Vol. 483 No. 5
145 Mr. Ring asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the reason it is necessary to set up new panels in 1998 for recruitment to the prison services; and the reason the existing panels cannot be used to give the people on the panel an opportunity for employment. [20850/97]
Decisions in relation to the holding of recruitment competitions are a matter for the Civil Service Commissioners. However, having made inquiries into this matter, I understand that the position is that it has been the practice of the commissioners to hold a fresh competition every two years. The last competition for the filling of prison officer positions was advertised in April 1995 and the panel set up following this competition has been extended by one year to 1998 because Government restrictions on recruitment meant that no one from that competition had been appointed until recently. It is intended to make appointments from this competition up until July, 1988.
There are two main reasons for the holding of a competition every two years:
1. In the case of any recruitment exercise a number of potential candidates will become eligible in the period between competitions. Over a two year period this number can be considerable. The commissioners consider this among other issues in determining when a hold a fresh competition. Under normal circumstances they would consider two years to be an appropriate interval in the case of the position of prison officer.
2. The longer the time lapse between initial application and the concluding element of the selection process, the greater the number of candidates who will have found alternative employment, or may for other reasons opt out of the competition. This leads to an increasing waste of resources because of diminishing returns in terms of interested candidates, e.g. of approximately 1,200 people called to sit the second stage of the process during the summer, only half attended. Of these, attendance rate at interview has been between 80 per cent and 90 per cent. A further fall off manifests itself when some of those ultimately offered appointment decline it.
