Public Service Attitudes.

VOR said:
Merging in the absence of the councils and HSE actually doing their job. Limerick needs some level of support.

Savings on stationery, phones, staff and rent. Then of course there's staff costs such as minuting two board meetings, changing letters for each side of the city, two financial reports etc. etc.

We are talking about a city of less than 80,000 people. It's not the New York. How can we need two board of directors working out of two different offices and a central team to administer it all?
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I've no idea what is going on here. I know nothing about these agencies. It is fairly clear that you know nothing about what is actually going on here either. You might want to go and do some actual research before you go making proposals. But seriously, how much do you reckon this merger will save?
 
Staples said:
These are reasonable questions for all state agencies. But just becasue you may not be able to readily come up with good reasons doesn't mean they don't exist.
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Be careful about confusing the fact that work that needs to be done with the question of who should do this work.
 
Staples said:
These are reasonable questions for all state agencies. But just becasue you may not be able to readily come up with good reasons doesn't mean they don't exist.
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We're slipping into this sort of territory.

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.
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csirl said:
Instead of trying to pass the onus onto the me, can you tell me why the people recruited by these organisations are not recruited in the same way as core civil servants and are not subject to the same restrictions on political activity? Where is the transparancy on the probity of these organisations? As public sector organisations paid out of taxpayers money, the taxpayer has a right to be given proof of probity?

I'm well able to give examples. I used to work for a Government Department myself. I have friends and family who work in some of these areas of the public sector. I also live in an area that that has been rife with political patronage due to us having some politicians who like exercising their influence in the area. I personally know people who have benefited from political patronage and have been employed by some of these organisations. I dont think the Mod will allow me to print their names on this message board. Not coincidently, I also have a few neighbours who have appeared at or been named in recent tribunals.
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The only onus that I'm putting on you is to justify your claim about politically-connected staffers and useless quangos. Please don't give me the 'I used to know a bloke who' stories. If you have a serious proposal to make in this area, let's get it on the table, with the evidence that supports it. If you are concerned about naming names in public, just PM them to me, and let's see how many out of the 320k approx public servants are politically connected. Let's be specific about which quangos you plan to abolish.
 
Let's be specific about which quangos you plan to abolish.
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All of them. As I've said before, there is no reason why the work of all the quangos cannot be done within the Government Department with responsibility for the area.
 
csirl said:
Be careful about confusing the fact that work that needs to be done with the question of who should do this work.
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If you accept that work needs to be done, you also have to ask how best it can be done which encompassess the question of who does it.

In the case of the agency to which you refer, I can't say who's best placed. My point is that on the basis of what you've presented, neither can you but you have to at least accept the possibility that somebody has considered this in the past and concluded that the agency approach, for reasons that are not clearly evident to us, may be the way to go.
 
csirl said:
All of them. As I've said before, there is no reason why the work of all the quangos cannot be done within the Government Department with responsibility for the area.
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So you want the Dept of Health administrators out nursing patients and carring out operations? And you want the Dept of Transport administrators carrying out driving tests? And you want the Dept of Enterprise administrators to be carrying out safety inspections on building sites? And you want the Dept of Enterprise administrators training brickies and electricians and webdesigners in the FAS training centre? And you want the Dept Justice administrators to be hearing Equality Tribunal cases?
 
Sunny said:
I actually did find out. Something to do with creating a smokeless society or something. Do we have one for a alcohol free society as well?
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If enough of the public wanted one, we probably would.

Would you like one?
 
Complainer said:
So you want the Dept of Health administrators out nursing patients and carring out operations? And you want the Dept of Transport administrators carrying out driving tests? And you want the Dept of Enterprise administrators to be carrying out safety inspections on building sites? And you want the Dept of Enterprise administrators training brickies and electricians and webdesigners in the FAS training centre? And you want the Dept Justice administrators to be hearing Equality Tribunal cases?
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There is no reason why all of the above tasks cannot be administered from within a Government Department. It does not require a separate organisation to be set up to ensure that any of these tasks are done.

So you want the Dept of Health administrators out nursing patients and carring out operations?
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This shows that you are not aware of the real situation. Nurses and surgeons are actually employed by the hospitals, NOT the HSE. The hospitals are independent privately owned entities (mostly by trusts owned by religious orders). There is no reason why the D/Health administrators need to hire a bunch of HSE administrators to contract with hospitals for services. Cut out the unnecessary middleman.



And you want the Dept of Enterprise administrators training brickies and electricians and webdesigners in the FAS training centre?
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Judging by recent reports, they might do a better job :D
 
Complainer said:
I've no idea what is going on here. I know nothing about these agencies. It is fairly clear that you know nothing about what is actually going on here either. You might want to go and do some actual research before you go making proposals. But seriously, how much do you reckon this merger will save?
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What they are doing is irrelevant. I am sure it is a worthwhile exercise. That is not the point. The point is that doubling of work is inefficient and should be done away with.

As for the savings, I'll hazard a very rough guess. Say each rented property costs €12K a year, then closing 2 will save €24K. Even the saving of one staff member would then save at least another €26K. That's €50K before looking at other items like financial reports, stationery etc.
 
csirl said:
There is no reason why all of the above tasks cannot be administered from within a Government Department. It does not require a separate organisation to be set up to ensure that any of these tasks are done.
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So you want these staff part of a Govt department, and not part of of the agency. What is the benefit of this?
 
Complainer said:
So you want these staff part of a Govt department, and not part of of the agency. What is the benefit of this?
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Can I take this one on csirl's behalf. I feel I am repeating myself. Less staff due to synergies, less rented offices, less phone line costs, electricity costs, stationery costs and finance costs due to annual reports etc etc.That's just for a start.
Then you have fewer boards so fewer board members for travel expenses and salaries. Fewer payroll runs so a streamlined and more manageable payroll and HR function. That's off the top of my head.
Ask any one who has ever worked in an Ops function in a decent sized company and they will surely agree with the above and give you many more examples.

I have been looking at a list of the quangos set up in the last 10 years. One such quango is the mushroom taskforce. It has been a huge success if its job was to keep us in the dark and feed us you know what. Sorry, but I couldn't resist.
 
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