Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 13 June 2012
8Deputy Dara Calleary asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the number of agency and contract staff currently employed in the public sector; the mechanism in place for monitoring and managing the associated costs; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28294/12]
Amharc ar fhreagraAs the Deputy is no doubt aware Ireland is committed under the EU-IMF programme to reducing the overall size of the public service pay bill.
Over the past number of years, enhanced numbers, monitoring systems and multi-annual employment frameworks have been put in place. These arrangements will be strengthened to ensure that effect is given to Government decisions on public service numbers, including temporary staff.
The Government is committed to reducing public service numbers to 282,500 by the end of 2015 as part of its reform agenda. The overriding objective is to have a more customer focused, leaner, efficient and better integrated public service which delivers maximum value for money. However, I wish to make clear that it is part of the day-to-day function of the management of all public bodies to assess, budget and plan for current and ongoing staffing requirements within existing resources. Again, it is a matter for local management to determine the appropriate recruitment method for such temporary staff. This data is not held centrally.
In the case of my own Department, there are 21 persons currently working in a non-established capacity on fixed-term contracts and contracts of indefinite duration . In addition, there is one contractor working in the IT unit in the role of senior technical network service administrator. The IT unit undertakes a market exercise each year to fill the senior technical role position. The Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, which is under the aegis of my Department, currently has ten contract audit staff, whose work is expected to amount to approximately 4.4 whole-time equivalents in the calendar year. The staff are all professionally qualified and assist that office during periods of peak demand for audit services. The use of these contract staff is fully sanctioned and is limited by the amount of sanction granted. The office also has two whole-time equivalent agency staff who provide front of house security and reception-telephony services and eight students on internship from the University of Limerick, who work with audit teams for about nine months during the year before returning to their studies. The office provides any information requested of it to my Department on monitoring and managing costs.
As data on the number of agency and contract staff currently employed in the public sector is not held centrally it would be a matter for individual Departments to provide details to the Deputy in respect of their agency and contract staff.
I thank the Minister for his reply, the final sentence of which answers my question. I was not asking about the number of contract staff in the Minister's Department or in the Comptroller and Auditor General's office, although I am surprised at the numbers given by the Minister in that regard, but about my hobby horse, the health service, where there are vacancies in hospitals countrywide for nurses and so on.
There are many agency nurses in our hospitals, in respect of whom there are separate staffing schedules and rotas, and to whom the embargo does not apply, which I understand.
A question, Deputy, please.
Will the Minister make it his business to get this information compiled centrally so that somebody at Government level has a handle on it? It is not on to have this information dispersed with no one knowing what is going on.
I understand the Deputy's concern and will try to address it. It is a matter of annoyance that this sector is always a little later than every other in providing information to me. The Deputy might consider having the HSE invited to a meeting of the Joint Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform on this issue, which debate I will listen to with great interest.
I asked the same question of the Minister in the autumn. As per the Minister's reply, I sought and obtained, and continue to receive, statistics on the number of contract and temporary staff in the public sector from various agencies operating under the aegis of his Department and, crucially, the comparison between the cost to the Exchequer of employing agency staff versus direct employees.
It seems to me that a Government that is willing and able to impose brutal cuts and austerity on people on social welfare such as rent allowance and so on and on the incomes of workers should show the same zeal in terms of ensuring we are getting value for money when it comes to the massive amount of outsourcing that is resulting from the cuts in the number of directly employed people within the public service.
Thank you, Deputy.
Is it the Minister's intention to have a centrally held record of the number of agency staff employed across the public sector and a comparison in terms of how much it would cost if those people were directly employed?
This question was not tabled by the Deputy. Other Deputies wish to get answers to their questions. I call the Minister to reply.
I am not going to be prescriptive about this because there will be cases where agency workers are the best way of meeting an urgent public demand for services and where, without them, central services might not function. There might be a case for that.
Deputy Fleming is looking at the broader picture.
If the Minister continues to cut numbers he will need more of them.
The reality is we are faced with reducing the total volume of money we can borrow. The only people who will lend us money have attached conditions to it. We can stick our heads in the ground and pretend that is not a reality. We need to reduce the quantum of money we are borrowing. There are a variety of ways of doing so, including cutting services, making them more efficient and reducing the numbers involved in service delivery. These are hard decisions. I know the Deputy is not interested in engaging with them and prefers the soft option that there is no need for retrenchment or taxation of any kind.
We need to know if it is saving money.
Please allow the Minister to continue his reply.
I take the final part of the Deputy's question quite seriously. We do need to ensure that wherever we are engaging with agency or temporary staff there is a robust business case for it and that it makes economic sense. That is part of the culture which I am trying to inculcate across all State agencies and Departments.
