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Local Authority Staff

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 12 June 2018

Tuesday, 12 June 2018

Questions (1330)

Joan Burton

Question:

1330. Deputy Joan Burton asked the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government the number of clerks of works by local authority in tabular form; if his attention has been drawn to the concerns about the operation of the building control regulation system; if additional clerks of works will be recruited to deal with the growth of the residential construction sector of the economy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25638/18]

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Written answers

My Department oversees workforce planning for the local government sector, including the monitoring of local government sector employment levels. To this end, my Department gathers quarterly data on staff numbers in local authorities; however, the data gathered does not provide details in terms of the number of clerks of works employed in each local authority. Accordingly, the information requested is not available in my Department, but may be obtained directly from individual local authorities. High-level staffing numbers for the local authority sector are available on the Public Service Numbers Databank, which is hosted and maintained by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and is available at the following link: http://databank.per.gov.ie/, providing access to information from 1980 onwards.

The National Building Control Management Project (NBCMP) was set up to provide oversight, direction and support for the development, standardisation and implementation of the Building Control System as an effective shared service in the 31 Building Control Authorities. Dublin City Council has recently been approved to be the lead building control authority. My Department is working closely with the sector on this project in relation to training, compliance support, the IT enabler and a revised inspection policy of risk based targeted inspections, making more efficient and effective use of the resources available to carry out inspections.

Under section 159 of the Local Government Act 2001, it is the Chief Executive of each local authority who is responsible for the staffing and organisational arrangements necessary for carrying out the functions of the authority. My Department works closely with all local authorities and staffing sanction requests are dealt with on a case-by-case basis with priority given to housing-related posts, as well as those relating to health and safety and economic development. In that context, since 1 January 2015, my Department has approved over 800 housing-related staff sanction requests from local authorities. Additional supports are also being made available to local authorities to meet staffing costs associated with the delivery of their housing programmes.

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