I propose to take Questions Nos. 69, 71, 73 and 76 together.
Under the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) business model, its remuneration structure (including for staff employed on NAMA work) is such that there are no general pay grades and no pay scales and all staff are on individually-negotiated contracts. The legislation which established the NTMA positioned it outside of the wider public service structures with operational freedom to negotiate market competitive salaries so that it would have, for example, the flexibility to recruit specialists in mid-career from the private sector.
This business model has been essential in enabling the NTMA to staff itself with the necessary technical expertise to successfully carry out the financial and risk management functions which have been assigned to it. In the case of NAMA, most people are employed on the basis of specified purpose contracts, which means that as NAMA winds down and certain functions cease, their term of employment will come to an end.
The NTMA Senior Management team — nine people including the Chief Executives of the NTMA, NDFA and NAMA — all waived their performance-related payments due for 2010. The average payment made by the NTMA in February 2011 in respect of performance in 2010 was €7,681. The overall amount paid was €1,981,760, representing 6.6% of the NTMA's overall payroll. Payments were made to 258 staff members.
Details of NTMA salaries as at 28 June 2011 by salary band are follows:
Salary Band
|
Number of Staff
|
Up to €100,000
|
235
|
From €100,001 to €150,000
|
78
|
From €150,001 to €200,000
|
3
|
Over €250,000
|
14
|
There are currently 357 people employed in the NTMA.
There were 306 people employed in the Agency at end-2010. The average salary in 2010 was €97,992. Given the nature of its activities and its flat organisational structure, the NTMA staffing complement is primarily composed of people with professional and technical skill sets possessing substantial private-sector experience and it employs comparatively few administrative support staff.
NTMA staff members are subject to the Public Service Pension Deduction. While the NTMA was not subject to the Financial Measures in the Public Interest (No. 2) Act 2009 which applied reductions to public service salaries, in 2010 it secured a reduction of some 8% in overall payroll costs, on a like-for-like basis compared with the previous year. In 2011, it has secured a further reduction of almost 3% in overall payroll costs, again on a like-for-like basis.