Vol. 553 No. 3
16 Mr. Broughan asked the Minister for Defence when the promised new integrated personnel management system for the Defence Forces will be introduced having regard to the commitment in An Agreed Programme for Government; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13819/02]
23 Mr. Broughan asked the Minister for Defence when the promised new career development plan for the Defence Forces will be introduced having regard to the commitment in An Agreed Programme for Government; the main features of the plan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13818/02]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 16 and 23 together.
In the context of the White Paper on Defence, the Government decided that an updated Defence Forces personnel management plan would be prepared setting down policies and goals to ensure personnel policies and practices keep pace with current best practice to the benefit of the new organisation being created on foot of the white paper.
In line with this requirement, a draft integrated personnel management system, IPMS, has been prepared by the military authorities and is now being considered by my Department's civil-military strategic management committee. The new career development plan will be encompassed by the IPMS. When the strategic management committee has completed its deliberations, I expect a further draft of the IPMS will be submitted to me for consideration.
Before any final decisions are made, it is my intention that the Permanent Defence Force Other Ranks Representative Association, PDFORRA, and the Representative Association of Commissioned Officers, RACO, will be consulted in a spirit of partnership in accordance with the system of representation.
The requirements which the IPMS must meet are set out in section 4.5 of the White Paper. In simple terms, the IPMS will deal with the broad range of personnel and human resource management and development issues. These include manpower policy and planning, equality of opportunity and treatment and the right to dignity at work, recruitment, terms of enlistment, induction, training education and development, physical and medical fitness, career guidance and management and development, promotion, the regulatory framework, retirement and pensions. From the range of issues I have outlined, it will be clear to the Deputy and the House that the IPMS is a major undertaking. We are trying to strike a balance between the needs of the organisation and the needs of the people in it.
I hope we will have a set of finalised proposals to put to the representative associations by the end of the year. The pace of implementation will then depend on how quickly we can complete the consultation process.
In relation to the preparation of the integrated management system, is the Minister saying that no meetings have yet taken place with the representative associations? Is he waiting until the package has been agreed by his Department before he enters into negotiations or have they had an input in preparing the ground work before being presented to the Minister's Department?
I received the draft plan from the Chief of Staff some months ago and that is being considered now by the Strategic Management Committee. The consultation will take place when we are closer to a final draft position. The representative associations are, in the main, live activists in the Defence Forces at all levels and they would be acutely aware of the different aspects that go into the preparation of a plan of this kind because it covers such a wide range of activity in the Defence Forces, but the consultation process will not take place until some time in the autumn.
