the standard disciplinary measures of the civil service; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52370/23]
View answerThere is currently legislation to amend the Civil Service Regulation Acts. This was initiated in 2018 and is only now being brought to the committee. This legislation, if it is ever progressed by government, does not address the issue of accountability of most senior civil servants. Does this Government have plans to legislate to bring senior civil servants under the standard disciplinary measures of the civil service?
The current Civil Service disciplinary code applies to all civil servants. The code sets out the arrangements for dealing with disciplinary matters in the Civil Service. It is ensures that all civil servants are aware that if there is a failure to adhere to the required standards of conduct, work performance and attendance, the disciplinary procedure set out in the code will apply. Senior civil servants, including Secretaries General are subject to the Civil Service disciplinary code, apart from three particular sanctions which they are excluded from under the legislation. The current position is that sanctions Nos. 10, 11 and 12 of the Civil Service disciplinary code do not apply to Secretaries General because of their legislative exemption, but the other sanctions in the disciplinary code do apply to them.
In terms of legislation, as the Deputy is aware, on 11 April 2018 the Government agreed the general scheme and heads of Bill to amend the Civil Service Regulation Acts 1956-2005 and the Public Service Management Act 1997. Pre-legislative scrutiny was held on 28 June 2018. The policy intention of this Bill remains as was approved in 2018. This legislation is significantly advanced and the Bill is on the list of priority legislation for publication in the current session.
The performance of senior civil servants is reviewed annually using the performance review process for senior public service and the performance review group, PRG, for officials at Secretary General grade or equivalent. The performance review process was rolled out to all Secretaries General of Government Departments and offices in 2017. This process sets expectations and holds senior public servants accountable for the achievement of individual key objectives and deliverables.
As things currently stand, Ministers are limited in their ability to hold Secretaries General to account. The Civil Service Regulation Amendment Act 2005 expanded the remit of the disciplinary process, bringing secretaries general somewhat under the umbrella of the process. However, the extent to which they are under the remit is limited because the legislation sets the Government rather than the Minister as the appropriate authority and provides an exemption for government appointed Civil Servants from certain disciplinary steps. This has the result of confusing the chain of command and means that the senior civil servants are not in any practical sense under the same rules as the vast majority of civil servants. This loophole could easily be closed. The Minister could make the appropriate authority for disciplinary measure against senior civil servants. We need to clarify and simplify the chain of command and bring Secretaries General and other senior civil servants fully under all disciplinary measures of the Civil Service.
Listening to this debate people may get the impression that Secretaries General are not subject to any kind of disciplinary framework or oversight. That is not true. Under the Civil Service disciplinary code 13 separate sanctions are outlined covering everything from verbal warning, written warning, final written warning, extension of the period of validity of a warning, deferral of an increment, debarment from competitions, withdrawal of concessions, reassignment to different location or different duties and withdrawal of allowances. All of those apply to any civil servant whether Secretary General or not. However, there are three sanctions, placing a civil servant on a lower rate of remuneration, reducing the civil servant to a specified lower grade or rank and suspending the civil servant without pay. These three sanctions do not apply to Secretaries General as the law currently stands. The final sanction, sanction 13, is dismissal and a Secretary General can also be dismissed.
The elements not available to the Minister in respect of the Secretary General are the lower rate of remuneration, the reduction to the lower grade and suspension without pay. The final level of sanction, as the Minister of State has said, is dismissal, which is a matter for government. The finance committee was informed by the Department of public expenditure and reform that, despite the Civil Service Regulation (Amendment) Act 2005 currently under examination with regard to how disciplinary matters operate more broadly there is no intention to address the Secretaries General. I think this is about accountability. There is no reason for Secretaries General to be handled in any way differently. It is important because the buck stops with the Minister. The Minister is the one who has to face the public and be accountable. If you have somebody else in that Department making decisions and all that, and they are not accountable with the person who has to interface with the public there is something wrong and there is an opportunity here to rectify that.
If anything, the Secretaries General should be held to a higher standard than other Civil Servants because they have so much influence and because they are paid so much, and because they are people who set an example for everybody else. Often in an organisation, the personality, behaviour and character at the head of it flows down and is reflected in the behaviours of all the people who report to that person and so on. It forms the character of the organisation. That is why the performance management review group was set up in the Civil Service a number of years ago to specifically manage the performance of Secretaries General and to have an accountability framework so there was an organisation keeping track of their behaviour. As I said, the legislation to reform the Civil Service sanctions and penalties is set for priority legislation in this term. It is open to the Deputy, if she feels there is some way she would like to amend it, that we will have a full and open process on that. I am sure many Ministers and ex-Ministers will have views on how the rules should be changed.
