Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 8 March 2023
118. Deputy Verona Murphy asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the number of additional staff allocated to housing in County Wexford from 2019 to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11978/23]
View answer119. Deputy Verona Murphy asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the number of additional staff allocated to housing nationally from 2019 to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11979/23]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 118 and 119 together.
Under Section 159 of the Local Government Act 2001, each Chief Executive is responsible for the staffing and organisational arrangements necessary for carrying out the functions of the local authority for which he/she is responsible. My Department oversees workforce planning for the local government sector, including the monitoring of overall local government sector employment levels. To this end, my Department gathers aggregate quarterly data on staff numbers in each local authority on a whole time equivalent basis.
However, granular data, in terms of the detailed breakdown of the numbers and grades of the overall number of staff allocated to specific work areas within local authorities is not collected and consequently is not available in my Department. The relevant information would be available from each local authority.
That said, Housing for All commits to strengthen the capacity of local authorities to initiate, design, plan, develop and manage housing projects and recognises that it requires the resourcing of housing services of local authorities. In this context, I approved funding for 250 posts for local authority housing teams to support the delivery of social housing. I believe there have been delays in some areas but recruitment is well underway and that over 180 posts have been filled to date. Funding has been approved for a five-year period from 2022 to 2026 with a potential to extend the funding to 2030, subject to the availability of the capital funding as well as the delivery of targets in each local authority area.
Furthermore, an initial tranche of 69 affordable housing staff posts were approved in October 2022 and communicated to each of the respective local authorities with an affordability constraint. This is a key requirement to underpin affordable housing delivery and ensuring the required structures are in place to enable affordable housing delivery as a matter of priority. My Department and the Housing Delivery Coordination Office in the Local Government Management Agency will be monitoring this programme further to a review of any additional supports being examined in 2023.
In total six additional posts have been approved for housing delivery in Wexford County Council: three administrative and three technical, all of which have been filled.
