The information requested by the Deputy is as follows: of just 600 staff currently employed in the CSO, up to 400 are being transferred to Cork, including two deputy directors, five senior statisticians and 14 statisticians. The following activities are being transferred: industrial and building statistics; services statistics and business register; agriculture statistics; labour market statistics; vital statistics; retail and wholesale prices; information technology division; administration division, i.e. personnel, finance, office services, information, printing and library.
To date a total of 206 staff volunteering to relocate to Cork are in place in the Dublin office; these comprise 76 CSO volunteers, 69 volunteers from other Government Departments, 16 clerical assistants taken from the most recent competition undertaken by the Civil Service Commission, 11 statistician recruits from an open competition and 34 persons appointed to date from promotion competitions held to make-up the shortfall in staff volunteering to relocate in their existing grade.
Staff are continuing to be appointed for the Cork office through the normal Civil Service volunteer and promotion decentralisation arrangements; a small number of technical and other officers are being recruited directly.
Staff have been redeployed from other duties within the CSO to serve on interview boards and to process the intake of staff from other Government Departments and their replacement by existing CSO staff opting to remain in Dublin. The additional cost to the CSO and Civil Service Commission of recruitment for Cork is modest and cannot be readily distinguished.
The staff appointed for Cork are being trained in their new work within the CSO by existing staff. This on-the-job training is being supplemented by induction and other courses given by the office training services. An additional £47,600 has been expended to date on external training courses; these mainly relate to information technology and EU training courses for statisticians.
The provision of the new CSO building in Cork is being financed under the Office of Public Works Vote on a 20 year leasepurchase basis. Fitting out costs of approximately £1.85 million were provided for in the £2.11 million allowed for decentralisation costs in the 1993 CSO Vote.
The main transfer of CSO staff to Cork will be completed on schedule by the end of January 1994.