SELECT COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND THE PUBLIC SERVICE debate -
Wednesday, 7 Apr 2004

Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) Bill 2003: Committee Stage.

Chairman

The purpose of this meeting is to consider the Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) Bill 2003. The Bill was referred to the select committee by Dáil Éireann on 25 March 2004.

I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Parlon, and his officials. Before we proceed, I propose the following time scale. We will suspend now for the vote in the Dáil and come back and sit until 1.30 p.m. We will take a break from 1.30 p.m. to 2.30 p.m. and then continue until 6 p.m., with a break in the middle of the afternoon. If necessary, we will continue after 6 p.m.

Ms Burton

I propose that we conclude at 5.30 p.m. The Dáil is sitting late tonight and I have other subsequent commitments consequent upon the late sitting.

Chairman

We are anxious to complete this Stage today. It may be completed well in advance of 5.30 p.m. but if it is not, we will want to try to complete it tonight. Perhaps we could make a decision on that later in the afternoon or at 5.30 p.m.

Sitting suspended at 11.30 a.m. and resumed at 11.50 a.m.

Section 1 agreed to.

SECTION 2.

Mr. R. Bruton

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 8, subsection (1), line 10, after "appointment" where it secondly occurs to insert "or promotion".

With this amendment I seek to raise the question of promotions within the public service. The Bill, which updates and modernises the legislation on recruitment into the public service, sets out in section 25 a number of important principles about the conduct of recruitment practices. These included probity, equity, fairness, the need to ensure selection on the basis of merit, the protection of the public interest, best practice, the general procedures that should be followed, and so on.

This concept of codes of practice set by the commission is good and it should apply equally to appointments and promotions. The idea that we should be meticulous about the probity of systems for initial recruitment, but disregard the same principles in terms of promotion is dangerous. I am not suggesting there is a pattern of abuse in the system of promotion, but I note with some dismay that promotion competitions are extremely narrow in their focus. Some 80% of promotion competitions produce people from within the Department. Similarly, under TLAC, the Top Level Appointments Commission, there is also a narrow range. It seems the effort to ensure promotion on merit is going astray. It is difficult to believe that the most meritorious person for a promotion is in the Department advertising the promotion post.

There is a tendency — this is recognised in agreements with representative bodies — to confine promotion positions. That is not healthy in the long term. We should welcome diversity of experience and we should encourage people from outside the public sector to avail of promotion opportunities in the public service. If we are talking about modernising our public service and making the recruitment and appointments system better, we must start rolling back these approaches. I know they have figured in some of the social partnership discussions over the years.

There have been suggestions that some changes would be made to established practices. However, the Oireachtas needs to inject some urgency into this issue. We should provide that such principles and codes of practice are set out and applied rigorously by those holding promotion positions within any public service body. That would open up the candidacy of other people who are worthy of consideration. This is the one opportunity the Oireachtas will probably get for decades to make a serious effort to change this. Once the Bill is passed, it will be an internal matter between the Minister and the different representative bodies. We will not have the opportunity to do anything then.

Even if the Minister does not accept the amendment, I hope he gives a firm indication that a series of orders will be introduced to include promotion. I do not see any such momentum in the discussions. It seems the Government has it on a wish list, but there does not seem to be any serious ministerial commitment to it. I have not heard any statement by the Ministers dealing with this Bill which suggests they are ambitious to see rapid change in this area. I do not know if the Minister of State will change that today.

Minister of State at the Department of Finance (Mr. Parlon)

I cannot disagree with Deputy Richard Bruton. His amendment wishes to regulate promotions in the same manner as recruitment. The Bill provides in section 6(1) for the possibility that the commission may regulate promotion at some point in the future in that it allows the Minister to make orders extending the remit of the commission to posts in the public service, including promotion posts. The commission will consider whether to make such an order. However, acceptance of this amendment would automatically bring promotions within the commission's remit now. In addition, the Minister for Finance agreed with his colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, that the Bill would regulate only recruitment at the outset and that any extensions would be the subject of further consultations between the Minister for Finance and the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government before orders are made under section 6(1). Codes of practice apply to promotions under section 59(3)(b).

I said in the Dáil on 25 March that the Civil Service is committed to ensuring that an ever increasing number of promotions will be made, subject to merit based competition. The agreements reached in Sustaining Progress are the beginning not the end of that process. We are committed to moving in that direction.

Mr. R. Bruton

While I appreciate the Minister of State's comments, there is no serious evidence of that. TLAC is supposed to be fully open, yet few people get through from outside the Department where the vacancy arises and no one gets through from outside the public sector. That is the top level at which the Minister is already supposedly applying full openness. It is not working as it is currently constituted. We are not getting the opportunity for open candidacy. The Minister of State said the Government is committed to it, but that is not the case. The negotiations to which he referred relate to positions below that level where it is worse than TLAC. Serious consideration must be given to the way these competitions are organised.

The Minister of State said that opportunities are provided for further on in the Bill, which I accept. However, it is significant that while the commission can say to the Minister that there should be open competition for recruitment and the Minister must provide for that within two years or give reasons to the Oireachtas by way of a report why he is not doing so, there is no such provision for promotions. If the commission was convinced that TLAC, for example, needed to be radically shaken up and needed new codes of practice and approaches, the Minister could stonewall that and there would not be an obligation on him to report to the Dáil which would mean we would not know that something worthwhile and necessary was being obstructed. That is not good enough. A provision must be made that the recommendations of the commission are treated with equal value, whether they relate to recruitment or promotion. I hope the Minister of State can indicate he is willing to change that. If the commission tells the Minister that TLAC and the recruitment process for HEOs and other levels should be reformed and outlines the approach which should be taken in future, there must be an obligation on the Government to do that or to report directly to the Oireachtas on its reasons for not doing so, as provided for elsewhere in the Bill. If the Minister is not willing to accept that low level, his assurances are of little value to the committee.

Mr. Parlon

I do not have a problem with the Deputy's comments, but there is no need to change the Bill. There are sufficient provisions in the Bill if the commission decides to move in that direction.

Mr. R. Bruton

That is not the case. I am not an expert, but I read the Bill as best I could. A distinction has been drawn that if the commission makes a recommendation in respect of recruitment, the Minister must act on that within two years or report why he is not doing so. That is not the case for promotions. If the Minister of State states this is the way forward, then I would like him to commit to make that change in the legislation.

Mr. Parlon

The Bill deals primarily with recruitment. However, there is provision in the Bill which allows the commission to apply the principles relating to recruitment to promotions.

Mr. R. Bruton

It is not the same provision; it is more watered down. The Minister of State is trying to convince the committee that he is sincere about this and is committed to doing it. I want him to ensure as a minimum that if a proposal by the commission to reform promotion competition policy is rejected and if action is not taken on that recommendation, the Minister must come back to the Oireachtas and report in the same way as he would in terms of recruitment. That is all I am seeking. It is a low level of commitment. If the Minister of State cannot give us that, I do not accept the bona fides of his argument.

Ms Burton

Given that the Bill is parallel to the process of decentralisation, of which the Minister is proud, there are important changes in it which relate to public service recruitment. However, unfortunately, the committee has still not met representatives of the Civil Service unions. As Deputy Richard Bruton said, this area is highly specialised, highly technical and greatly hidden from public view. Even Ministers, on taking office, tend not to be familiar with the appointments and promotion procedures and tend to merely get a short list.

The Dáil is to be recalled the week after Easter week. We were trying to agree a date on which to meet representatives of the public service unions. I propose we meet them on the Tuesday after Easter week. I understand the Dáil is sitting on the Wednesday and Thursday of that week. We need to hear the views of the representatives of the unions on the decentralisation process and we also need their insights into points such as those raised by Deputy Richard Bruton. Some people may say the unions are approaching this issue from a particular point of view, namely, that of defending their members' interests, and we understand that. Nonetheless, profound changes are proposed in the recruitment processes to, and the location of, our public services, which since Independence has been viewed by and large, with the exception of the George Redmonds of this world——

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.