Alternatively, they could replace 'front line' jobs but put a complete embargo on admin jobs and introduce flexibility between the public sector and civil service. Therefore, when admin jobs are lost in the civil service people from the HSE for example could be moved into these position i.e move people to priority areas rather than take on new staff.
The idea of transferability is indeed important, but to say something like 'no admin jobs' is far too simplistic. There may well be some options to eliminate admin posts through process optimisation and use of technology. There may also be opportunity to eliminate some front line posts through process optimisation and use of technology (did you see the 'robot doctor' on the news yesterday?). This is plenty of scope for improvement right across the public sector, just as there is across the private sector.
Uh? It’s just based on common sense and simple arithmetic. First, the cuts won’t be as excessive or at the numbers suggested. Looks good on paper, gets good headlines stating so many hundreds of thousands will be out of a job. But that just won’t be the case.
As already stated, the focus will be those at or near retirement age initially and other voluntary redundancies. How do I know this? Because that’s how most employers handle larger scale redundancies, it’s the easiest and most just way. And why do employers do it, again the short term loss of the usually generous redundancies is quickly gained in the medium to long term (sometimes in the same accounting year) savings on payroll and other employment costs (pensions etc).
So most of those who will be out of a job, will be moderately comfortable and live the life of any usual retiree.
It's great that you can speak with certainty about how a programme that hasn't yet been devised will work, and what the impacts will be. Any tips for the 3.15 at Haydock on Saturday?
How many others need to be let go will come down to the will of the government. I get the impression there is will for reform with a long term view of sustainability. So those jobs that offer no value to the public service provided will have to go. I’m no hard line capitalist, but then my bleeding heart pinko nature doesn’t stop me being disgusted at working my ar*e off to shoulder colleagues who I know offer no value or productivity in my workplace.
I’m sorry but comradeship has limits. And I don’t see how anyone can defend the indefensible, especially when it is mine and your taxes that pays for these people. They exist, we all know it. Why should they be supported?
This is nothing to do with comradeship or support. This has to do with public services. Who are these people who have 'no productivity' in the workplace? Who are these people who offer 'no value'? Get down from your high horse with these wild, unsupported generalisations, and let's get some specifics on the table about what organisations you want to 'dissappear'?
It’s utter nonsense to suggest that it’s only the public sector propping up the economy and spending money, because that is the implication with the stupidity of Labour Party Economics.
I would indeed be utter nonsense. That's why I never suggested this. It would also be utter nonsense to suggest that putting a chunk of public servants on the dole will not have a direct effect on social welfare payments, medical card costs, rental/mortgage interest allowances and a downstream effect on where there money is currently spent.
Yes and again your argument has no basis. It’s another tabloid view that loss of jobs means loss of front line staff and services. Let me spell it out again. The reform and cuts are to look to decrease the unit cost of the same service. It’s your assumption that less administrators means a poorer service. It’s your assumption that less managerial grades means poorer service.
There is no basis for your assumption that there are piles of non-productive administrators or managers waiting to be trimmed off. The OECD report confirms that the Irish public sector is (if anything) understaffed, and is just about catching up on international norms of staffing levels after years of under-resourcing.
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Oh come on. I think it’s rich that the accepting such things as performance review shows how understanding the PS/CS has been. As I remember the unions were apoplectic at the time at the very thought of performance reviews. In fact I distinctly remember one official publically stating that it is unthinkable that a public servant would not be promoted if their review showed they were incompetent.
Every single attempt at reform has been met with the heaviest resistance, industrial action and threats of industrial action. To try and pretend that the PS calmly acquiesced to these (completely ineffective) measures is slight tinkering with history. It’s like the British claiming that they acquiesced to Ireland’s request to be Independent and skipping the rather big bit before that.
Shocker - one union official blew his top! Maybe instead of recalling what one public official said on the news one day, you'd like to look at the reality of what is happening on the ground every day right across the public sector. PMDS (or variations of) are standard operating procedure. They aren't perfect, and there is still a lot of learning to do (just as there is in performance management in many private sector bodies), but it is there. To be honest, I wasn't thinking about PMDS in my answer. I was thinking about the kind of restructuring and reallocation of resources that has happened in my organisation and in many others, with some limited impacts on services.
I do wonder where your economic theories come from. But first, why should the books be balanced by further taxes when it is all too clear that the PS is too expensive? Are you seriously suggesting that we hit people again for more tax just to support the cushie benchmarking scheme?
This seems to be one of those things where you try and make people believe something by repeating it often enough. Who decided that the PS is too expensive (certainly not the respected OECD in their recent report)? Who decided that the extra tax is going to support benchmarking and not (just for example) going to NAMA or Anglo-Irish?
Second, increasing the taxes for everyone will have the exact impact it is falsely claimed redundancies in the public sector will have. Taxing everyone will hit retail and tax intake even harder. However, the a few thousand PS redundancies won’t. It’s a matter of scale, in your model we have 2 million people who already aren’t spending and already have no confidence as consumers (for example figures for retail this September are actually worse than last year, and last September is when it really went belly up). The idea that taking more money off them is going to bridge the gap wouldn’t even enter the head of a junior cert business studies class.
The benefit of taking money via the tax system is that those who can afford it will pay most. It might mean one less foreign holiday, or holding off on changing the 08 car until 2010 or 2011, or one less apartment purchased in Spain/Czech/Florida, but it does not mean that families will not have enough food on the table. Basic day-to-day spending will largely continue - the 'gravy' off the top might dry up, but much of this goes outside the country anyway.
What we do need is redundancies. We need to examine what services we require and to what extent we require them. What is certain is that a lot of non-essential services should and probably will have their funding withdrawn. So there should be compulsory redundancies of staff who are surplus to requirements because we can't afford to retain the particular services they are delivering or the services are reduced. In summary, those staff you do need - pay them what they're worth. Those you dont need, get rid.
The one area where there is enormous scope for reducing public service costs is the health service. We currently have the worst case scenario from a VFM point of view - a private sector monopoly which has passed IR and employment risks to the Government. Health providers should be forced to tender for business, deal with their own HR issues and should only be paid for work actually done.
While I'm not a fan of the current structure or business model of the health service either, I have very little confidence (and I have seen no evidence) that there are substantial numbers of headcount available for cutting in the health service. Who are these people that you believe can be cut without impacting services?
The truth is that rebalancing the tax system has to take a back seat to the haemmorrhaging of cash to overgenerous public sector payments and welfare levels.
Until we address the cost base of doing business in this country and the ballooning government deficet, then everything else is re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic
Nice selective view there. No mention of the impacts of oooh lets say the cost of commercial rents on doing business, or the costs of accountant fees, or the costs of business loans from the banks - it is all the fault of the public sector of course. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa...
