COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS debate -
Thursday, 15 May 2003

Vol. 1 No. 18

2001 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts.

Chapter 5.1 - Garda Síochána and Prison Service Overtime.

Chairman

Paragraph 5.1 of the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General reads:

Chapter 5 - Garda Síochána and Prisons

5.1 Overtime

Public financial procedures as prescribed by the Department of Finance require that each Appropriation Account shows the total amount charged to the Account in respect of overtime and extra attendance, the numbers who were paid overtime and the highest individual overtime payment. Total expenditure on overtime and extra attendance amounted to almost €200 million in 2001. Figure 1 shows the key areas in which this expenditure occurred.

As can be seen the Garda Síochana and the Prison Service continue to dominate expenditure on overtime. Both votes saw their overtime payments increase by approximately 50% from 1997 when compared with 2001, as shown in Table 18 below.

Table 18 - Overtime from 1997 to 2001

Vote	1997 Millions €	1998 Millions €	1999 Millions €	2000 Millions €	2001 Millions €	5 Year Total Millions €
Garda Síochána	56.2	63.9	61.6	60.3	83.7	325.7
Prisons	36.6	43.0	38.6	49.1	55.4	222.7
Agriculture & Food	9.6	9.9	9.7	9.6	21.9	60.7
Revenue	5.9	5.7	7.3	8.0	9.9	36.8
Social & Family Affairs	3.5	3.6	4.2	5.1	5.4	21.8
All Others	13.0	14.5	15.1	17.3	22.1	82.0
Total	124.8	140.6	136.5	149.4	198.4	749.7

Figure 2 shows the trend in overtime as a percentage of pay between 1997 and 2001. Overtime in the Prison Service represents a significantly higher percentage of pay than anywhere else in the public service and at 28.1% in 2001 has fallen only slightly from the level prevailing in 1997. The next highest level of overtime as a percentage of pay occurs in the Garda Vote. The trend shown here initially declined from 12.9% in 1997 to 10.3% in 2000 before climbing again to 13% in 2001.

Given that the top two votes, namely the Garda Síochana and the Prison Service account for over 70% of overtime expenditure I asked the Accounting Officer for the Garda Síochana and the Prison Service:

· What, if any, steps have been taken since 1997 to contain expenditure on overtime in both Votes?

· What measures are in place to ensure that resources expended on overtime are used economically and efficiently?

· Had there been any change in the day-to-day management of overtime since 1997 and if so what results have been achieved?

· Had any research been undertaken since 1997 into the underlying reasons for the levels of overtime worked in both organisations and if so what conclusions were reached and what actions taken?

Garda Overtime

In his reply the Accounting Officer said that the level of overtime as a percentage of salaries on the Garda Vote was decreasing up to last year and prior to the introduction of Foot and Mouth policing operations that were undertaken in 2001 in response to the threat of Foot and Mouth Disease.

The Foot and Mouth operation was resource-intensive and involved at times the redeployment of some 700 Gardaí. The measures required made very substantial demands upon Garda resources and resulted in an increase in overtime. The fact that there would be a substantial increase in overtime was made known to both the Department of Finance and the Government.

The cost of overtime hours directly worked on the Foot and Mouth campaign between February and December 2001 amounted to some -19.07 million. Approval for this additional expenditure was sought in due course from Dáil Éireann in the context of a Supplementary Estimate for the Garda Vote for 2001. If the cost of the Foot and Mouth operation is excluded from the 2001 figure for overtime, the resulting figure of -64.68 million represents 10% of salaries.

As regards steps taken to contain overtime expenditure and research to establish the underlying causes of the level of overtime worked the Accounting Officer indicated that a Report on Garda Overtime was produced in 1998 as part of the Strategic Management Initiative process of reviews of expenditure programmes in the public service and copies were provided to the Public Accounts Committee.

The Report reviewed in detail Garda overtime expenditure and provided an analysis of that expenditure. The nature of Garda work and the requirement that the Garda authorities respond at short notice to crisis situations means that overtime expenditure is sometimes unavoidable for the purposes of effective policing. Overtime allows the Garda Síochána flexibility in responding to circumstances which require personnel resources over and above those available from Gardaí on rostered duty.

The Report clearly established that a level of overtime is both necessary and desirable because of the nature of police operations. No general areas were identified in the Report where expenditure was not justified or where immediate and substantial savings could be made. A number of structural changes were identified where legislative changes could reduce overtime particularly in the area of court attendance and the implementation of these changes is being pursued.

The Report also made recommendations to enhance the management and monitoring of overtime expenditure. On a strategic level, overtime expenditure is monitored on a monthly basis by the Department and as appropriate discussed with the Garda authorities. Subject to the provisions in the Estimates, there is full delegated sanction to the Garda Síochána for incurring overtime expenditure and they are responsible for all operational decisions regarding overtime.

Prior to January 2001, overtime budgets were allocated to Chief Superintendents. As it was considered that Chief Superintendents were too close to operational exigencies to exercise control, the overtime budgets are now allocated to Assistant Commissioners. Once an Assistant Commissioner has been notified of the budget allocation, it is his responsibility to allocate the Regional budget to the Chief Superintendents who in turn allocate it to their Districts. The Finance Directorate is informed of the budget profiles so that performance can be monitored on an ongoing basis and prepares a Regional Overtime Summary Report.

This report is sent to the Commissioner and both Deputy Commissioners. If there are significant deviations from the profiled budget, this is highlighted in the Director of Finance's report. The Director of Finance will write to the relevant Assistant Commissioner seeking an explanation for the deviation and also requesting that corrective action be taken. The Deputy Commissioner in Strategic and Resource Management may also write to the Assistant Commissioner instructing that corrective action be taken.

If a Region is persistently exceeding its budget allocation, the Deputy Commissioner will require the relevant Assistant Commissioner to account for his stewardship and prepare a detailed report as to what corrective action will be taken to bring overtime consumption into line with budget. If necessary, the Garda Commissioner will convene a meeting with the Assistant Commissioners and Chief Superintendents to discuss the imperative that overtime usage must be contained within budget. To-date in 2002 the Commissioner has convened two such meetings.

These revised reporting arrangements and accountability roles represent something of a cultural shift. While it may have taken some time for the revised arrangements to become established, the Accounting Officer stated that the new procedures are working very well and significant improvements have been made to control overtime usage.

Prison Overtime

In his reply the Accounting Officer said that apart from 1999 when the percentage dropped to 25.7% prison overtime as a percentage of total pay was in the range 27% to 30%. The percentage dropped in 1999 because additional staff were recruited in advance of opening the new Cloverhill Prison in 2000. The extra staff were distributed to prisons around the Prison Service until Cloverhill opened. This had the effect of reducing the overtime cost as these staff undertook tasks that would normally have been completed through the use of overtime.

The underlying causes of prison overtime are derived from the agreed and officially sanctioned rostering and detailing arrangements for prison officers, which date back many years. The issue is made more complex by the fact that these arrangements are the subject of formal detailed industrial relations agreements over the last 14 years with the staff side.

A factor that has to be borne in mind in relation to overtime working is the pressure which the Service is currently operating under and which continues through 2002. The volume of prisoners now being committed is higher then ever before. Over the last five years the prisoner population has increased from 2,191 to 3,177 an increase of 45%. More prisoners have a drug problem than in the past. Roughly 7 out of 10 committals now have a significant illegal drug history - most have a background of heroin addiction. Five new prisons have opened in the last five years and despite an accelerated recruitment campaign for Prison Officers there is a shortfall between the numbers recruited and the numbers required to operate these new prisons.

The Prisons Finance Directorate receives weekly analyses of overtime hours worked in each prison and summaries of these figures are sent to senior management. Explanations for variations in overtime levels are sought from the individual prisons. The figures show that the number of overtime hours worked increased by 186,753 hours in 2001 over 2000, an increase of 9.7%. However if new prisons are excluded the overtime hours worked in 2001 shows a slight decrease over 2000 and analysis of the total overtime hours worked in the Prison Service for the first six months of 2002 shows a slight decrease compared to the same period in 2001.

Prison Governors have been instructed by the Director General of the Prison Service to take all possible steps to control overtime and to ensure that resources spent on overtime are used efficiently and effectively. The fact that the staffing complement for prisons does not include provision for core operational activities such as escorting prisoners to court and hospitals and cover for annual and sick leave makes control of overtime difficult.

The Prison Service has noticed a trend over the last 18 months where staff are not always returning to undertake overtime. It appears to some extent that saturation point has been reached. In general younger staff are anxious to spend time with their families and other staff want to limit the overtime they undertake in order to improve their quality of life.

The Prison Service has long recognised that a strategic and structured approach to address the fundamental causes of overtime was required. As these issues affect the fundamental conditions of service for Prison Officers, any change will require negotiation through the normal industrial relations machinery.

In August 1996, as a first step to resolve this problem once and for all, a Cost Review Group was established to examine the operating costs of the Prison Service. Its members were drawn from the public and private sector. The Group's Report was published in August 1997. The central finding of the Report was that there was no short-term solution to the high levels of overtime being worked in the Prison Service.

A team of senior Prison Service and Department officials carried out a detailed analysis of staffing arrangements at each prison between 1999 and 2001 in order to develop a blueprint for the operation of the Prison Service on a non-overtime basis. The team produced detailed reports for each institution and published a Global Report in February 2001, which summarises the teams extensive conclusions and recommendations in relation to the service wide staffing issues.

The individual reports identify substantial potential overtime savings to be achieved through, for example, renegotiation of staffing levels, eliminating unnecessary practices, restructuring of certain grades, rostering to eliminate in-built overtime, the rationalisation of store functions and escorts arrangements, tighter local management of attendance, empowerment of Governors generally to manage their prisons and full implementation of the already agreed Program for Competitiveness and Working, specifically contracting out of canteens, civilianisation of offices and automation of gates.

These findings and recommendations are the lynch pin to the next phase in the process of meeting prisons operational requirements without recourse to overtime attendance payments. The Prison Service considers that the prospect of a successful implementation of the process is greatly enhanced where staff representatives actively participate in planning how best implementation can be delivered.

The Prison Service is currently developing a detailed attendance and rostering system based on the detailed individual prison reports which will eliminate the use of overtime to operate the Prison Service. The Accounting Officer pointed out that the prison overtime situation is not unique to this country. Similar overtime cultures developed in neighbouring jurisdictions in recent times and were tackled in a strategic way similar to the process now being undertaken by the Prisons Service.

Mr. Purcell

Chapter 5.1 of my report draws attention to the high incidence of overtime in the Garda Síochána and the Prison Service and the steps being taken to manage it properly and bring it down to sustainable levels.

As regards the gardaí, there will always be a need for a level of Garda overtime given the nature of police operations. The trick is to establish from experience, and from good practice elsewhere, what that level should be and to take the appropriate measures to minimise its occurrence where possible, but always consistent with the demands of effective policing.

In the five year period 1997 to 2001 overtime came in at between 10% and 13% of Garda pay, reaching a high in 2001 of €83.7 million. The 2001 figure is inflated by an estimated €19 million due to the exceptional demand occasioned by the foot and mouth disease crisis in that year. If that is discounted, the adjusted overtime figure represents 10% of Garda pay. Unaudited figures for 2002 overtime show €65.7 million. This suggests that the management initiatives described in the report are having the effect of stabilising the level of overtime in the force.

As to identified structural changes which could reduce overtime, particularly in the area of court attendance, I understand there have been developments in that sphere. I will leave it to the accounting officer to update the committee on these.

To turn to the prisons, the level of overtime has tended to be in the range of 27%-30% of prison officer pay in recent years. It is generally accepted that this level is unsustainable in the medium and long-term from both monetary and social impact viewpoints. The cost of overtime has increased from €36.6 million in 1997 to €55.4 million in 2001. Again, using unaudited figures for 2002, these show a further increase to €59.4 million. As is stated in the report, the underlying causes of prison overtime are derived from the agreed and officially sanctioned rostering and detailing arrangements for prison officers which date back many years and these have been institutionalised by industrial relations agreements in the intervening period. To put it mildly, this is a significant constraint in trying to tackle the many areas where savings in the overtime bill could be achieved. Some of these are set out on page 62 of the report. Nevertheless, it remains the stated objective to eliminate the use of overtime to operate the prison service but if the increasing overtime costs are anything to go by, it appears we are no closer to the attainment of that objective, despite all of the studies that have been undertaken in the areas over the years. The committee will be aware of recent proposals by the Minister. These certainly suggest greater commitment to tackling the problem, but from where I am sitting it looks as if we are only in the opening phase of what is likely to be a long drawn out process.

Mr. Dalton

I have given the committee a statement in advance about this. I presume it would take me more than ten minutes to read it because it is a long story. I will read it if the Chairman wishes or if he wants to take it as read and——

Chairman

Do we have permission to publish?

Mr. Dalton

Yes. I will summarise. I will take the more difficult and controversial one first, that is, the question of prison officers' overtime. The reasons for this have been explained a number of times to the committee both by me and my predecessors, as it is going on a long time. The basic problem is that in a prison there are certain posts that one cannot leave vacant so that when somebody does not turn up for work another member of staff has to be called to fill in on in overtime capacity. There are other in-built problems as well. For example, the cost of escorting people to and from courts and hospitals eats up 25% of the entire overtime bill. Annual leave explains a further 23% and sick leave, which has been discussed by the committee before in the case of the prisons service, accounts for 13%.

As Mr. Purcell said, the proportion of gross pay that is overtime has remained quite static for years. It was 32% in 1998, 27% in 1999 and 29% in 2000, 2001 and 2002. In other words, 29% of all that prison officers earned on average in those years was overtime. All prison officers do not earn these substantial sums. If the committee wants, I can give an indication of the kind of earnings involved which are quite substantial. This issue has attracted criticism over the years.

The Department, following many efforts in the past to solve the problem - and by the way, these efforts are being made internationally as the same problems arise with prison services in other jurisdictions - decided to adopt a root and branch approach. We engaged external expertise, the result of which is the proposal that the Minister recently made known which essentially moves to an annualised overtime system. The effect of this is that everyone will carry the liability to work a certain number of extra hours every week. Staff will be paid regardless of whether they are called on or whether they turn up but if they are called on they will not get anything extra for it. The expectation is that this will result in considerable savings to the State. I do not wish to go into further detail as it will soon be the subject of discussion with the Prison Officers' Association. The negotiations will not go on ad infinitum as the Minister has indicated that he expects this matter to be resolved within a short time frame. As I understand it, the POA is ready to engage on the subject.

The purpose is not simply to save money, which is obviously a valid reason for doing anything when one is dealing with public funds, it is also to produce a more reasonable lifestyle for prison officers. People earn large sums in overtime because they work for long hours. Some prison officers have probably not been home on Christmas Day for years because it is a treble pay day and people make themselves available for it on that basis. However, younger officers are showing less interest in working long hours overtime so it will probably suit if we introduce a new system in which overtime is eliminated. It has not happened yet and I agree with the Comptroller and Auditor General that it has remained a stubborn and difficult problem over the years with some people earning sums of money that give rise to much controversy when the information gets into the media.

In brief, the position with Garda overtime is quite different. It represents a much smaller proportion of overall pay. Some years ago, an interdepartmental committee found it was actually an economical way of providing police services. Overtime is inherent in police operations. If one is on surveillance work or on a murder investigation one cannot go home for tea at six o'clock. Mr. Purcell said that the proportion of Garda pay represented by overtime is falling. In 1997 it was 13%; in 1998, 12.3%; in 1999, 11.5%; in 2000, 10.3%. There was a blip in 2001 because the foot and mouth disease outbreak cost the Garda some €19 million. Some 700 gardaí were assigned to duties in airports, ports and so on which was costly. If that is excluded, the downward trend is maintained. This year, the provision for Garda overtime is further reduced to 7.5% of total pay, which means that overtime is being extremely tightly controlled. I am glad to say that it is on schedule, despite the fact that there were one or two situations that arose - and this always happens with police operations - for example, the criminal activities in Limerick in which specialist Garda forces had to be assigned. While I do not have a figure for it, I am aware that it affected the overtime figures. The incidents at Shannon Airport where planes were being attacked also involved much Garda resources. While this kind of thing tends to arise, so far we are staying within budget and that is what we are required to do.

Overtime is extremely tightly controlled within the Garda. There is a very complex structure which I can go into on which I have given the committee details. Again, as in the case with the Prison Service, not all gardaí are on overtime. In fact, in both cases two-thirds of the overtime is earned by one-third of the people involved. Again, there are high profile earnings in some cases which give rise to public controversy.

The court presenters scheme is one of the measures taken to reduce overtime. It was introduced under the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1997. The idea was to have six Garda court presenters instead of having every garda go into court to give evidence in regard to arrest, charge and caution. A statistical study of the pilot scheme for 1999 revealed that more than 19,000 cases were dealt with by six court presenters attached to the Bridewell and more than 16,000 court attendances by gardaí were avoided as a result. As many attendances would have been on overtime, a significant saving was made by the introduction of this measure. Almost 2,800 cases were dealt with to a conclusion by the court presenters which means that the Garda did not have to turn up at all for those cases which provided further savings. This would be one of the factors which explains the downward trend in overtime in recent years and it is destined to fall further this year.

Chairman

I have one very brief question. The 2001 wage bill was £145 million, with a prison population of 3,177. That would indicate that it cost up to €1,300 per week and €68,000 per year per prisoner on salaries alone to keep every prisoner in jail in 2001, which would actually be three times the average industrial wage.

Mr. Dalton

The average cost of keeping prisoners is €79,000——

Chairman

Yes, but wages alone would make up €68,000 of that cost.

Mr. Dalton

Yes, the pay is a very significant part of it. Prisoners obviously cost less in some institutions, where the figures in terms of euros would be down in the low 60s, and cost a great deal more in a place like Portlaoise, maybe up around €130,000 per prisoner as far as I know because of the high security and number of prison officers involved.

Chairman

The €68,000 figure would be accurate.

Mr. Dalton

It would.

Chairman

Is it also true that 50% of a prisoner officer's wage is earned through overtime?

Mr. Dalton

It depends. It is higher in some cases but would not be 50% on average. It would be about one third on average.

Chairman

I was looking at the CSO figures and they indicate that overtime represents nearly 50% of prison officers' wages as of June.

Mr. Dalton

No, the figure I think is 29% but in some cases it would be 66%. It would be terribly high in the case of the very high earners. For the top prison officers it would be in the order of 66%.

Chairman

In June of 2002 the CSO indicated that a prison officer's average weekly wage was €1,077 including overtime.

Mr. Dalton

I do not know if that figure is correct but I will not dispute the CSO. I have figures for the top ten if the committee wants them.

Chairman

The CSO also indicated that a Garda's salary was €948 including overtime.

Mr. Dalton

I just do not have the average figures but I cannot dispute the CSO people.

Chairman

From the information I have gleaned, those figures indicated that the overtime factor for prison officers made up to 50% of total wages.

Mr. Dalton

Sean Aylward is the director general of the Prison Service and he tells me it is 29% on average, but in some cases overtime would represent 60% to 70% of pay.

Chairman

The important figure is that it is costing €68,000 per prisoner per week on salary expenses alone to keep a prisoner in jail.

Mr. Dalton

That is correct.

Deputy Boyle

In his written submission Mr. Dalton points out the continuing concern of the committee about overtime in both these areas, and he highlighted some of the actions or attempted actions to alleviate the problem. The most recent figures we have remain quite stark. We are talking about two areas that between them take up 70% of the entire overtime bill for the public service. That type of expenditure demands that this committee ask particular questions. The rate of increase in both areas over the five year period is in the region of 50%. Mr. Dalton has explained the context of foot and mouth disease for the Garda but that is something I would like to come back to later.

I will start with the prison officers, where Mr. Dalton offers three categories of explanation as to why the overtime rate is higher than it would otherwise be. He talks about escorting prisoners to courts, hospitals and other detention centres. He talks about holidays and annual leave time and about sick leave. For the first two of those categories I cannot understand why operational factors are not taken into account to make those who make decisions on the deployment of people in the Prison Service aware of what happens on an average basis and how people should be deployed.

These, together, only amount to 60% of the possible areas that would invoke overtime. What factors make up the other 40%? I notice that absenteeism is cited as a factor. Does it exist? Is it significant? Does it result in a particular cost?

Mr. Dalton also talked about the international experience and how we rate. We have no figures for that but my understanding is that the Irish Prison Service is average in European terms. The number of people in prison, at 86 per 100,000 population, is slightly below the European average. In the United States there are 700 people per 100,000 in prison, so it seems we have many fewer to take care of and should do it much more effectively than we seem to do it.

The other factor in international comparisons of overtime in the Prison Service would be the ratio of prison officers to people imprisoned. I understand it is a one to one ratio at the moment and that the previous Minister asked that a 0.8 to one ratio be achieved. Mr. Dalton might comment on whether that is being achieved and whether it might have an effect on overtime. In terms of international comparisons this seems quite average, better than most, which is an argument against the high levels of overtime in the Prison Service.

On the Garda Síochána, is there any categorisation as to——

Chairman

It might make it simpler if we dealt with the issue of prison officers first.

Deputy Boyle

Yes.

Mr. Dalton

I hope I caught all the Deputy's questions, and if I miss one he will remind me anyway. First, it is important to bear in mind that the prison population has gone up by 50% in recent years. Everybody knows about the revolving door syndrome and the significant public concern about the fact that about 18% to 20% of prisoners at any one time were out and about on temporary release simply because we did not have space for them. With the provision of additional places, that figure has come way down to about 6%. Correspondingly, the number of prisoners has gone up by 50%.

Deputy Boyle correctly pointed out that overtime is increasing all the time but overtime is a function of pay. All our rates go up in relation to hourly pay. Overtime is usually calculated as double time, time and a half or whatever so there is a direct correlation between pay rates and overtime rates. What is important is that overtime has remained reasonably steady as a proportion of pay. In other words, the overall number of hours being worked by prison officers has not gone up that much. What has gone up are the basic pay rates. I am not saying the situation is defensible, it is not, but that explains the increase.

Another important factor in Irish prisons that tends to push up costs is that out of cell time tends to be reasonably generous. This is the amount of time that people are allowed to recreate and be out and about playing football, watching television or whatever they happen to do. It works out at around eight hours a day with breaks. When people are out of cells more officers are needed for safety reasons, so that is a factor.

The ratio to which the Deputy referred is one to one. That would be quite different from the United States, for example. One of the reasons for this is that they have different types of prisons in the US. They are very large, which means they get economies of scale. It may well be also that the regimes that are considered acceptable there might not be considered acceptable here. Still, however, a one to one ratio is too high. It has to do with the fact that these are old Victorian prisons. There are design factors and so on but the one to one ratio is quite high by international standards. They are also smaller prisons, which means that we lose out on economies of scale.

I have attempted to answer all the questions. Were there others I missed?

Deputy Boyle

I asked two basic questions on the breakdown of overtime and the factors involved. The two major areas mentioned should be covered adequately under general operational matters and how time is allocated and the need for overtime in the first instance. Close to 40% of factors giving rise to overtime do not seem to be mentioned in Mr. Dalton's response.

Mr. Dalton

Sick leave, which covers the term "absenteeism", ran at 15% in 2002 and clerical, stores and trades - people not on roster duties but who work in prisons on an overtime basis - accounted for a further 13%.

Sick leave has been a problem for many years. It is an international problem and has to do with the working conditions in prisons. Some prison officers spend more time in jail than prisoners - obviously, rather than inside the bars - but they are still in the prisons. They work a 24 hour shift, 365 days a year. In such circumstances, one gets higher levels of absenteeism. The Prison Service recognised that this figure was too high and having tackled the problem from 1997 onwards the figure began to fall from an average of 18 to 15 days per annum. Some rather severe measures, such as denying the right to sick pay and dismissals, were adopted.

In 2001, an officer challenged these measures claiming it was unfair to deny people their sick pay entitlements, even before they got sick and that this was not the case anywhere else in the public sector. There is a view in the public sector that prison officers are treated badly in terms of the disciplines applied to sick leave, and that people elsewhere in the sector are not told that no matter how sick they are they will not get paid. This applies in the Prison Service. It was challenged, went to court and the court upheld the position of the Prison Service. I do not suggest one thing caused the other, but coincidentally the sick leave rate has dropped again since the court decision. The average number of days rose from about 15 to 20 while the matter was being challenged, but it has decreased significantly again.

Deputy Boyle

We know about the ratio of prison population to prison officers, but can I ask that, subsequent to this meeting and so the committee can look at comparative figures internationally, we have information on the percentage of overtime to wages in other jurisdictions? This would help us compare these three sets of figures together.

Mr. Dalton

We will do that.

Deputy Boyle

In the case of the Garda, there does not seem to be any similar categorisation of the reasons for overtime, for instance between sporting events, public demonstrations and special operations. Are such statistics collected? Where might they be available and what might they tell us?

I will outline two policing operations of which I am aware. I understand Mr. Dalton is not responsible for operational matters, but there seems to be problems in this area. A recent sporting event - the Leinster versus Perpignan rugby match - had a police compliment of 147 officers. This could have been psychological warfare to discourage the French but it did not seem appropriate to the occasion. A recent anti-war demonstration by a women's group on Molesworth Street attracting 30 protesters was policed by 70 gardaí. When we are discussing Garda overtime, we need the break down of information as to how those on overtime are deployed. When deployed at sporting events and for special operations, is a financial clawback sought from the people who benefit from the policing operations?

Mr. Dalton

The breakdown of overtime is as follows. A total of 21% goes on crime investigation, for example, surveillance and attendance at court accounts for 18%. Between crime investigation and courts attendance, the figure is 40%. There are other recurring events where overtime account for 11%, but I do not have details of them. Escorts, including bank escorts, amounts to 9%; crime prevention comes to 8%; various protection posts - for example Government buildings - comes to 7%; security amounts to 4%; immigration 4%; traffic operations 4%; public order 3%; sporting events 3%; and special one-off operations 1%.

As regards sporting events, there are two charges, one of which is for the gardaí inside the grounds, paid for by the sporting bodies. The sums collected through these charges were €1.1 million in 2002 and €1.3 million in 2001. The charge is standard. There are no charges for policing operatives outside the grounds. However, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform is introducing a new Garda bill which will change the regime of charges. The question of charging for policing outside as well as inside grounds at large events such as rock concerts will be dealt with in the context of that bill.

This is part of current thinking. If public services are provided for events such as rock concerts, there should be some form of payment. This is something we will be driven towards in the context of tightened public finances and the Minister is contemplating it.

Deputy McGuinness

The expenditure on overtime and extra attendance amounted to almost £200 million in 2001. The graph gives a breakdown of 27% to the Prison Service and 42% to the Garda. In the report it also mentioned that if a region is persistently exceeding its budget allocation, the deputy commissioner will require the relevant assistant commissioner to account for his stewardship, through meetings on how the budget was devised. In 2002 when this report was written, the commissioner had convened two meetings only, in spite of the level of overtime earned. How many meetings of that group were held in 2002 to monitor overtime? How many meetings have been held to date in 2003?

Senior Prison Service and Department officials carried out a detailed analysis of staffing arrangements at each prison between 1999 and 2001, from which various recommendations were made. The reports identified substantial potential for overtime savings to be achieved through various measures. Under those measures, can Mr. Dalton inform the committee what savings were made. Alternatively, were any of the measures implemented arising from the report of senior Prison Service and Department officials? Have we had action as a result of reports and have those actions incurred savings in the context of overtime?

Mr. Dalton

The picture has changed regarding the control of Garda overtime. The position across all Votes of the Department - this is being applied in other Departments - is that the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform has a meeting every month with all concerned - the Courts Service, the Prison Service and the Garda - at which overshoot is discussed with the Garda Commissioner, the head of the Courts Service, and Sean Aylward, the head of the Prison Service. There is tight control and reporting right from the top. Internally in the Garda, Michael Culhane was appointed director of finance - I think the appointment was made in 2000 - and he exercises overall monetary control of overtime, region by region. Is it acceptable to the committee that Michael explain what happens?

Chairman

Yes, by all means.

Mr. Michael Culhane

In terms of the budget, and the 13 rosters per annum, the assistant commissioners are allocated a budget for the first five rosters, and the performance is monitored on a roster basis. If any region significantly exceeds its budget allocation, the assistant commissioner is required to explain to the deputy commissioner the reasons behind the excess hours. For example, in the current situation with Shannon Airport, the western region has exceeded its allocation, but the driving force there is the security provided for the airport.

There is ongoing monitoring of overtime usage on a roster basis. Performance is compared against budget. Any significant variance is investigated, and if the reason for the excess is something like the Shannon Airport situation, it is quite understandable why that region would exceed its budget allocation. If it is due just to normal policing operations, the assistant commissioner would be expected to take corrective action to bring usage of overtime within the budget allocation.

Mr. Dalton

These are new work practices. I do not have figures on this. Seán Aylward has figures for the savings made as a result of the new work practices. I know the design of new prisons in recent years has had an impact in terms of trying to design out overtime, if you like. Seán will be able to explain that.

Deputy McGuinness

I just wanted to address the issue where the reports were drawn up in 1999-2001 and there are many headings that they have asked to be addressed - re-negotiation of staffing levels, eliminating unnecessary practices, restructuring of certain grades, rostering to eliminate inbuilt overtime - and so on. I am anxious to determine if each heading has been examined, as was suggested, and if savings were then achieved.

Mr. Seán Aylward

The majority of the savings identified can be achieved only by agreement, because as has been explained by the Comptroller and Auditor General, these staffing levels, the different posts around the prisons, are regarded by the prison officers as sacred. They understand they have solemn, binding, written agreements achieved through the industrial relations machinery, which to them is like their Constitution. It is sacred, and they will simply walk off the job if we try to enforce those savings and strip the posts, as the officers would see it. This is a very disciplined union which has fought very hard for those levels of staffing. We have identified where a great many of those savings could be made. However, as far as the prison officers are concerned, their members sweated blood to get those posts, and they will not let go of them without agreement. In the existing prisons, which were in place before our findings were made, the staff have written agreements legally binding on us as their management, which cannot be dismantled without either very significant and aggressive action by Government, or by agreement.

Chairman

As a follow-on from Deputy McGuinness's point, the Global Report published in 2001 by a team of Prison Service and Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform officials stated that that the Prison Service considers that the prospect of a successful implementation of the process is greatly enhanced when staff representatives actively participate in planning how best implementation can be delivered. Is that taking place?

Mr. Aylward

Absolutely. As we speak, negotiations are taking place pursuant to that task. I want to make it clear that the Prison Service has not been without resource or without action on this front, because we have built some new prisons in the past five years, and in every one of those prisons, before a single officer entered them, we have applied recommendations which were identified in the SORT reports, about use of automated gates and cameras for security. We have achieved lower levels of staff-prisoner ratios through the application of technological steps which were identified by these reviews, so before any officers came in to negotiate with us about staffing levels, we had already automated the gates in these new prisons. Instead of someone standing with a key at the gate, one would go up to a speaker-phone which would link to a console where an officer would control many gates.

There are efficiencies which relate to the number of staff that would escort a prisoner, the use of cellular vans where two or three officers could transport 20 people, taking them in and out individually from cellular compartments within the vans. These are all things which can be achieved only by agreement, but it is fair to say that we are in the end-game now in terms of negotiation, and the prison officers know that if we cannot rapidly achieve amicable agreement, the authorities and the Government will be forced to contemplate what I can only describe as plan B. We have reached that point, but the labour and the work done in recent years have been very worthwhile. We have also conducted that examination of the existing prisons on a partnership basis, where we have shared our findings with the prison officers and discussed issues that have come up. Tremendous ground-work has been done in that regard.

I should say as well, as someone who has been a manager of the service for only the past four years, that we inherited some extraordinary things. We inherited a roster system that was drawn up by outside "experts", which did not provide for basic cover, for staff to maintain prison security during dinner breaks, and did not provide any component in the staff complement to deliver prisoners to court or to hospital. We were just operating off a fixed number of staff for posts within the prison. There was no cover, no provision made, for anything outside the prison. The result has been up to this day that any time we wish to bring prisoners to court - which we are required to do - to bring them to hospital or elsewhere, an overtime recall is required. We were not staffed up with the complement that would give us holiday cover. I am leaving out issues like sick leave and absenteeism.

This is our inheritance. No one would wish to start from here. We have to move on now and bring our staff-prisoner ratios into line with modern conditions, using technology to the hilt, and giving the staff concerned a reasonable work life balance, but also a reasonable income level.

Great emphasis is made on the pie-chart supplied to the committee about overtime in the public service, comparing other civil service employment with the prisons and the Garda Síochána, but it is only fair to point out that clerical and administrative employment can be operational on traditional nine-to-five hours. The services that are provided by the Prison Service are unique. It is a 24/7 business, as our secretary-general has pointed out, and our clients are not always the most congenial of guests to manage. It is not a hotel, it is a very difficult and dirty business much of the time, and it would be wrong to demonise the staff. / am not suggesting anyone here is doing so, but sometimes the staff are demonised in coverage, and I would not agree with that.

In many ways, overtime was invented as a management expedient in the past, because it was perceived to be cheaper to get more work out of the existing cohort than to take on all the other payroll costs with additional staff to cover their duties. It is not something that was contrived or invented by the staff side, but they have it now, and there are certain income levels achieved, and expectations built around that. Dismantling it is the preferred approach, to go ahead on an agreed, progressive basis that still gives us the cover we require in what is a unique security business of the State. Thank you, Chairman.

Deputy Dennehy

On Mr. Aylward's point, is there a historical basis to the manning - was it based on the paramilitary activity, shall we say, of the past 20 or 30 years? Was it higher here than elsewhere? I accept the people with drug problems have probably taken over in that regard.

Everybody here should accept that the prison officers do an extremely difficult job but every time the charge about overtime is made by the Minister at the annual gatherings of the union, the immediate response is that the overtime is compulsory in most cases and that it would not be required if the staffing levels were appropriate. I do not know if we can go much above a 1:1 ratio but is that based on fact?

Mr. Aylward

It is true that the highest ratios tend to be in the places where the security challenge is greatest. In the E block in Portlaoise Prison, we are holding the people serving some of the longest sentences for violent crime and this has to be a factor. That it is a very old building in an old setting does not help. It is true that many of the posts were agreed to in the 1980s when technology was limited and staff costs per officer - basic wages - were lower so the costs have increased. The peace dividend has meant that the number of prisoners held in Portlaoise Prison has fallen but we still have to maintain the whole prison and as a result the staff:prisoner ratio has disimproved. At the same time the security requirement is still extreme and we have to deal with that.

On staff cover generally, comparisons with other jurisdictions can be a bit misleading. In, say, the American prison system where they have watch towers with armed officers and "No warning shot" signs all over the prison, which I have seen, very low ratios can be maintained. I do not want to disparage another system but in other prison settings, including some prisons in the United States, prisoners just have to take their chances when they are in the general population. There is not much protection for a prisoner who may have fallen out with his colleagues. We have to compare like with like. Our prisoner:staff ratios would be closer to the Scandinavian levels because the out of hours time and the number of prisoner activities are considerable and extensive.

We have driven a harder bargain with our prison officer union in relation to our new prisons. We have been able to do that because of the use of technology but there are persisting work practices covered by agreements which we would like to adjust. It is something we will have to work on. I missed one of the questions asked by the Deputy. Perhaps he would repeat it.

Deputy Dennehy

It was the question about the claim made at every annual gathering of the union that the overtime is compulsory. When the people castigate them, as Mr. Aylward rightly said, their reply is that they are complying with the requirements of the job.

Mr. Aylward

I hope I would not be seen to castigate them because they and we are dealing with an inherited situation. On compulsion, it is the case that some periods of overtime working are more popular than others because of family life patterns. Staff members are much more willing to make themselves available on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays but as we move on towards the weekend or times when people would socialise, there is less willingness. Typically people are willing to work the overtime in the early part of the week but as the weekend approaches and they wish to be with their children and their families, there is reluctance and more compulsion. From time to time in certain institutions' prison officers do not volunteer themselves and all have to be compelled all week, but the Governor's telephone jumps if the compulsion phone calls are not made fairly quickly. There is an element of presentation about it but throughout the country there is real compulsion all the time, but particularly at the latter part of the week, and there is reluctance to come in, particularly among the younger staff, the 800 plus that have been recruited in recent years. They come to the job with a different mind-set. They have not been inured to years of incredible amounts of overtime. They do not want to work around the clock. They want a more efficient way of life while maintaining a decent income. That category of officer in particular is very reluctant to work what they would regard as excessive hours. Some of them would say to us that we should just hire more staff but that is not an option open to us. We just have to work smarter. I am convinced the most ingenious people in the prison system in terms of efficiency, when it is in their interest, are the prison officers on the floor. I know they will be very helpful to us once we have achieved agreement on the general principles to work smarter, more safely and efficiently and bring the figures, and their own lives, into balance.

Deputy Dennehy

I want to make an observation on the Garda. In respect of Deputy Boyle's point, I would prefer our gardaí to prevent crime and chase criminals rather than do security at rallies or protect Shannon Airport. I would like them to do other work but society at large can decide on that.

In regard to the prisons, it is interesting to note that the group set up in August 1996 and which reported in 1997 found that there were no short-term solutions to the high level of overtime. In the most recent report, however, approximately ten recommendations are listed which might help to contain the situation somewhat and eliminate the need for overtime. One of those which fascinated me was the question of the empowerment of governors to handle their prisons. Could somebody explain that? I presumed each governor ran the prison and he or she was in total control. Am I incorrect in that regard?

Mr. Aylward

The governor is very much bound by the existing agreements about his prison which he inherited and which a new governor might cavil at, for instance, the number of people on certain posts or landings. He would have inherited that agreement and he would not be able to overturn it. Equally, in law the powers of the governor in terms of discipline, suspension and dismissal are very restricted. That is because we have a highly centralised system and the level of authority that would be delegated down is somewhat less than we would wish.

There is another issue, which is hinted at in that report, about sick leave and stopping the pay of those who persistently take casual sick days. Under current law and regulation, the governor does not have the power to stop the payment of wages to those he believes are bunking off and letting down their colleagues. That is what was being touched on there.

Deputy Boyle

I want to allay the impression that anyone was suggesting we should strive to emulate the US prison service - God forbid.

Chairman

If there are no other questions we can dispose of section 5.1. Is that agreed? Agreed. There will be close monitoring of this issue in the normal Appropriation Accounts and I expect we will be kept fully advised.