# A Christmas present for senior Civil Servants



## Howitzer (3 Jan 2010)

Does anyone have an opinion on [broken link removed] that came out on Christmas Eve?

I've posted this a couple of times but have struggled to constrain my disgust.



> On budget day, the Minister for Finance announced that civil servants earning between €165,000 and €200,000 would take pay cuts of 12% while those earning over €200,000 would take pay cuts of 15%. Yesterday (24th Dec), with the public focusing on their pre-Christmas preparations, the government announced that this would not be happening after all.
> 
> These pay cuts have been rolled back for two reasons. First, the government announced that it was going to take into account the elimination of “performance-related awards” which had averaged ten percent of their salary. As a result it reduced the new pay cuts for some civil service grades to reflect the loss of this ten percent .........
> 
> First, these performance-related awards were, as their name suggests, not guaranteed but (at least in theory) related to performance. This move appears to be an effective admission from the government that these payments were not in fact performance-related bonuses but part of the core pay of these civil servants. For a government that claims to be keen to introduce reform into the civil service (something that should include bonuses as incentives for good performance) this is a very unfortunate precedent.



Karl Whelan and Richard Bruton pretty much nail it.


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## ajapale (3 Jan 2010)

Do we have any idea how many public servants are on such "performance related bonuses"?

Have we any idea what metrics are used to evaluate the payments which I understand are anything up to 10% of the base salary?

Are such payments superannuationable?


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## Howitzer (3 Jan 2010)

As far as I'm aware all Deputy and Assistant Secretaries qualify for this scheme. In 2007 there were 14 individuals who qualified in the Dept of Finance, 13 received the bonus. 

http://www.finance.gov.ie/documents/publications/reports/2008/cpareport07final.pdf


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## boris (4 Jan 2010)

What I am wondering about is that this was supposedly a payment for performance related pay.  As shown earlier 13 out of 14 received it.  So this new amendment to the cutback is now treating this as part of normal pay and therefore performance was never really part of the payment.

The lower grades should be frothing at the mouth at this slap in the face.


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## Deiseblue (4 Jan 2010)

Excellent news.
Shows that this Government is for turning.
This surely must be grist to the union's mill , hopefully co-ordinated industrial action will now further influence Government thinking.


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## Howitzer (4 Jan 2010)

> The "performance-related awards" system was set up for assistant secretaries and deputy secretaries in 2002. The 2007 bonus awards for this group cost about €2.7m -- an average of around €17,763 each.
> To qualify, the senior civil servants had to set their own targets in "three key areas". They then had to assess their own performance in a report at the end of the year. This was sent on to the head of their government department and a group known as the [broken link removed]. In 2008, more than 91pc of these civil servants got bonuses ranging from 5pc to 15pc -- with the remainder getting less than 5pc.





Deiseblue said:


> Excellent news.
> Shows that this Government is for turning.
> This surely must be grist to the union's mill , hopefully co-ordinated industrial action will now further influence Government thinking.



I don't think you really get who runs this country, and for whose benefit it's so run. You've been shafted.


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## Caveat (4 Jan 2010)

Deiseblue said:


> Excellent news.
> Shows that this Government is for turning.
> This surely must be grist to the union's mill , hopefully co-ordinated industrial action will now further influence Government thinking.


 
Why exactly is this excellent news?

And once again, how then do you propose that the required savings are made?


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## ashambles (4 Jan 2010)

Be interesting to hear the union view as their own salaries are directly tied to these grades so they've an even greater than usual vested interest. But I presume it'll be no paycuts for anyone in the public service no matter how overpaid.

It should be noted that the Hayes report which took several months to fudge a 100% overpayment to some grades down to a 10-15% paycut did not take bonuses into account when doing its comparisons, i.e. the original pay cut recommended had already taken into account that bonuses were not going to be paid.

I can only hope they have shot themselves in the foot by being spectacularly over greedy, the last thing the higher grades needs after the neatly controlled and edited Hayes report (basically published conclusions without showing the figures or basis for "adjusted income") is people looking closely at their salary levels.


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## liaconn (4 Jan 2010)

boris said:


> The lower grades should be frothing at the mouth at this slap in the face.


 

We are .  Those 'performance related' rewards that Asst Secs got always left a bad taste in people's mouths. They were usually based on a lot of hard work and initiative from those lower down the ranks. Thankfully they've now been scrapped.


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## boris (4 Jan 2010)

Well (speaking as a Public Servant) no PS should be getting a bonus anyway. It just doesn't sit right considering what your job is about. 

However your view point is not exactly correct. They have incorporated them into normal pay (on the face of it) and therefore eased the pain for themselves and basically let all the rest of the CS/PS suffer but not themselves.


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## Deiseblue (4 Jan 2010)

Howitzer said:


> I don't think you really get who runs this country, and for whose benefit it's so run. You've been shafted.


I'm in no doubt as to who runs the country.
The most incompetent shower of wasters I've ever had the misfortune to have as the Government of my country !
As to whose benefit it's run for ? - could I propose a coterie of Bankers and developers ?
Your " you've been shafted " comment needs some explanation unless you're referring to what the majority of the country has experienced under this Government !


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## Howitzer (4 Jan 2010)

Deiseblue said:


> I'm in no doubt as to who runs the country.
> The most incompetent shower of wasters I've ever had the misfortune to have as the Government of my country !
> As to whose benefit it's run for ? - could I propose a coterie of Bankers and developers ?
> Your " you've been shafted " comment needs some explanation unless you're referring to what the majority of the country has experienced under this Government !


I think you're deluding yourself DB. This isn't the thin edge of any wedge. This is about pensionable salaries. This is about those in senior CS positions pulling up the drawbridge.


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## Bronte (5 Jan 2010)

Howitzer said:


> . This is about those in senior CS positions pulling up the drawbridge.


 
Or blackmailing the government?  They know where all the skeletons are.


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## Deiseblue (5 Jan 2010)

Howitzer said:


> I think you're deluding yourself DB. This isn't the thin edge of any wedge. This is about pensionable salaries. This is about those in senior CS positions pulling up the drawbridge.


Have to disagree.
This rowback demonstrates clearly that this Government is for turning.
The knock on effect has seen the CPSU up in arms and will ultimately make it easier for all the unions to sell industrial action to their  already furious members.
Still at a loss to understand your " you've been shafted " comment !


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## liaconn (5 Jan 2010)

I agree. I think this is going to add fuel to the fire of angry civil servants down the ranks and has made industrial action much more likely now.  I presume the logic that senior civil servants will use is that 10% of their salary was 'held back' every year until they proved they had reached certain targets but I don't think this will wash.


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## boris (5 Jan 2010)

liaconn said:


> I agree. I think this is going to add fuel to the fire of angry civil servants down the ranks and has made industrial action much more likely now. I presume the logic that senior civil servants will use is that 10% of their salary was 'held back' every year until they proved they had reached certain targets but I don't think this will wash.


 
Liaconn I agree with you on this. However what has to be remembered here is that they have now incorporated what was a "variable" on their salary into their normal pay. Normal civil servants don't have this "soft" option that they used and I think that it is more likely than not that the CPSU will go down the road of industrial action regardless of what ICTU do.

It was a smart move but no matter what excuse they provide they have converted "unguaranteed" pay into "guaranteed" pay. Straw that broke the camels back comes to mind.


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## Caveat (5 Jan 2010)

There was a thread a while back entitled public sector vs public sector - it could happen yet.


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## Howitzer (6 Jan 2010)

ajapale said:


> Do we have any idea how many public servants are on such "performance related bonuses"?


Now 600 escape full brunt of public sector pay cuts.



> A special arrangement exempting 150 top civil servants from full pay cuts will    also apply to a further 450 senior managers across a string of state bodies,    the Irish Independent can reveal.
> As ordinary gardai, HSE and local authority workers see their pay slashed,    some of their bosses have been told they can keep more of their much larger    salaries.


Who'd a thunk it, that bonuses were so common in the public sector.


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## Caveat (6 Jan 2010)

Howitzer said:


> Who'd a thunk it, that bonuses were so common in the public sector.


 
Hmmm. Often the very concept the public sector used to criticise the private sector too.


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## liaconn (6 Jan 2010)

600 people out of 350,000 is hardly 'common' across the public sector.


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## Caveat (6 Jan 2010)

600 so far.

The point is that the impression was given by many posters that bonuses were unheard of in the public sector whilst they were standard in the private sector.  Unsurprisingly, neither of these statements are true.


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## RonanC (6 Jan 2010)

Howitzer said:


> Who'd a thunk it, that bonuses were so common in the public sector.


 
0.0017% of public servants getting a bonus is hardly common.


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## S.L.F (6 Jan 2010)

Bronte said:


> Or blackmailing the government? They know where all the skeletons are.


 
Civil servants sign the official secrets act which forbids them talking about what goes on in govt if any civil servant talks to the papers and gets found out they can be jailed.


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## RonanC (6 Jan 2010)

Caveat said:


> 600 so far.
> 
> The point is that the impression was given by many posters that bonuses were unheard of in the public sector whilst they were standard in the private sector. Unsurprisingly, neither of these statements are true.


 
I knew a bonus structure existed in the semi state bodies but I am totally shocked that they also existed in the civil service.


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## liaconn (6 Jan 2010)

Nobody below Assistant Sec level in the Civil Service gets a bonus. Asst Secs form a tiny percentage of Civil Servants. In my own Department of 1,000 staff there are 7 Assistant Secretaries. Most people have never agreed with the bonus, which I think was only introduced in recent years.


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## boris (6 Jan 2010)

Even at that some of them do not get it.  

I have always thought that it was disgraceful that they were given this.  I am going on 20 years in the CS and have never (nor *any* of my colleagues) got as much as a cent extra *ever*.

Now to add insult to injury it has been incorporated into their normal salary.


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## Caveat (6 Jan 2010)

boris said:


> ... I am going on 20 years in the <private sector> and have never (nor *any* of my colleagues) got as much as a cent extra *ever*.


 
This applies to me too by the way.


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## Deiseblue (6 Jan 2010)

When working for one of the main Irish Banks all of us in the Department in which I worked received bonuses whether or not we were signed up to performance related contracts .
There is no doubt in my mind that such bonuses led to reckless Banking practises.


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## boris (6 Jan 2010)

Caveat said:


> This applies to me too by the way.


 
Well I am just making the point that the sheer vast majority of the CS/PS do not receive bonuses and I also do not think that we should or ever should have.

The most laughable part was that this scheme has never been fully disclosed as to who got what and how much.  It seemed to have operated quite covertly and doesn't seem to have been mentioned much in the Annual Appropriation Accounts for each of the Government Department.  

Bonuses and how much and to whom seemed to be at least revealed in the private sector.


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## Caveat (7 Jan 2010)

Deiseblue said:


> When working for one of the main Irish Banks all of us in the Department in which I worked received bonuses whether or not we were signed up to performance related contracts .


 
That's a disgrace.

Sounds a bit like the increment system in the public sector doesn't it?


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## Howitzer (12 Jan 2010)

Cowen rules out U-turn on pay for top officials



> TAOISEACH [broken link removed] has ruled out any U-turn over his Government's decision to allow senior officials to escape the full brunt of the public sector pay cuts.
> It comes after unions complained that cleaners in government departments were taking bigger pay cuts (5pc) than some senior figures (3pc). But Mr Cowen said the Government had already made its position on the issue clear.
> "It's now in legislation and we've legislated for these changes and we have to proceed with them," he said.
> ...
> ...


I appreciate the quotes form part of a bigger speach, but this is incoherant nonsense. I sure wouldn't be happy if I was one of those cleaners.


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## Howitzer (12 Jan 2010)

And just to give a contrasting example from my own company. We've taken pay cuts ranging from 0% - 15%, graduated from the top down based solely on salary. 

We used to have a bonus scheme, in fact we still do, it simply hasn't been paid in the last 2 years and is unlikely to be paid in the foreseeable. This bonus is just that, a bonus. The company is non-unionised but if it had come to light to that top management had avoided pay cuts by fiddling their bonus to be part of their salary everyone else would have simply walked out.


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## liaconn (12 Jan 2010)

It's going to be very hard swallowing preachy emails from Assistant Secretaries about how we all have to put our shoulder to the wheel and 'do more with fewer resources' after this stunt. I can see fireworks ahead .


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## Howitzer (12 Jan 2010)

liaconn said:


> It's going to be very hard swallowing preachy emails from Assistant Secretaries about how we all have to put our shoulder to the wheel and 'do more with fewer resources' after this stunt. I can see fireworks ahead .


No there won't. And here's why.


Deiseblue said:


> Excellent news.
> Shows that this Government is for turning.
> This surely must be grist to the union's mill , hopefully co-ordinated industrial action will now further influence Government thinking.


It goes to the heart of a lot of Irish attitudes. We don't really mind people pulling strokes like this because given half a chance you'd have done the same. People on lower grades got shafted but they don't really really mind as they aspire one day to be the ones doing the shafting.


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## liaconn (12 Jan 2010)

Making a lot of assumptions there, Howitzer. I can assure you, the poeple I work with are not impressed!


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## Howitzer (12 Jan 2010)

Prove me wrong.


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## liaconn (12 Jan 2010)

We will.


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## Caveat (12 Jan 2010)

OK then.


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## liaconn (12 Jan 2010)

Caveat said:


> OK then.


 
 #


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## Caveat (12 Jan 2010)

Just an attempt at a  "humorous" addition to the previous concise posts. 

Attempt failed obviously.


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## liaconn (12 Jan 2010)

Sorry, I'm a bit slow today. Could hardly drag myself out of bed this morning. Roll on Summer.


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## Kine (12 Jan 2010)

liaconn said:


> Roll on Summer.


 
 You're in for a LONG Jan/Feb


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## Deiseblue (13 Jan 2010)

Howitzer said:


> No there won't. And here's why.
> 
> It goes to the heart of a lot of Irish attitudes. We don't really mind people pulling strokes like this because given half a chance you'd have done the same. People on lower grades got shafted but they don't really really mind as they aspire one day to be the ones doing the shafting.


Sorry to have to set you straight Howitzer.
You really should'nt rely on assumptions , your comment in an earlier post that I have been shafted by the fact that senior civil servants as you put received a Christmas present is exacerbated by the fact that you quoted a post of mine to reflect the point you make above  is fatally damaged by the fact that I an not nor ever have been a Public sector worker !


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## Howitzer (13 Jan 2010)

Deiseblue said:


> I an not nor ever have been a Public sector worker !


You could have fooled me. Close friends or family?


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## Deiseblue (13 Jan 2010)

Howitzer said:


> You could have fooled me. Close friends or family?


Nope , immediate family work in Finance , Industry and Leisure sectors.


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## Howitzer (3 Feb 2010)

Lenihan beats revolt on pay cut exemption



> One rebel backbencher said, "The sheep are back into the shed."


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