Christmas party time at the quangos

  • Thread starter celebtastic
  • Start date
C

celebtastic

Guest
Another "you couldn't make it up" moment.

With the country broke, and tax rises and spending cuts on the way, our well paid Quangos are now in a tizzy because the Comptroller & Auditor General has the temerity to ask them how much tax money they plan to fritter away on free booze and sausage rolls:
http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/watchdog-probes-quango-xmas-parties-3312079.html

Any private company I know has had "self funded" Christmas parties since 2008.
 
I don't know what the story is with some of these small agencies but I do know that thousands of workers in the public sector (civil service, public service and many commercial semi states) who have never had (or ever will have) a Christmas party paid for them.
 

The opening poster also doesn't know the story about the various agencies.

The Irish Aviation Authority are the only agency who are confirmed as making a contribution to the Christmas Party per the Indo , the opening poster however has no problem in extrapolating that one proven case across all the Agencies albeit without a scintilla of proof nor must it be said does that bastion of media impartiality - the Indo !
 

I am glad you agree that these jollies are a scandalous waste of public money.
 
The article seems to relate to an email sent by an administrator to some of his peer organisations to see how they deal with a request from the C&AG about:

  • Expenditure of over €1,000.00 for Christmas party for 20 staff (~€60/head)

  • Legal opinion regarding the strength of cases involving court actions (and potential court actions)
In both cases the C&AG is entitled to ask and the agency is entitled to consider its response by eliciting the approach adopted by its peers.


From my experience in the private sector Auditors seldom concern themselves with trivialities such as these but I reckon the C&AG has a different set of objectives.
 
I don’t see the problem with organisations making a small contribution to a Christmas party for their employees.
Just because the country is broke it doesn’t mean that all state employees should have to live like Matt Talbot.
 
Purple said:
I don’t see the problem with organisations making a small contribution to a Christmas party for their employees.
Just because the country is broke it doesn’t mean that all state employees should have to live like Matt Talbot.
Click to expand...

The meeja would be licking their chops, but I agree with you.
 
When I worked in the private sector (small/medium accountancy practices) we always had a substantial contribution to the Christmas party from our employer.

I'm in the civil service now, and not a dime do we / shall we get from our employer.

Doesn't bother me either way, I think Purple summed it up pretty well.
 
As a long-standing public sector employee I have never had a Christmas event funded or even partially funded by my employer.

Marion
 
same as that....the Public Service body I work for has had no contributions towards any Christmas parties since 2007, the start of the downturn.
Have'nt heard too many complaining about it either
 
I've only ever worked in the private sector, but even during the worst days of the crash when people were being made redundant, money was always put aside to subsidise some form of Christmas party as the cost was seen as good value when the effects of team building, employee engagement, etc. were considered.

So I wouldn't begrude anyone in the public sector having a similar arrangement. I think we'd be better off looking at the bottom line, and deciding if we are getting value for the total spend, rather than focusing on tiny percentages of the annual budget sensationalised to make a few headlines.
 

+1. What we need to be doing is looking at the Cost/Benefit of the Quango itself to the taxpayer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register