Public Service Reform Plan Update

Wednesday, 4 June 2014

Ceisteanna (7)

Catherine Murphy

Ceist:

7. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will provide an update on the progress toward achieving the specific sectoral targets contained in the public service reform plan; if the measures which have been implemented so far have served to address imbalances in the resource-to-population ratio in each of these sectors or if that specific issue has been exacerbated; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23697/14]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Freagraí ó Béal (13 píosaí cainte)

Deputy Catherine Murphy

The question relates to workforce planning and the public service reform plan. On a number of occasions, I have raised with the Minister the fact that an embargo or the number of staff who left the public service on early retirement has left gaps. An embargo can be a crude instrument. It is a matter of how we rebuild the public service where there are gaps and what mechanism is being used to do that.

Deputy Brendan Howlin

This Government has had to address a challenging fiscal situation. Since its peak in 2009, gross voted expenditure has been reduced by 13.5%, from €63.1 billion in 2009 to €54.6 billion last year, with a further reduction budgeted for this year. As part of this consolidation, the public service Exchequer pay bill has been reduced by approximately 22%, from €17.5 billion in 2009 to a targeted €13.6 billion this year. In order to achieve these savings, it has been necessary to reduce staff numbers, which are down by approximately 10% from the 2008 peak.

We also worked to achieve our expenditure targets and endeavoured to do that, as I have stated repeatedly, in a balanced way, with a strategic view on current and future needs. We have reduced budgets and staff numbers. We have asked organisations and sectors to improve the utilisation of their scarce resources to become more efficient and better focused on the needs of citizens. In addition, where savings have been made, the resulting reform dividend will allow for some recruitment to front-line services, particularly in the education and health sectors.

In January this year, I published the Government's new public service reform plan for 2014 to 2016. The actions set out in the reform plan are largely cross-cutting in nature. These include, for example, greater use of shared services and innovative approaches to service delivery; increased use of technology and improved engagement with service users; more efficient and effective public procurement and property management; and enhanced leadership and performance management.

The reform programme adopts a whole-of-government approach to reforming our public services across all sectors, including health, education, justice and local government, as well as the Civil Service. For this reason, the reform plan also references at a high level some of the key priorities and objectives of the main sectors of the public service. As set out in the reform plan, the reforms at sectoral level are led by the relevant Ministers and their Departments.

Overall, the reform programme is about ensuring that services, whether centrally or locally delivered, are as efficient and effective as possible.

Deputy Catherine Murphy

I have raised this issue on a number of previous occasions. On some occasions when the Minister has talked about reform, it is actually a reduction in staff numbers and budgets. In fact, it can be costly. For example, if one has under-provided for local authority staffing and planning sections in some parts of the country where the building industry is starting to ramp up again, there will be inadequate oversight. It will only cause problems later on through an inability to call in bonds. Such matters are labour intensive and do have a benefit.

The Minister said there is a whole-of-government approach and I know that workforce planning is being done in the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. There would be a big imbalance in staff ratios, however, because Meath has 620 staff while the combined Limerick local authorities' staff totals 1,075, yet there are 20,000 fewer people there. One cannot deliver some of the services that are planned without having people to do so. Those examples come to mind but there are many other sectors. In the health sector, for example, there is no point in having a consultant if there is not a porter to wheel a patient to the operating theatre.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I will come back to the Deputy.

Deputy Brendan Howlin

I agree with the Deputy. We have had this discussion with regard to regional disparity and it is a fact, but it is not possible to resolve that overnight. If, for historic reasons, there are different structural bases for local authorities and the way they approach staff development has been quite different over the decades, it will not be undone overnight.

One of the key issues is flexibility at local level and key managers need to be able to deploy staff where they are needed. During the down times, obviously we did not need to have huge planning departments, but as they increase we need to be able to redeploy people back into them. That flexibility is required at ground level.

We have all gone into workplaces - be they hospitals, health centres or local government sections - where some areas are run ragged while others are under no pressure at all. Therefore, we need to have the flexibility and management skills to ensure that staff are always deployed to the greatest pressure points.

Deputy Catherine Murphy

Do local authorities or the HSE make an application for a relaxation of an embargo for certain staff cohorts or people with particular skills? If so, how is that managed? Is there a framework against which these requirements are matched? Is it done at departmental level? How is the whole-of-government approach applied to that?

Deputy Brendan Howlin

Each Department has what we call an ECF or employment control framework. They can deploy or make an application to my Department for sanction for how that overall framework meets the demands as they perceive them at service delivery level. Therefore, local authorities would make representations to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, which would look at how the ECF is to be managed. We obviously cannot grant additional staff for every request. That is not possible because we have to live within our financial constraints, but I am certainly preaching for as much flexibility as we can. For example, people may want to suppress a very expensive post and have more than one person employed for the same resource. If that is determined as being a more efficient way of delivering services, I have no difficulty with a pure numbers policy in that regard.

I have eased off on the strictness of the numbers policy to achieve that objective with more flexibility and better judgment, management and, I hope, outcomes at delivery.