Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 12 June 2019
94. Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if, when a person transfers from one Department to another due to no fault of their own within the Civil Service, the person is entitled to bring his or her pay entitlement and emoluments with him or her; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24422/19]
View answerI am reading this question as referring to moves under the redeployment scheme.
As the Deputy will be aware, the various Public Service Agreements (PSAs) provide for agreed redeployment arrangements to apply in the civil service and in other parts of the public service. Redeployment is primarily a mechanism for the transfer of surplus staff to areas where appropriate vacancies exist.
Redeployment allows staff to be moved as a result of the rationalisation, reconfiguration or restructuring of public service bodies or where activities have assumed lesser priority arising from changing business needs.
My Department is responsible for redeployment in the civil service and non-commercial state bodies and these redeployments panels are operated on my behalf by the Public Appointments Service (PAS).
Pay
Staff who are redeployed take their own basic pay with them to the new employment. In practice this means that
- if they move to a post where the pay scale ends at a point lower than theirs, they continue on their own pay scale to its maximum, on a ring-fenced basis
- if they move to a post where the pay scale ends at a higher point than theirs, they continue on their own pay scale to its maximum.
This pay approach allows for scope for staff in one grade to transfer across to a grade that does not exactly match their own. Where this has happened previously, the Public Service Pay and Pensions Division of the Department of Public expenditure and Reform is usually consulted in relation to the maximum and minimum pay variations for such assignments.
Allowances
The arrangements underpinning the PSAs provide for compensation for loss of regular and structured earnings which may result from the application of the pay approach set out above. Such losses (if any) will be established after the redeployment has been in operation for 12 months and compensation will be paid equal to 1½ times the annual loss established in the case of the individual affected, payable in 2 instalments a year apart.
