Take the work of 3 and give it to two where possible. Much of the time, the two step up to meet the challenge. If not, you hire one person part time. Still savings.
I've managed M&A (mergers and acquistions) projects for one of the largest, most gung-ho, aggressive companies in the world. If I produced this kind of simplistic rubbish as part of my integration plan, I'd have been fired. If you take the work of 3 people and give it to 2, you get 2/3rds of the work done, unless there are very obvious synergies available.
Simple finance says that if you are renting 3 units and can incorporate into one, you will save on fixed costs such as insurance, lighting and other utilities.
Again, this is facile stuff. Moving three units together into one won't necessarily save money. Sometimes it does, sometimes it don't. It depends hugely on the existing lease conditions, the locations of the buildings, the age of the buildings etc. As it happens, OPW has been doing this stuff for years. Check out Government Offices, The Glen, in Waterford, where Revenue, Dept Ag and HSA all share an existing building. You now want to split these up, with Revenue moving to a Dept Finance building, Ag moving to an Ag building and HSA moving to an Environment building. It makes no sense
Where you can use one type of paper, you save on stationery.
If you are giving someone €20K in expenses to turn up to board meetings you can save €200K for every board of 10 you get rid of. That's a hell of a lot of biscuits. (I took a conservative figure based on Celia Larkin's €30K
http://www.tribune.ie/article/2008/aug/24/fee-bonanza-at-taxpayers-expense-for-celia-larkin/ )
Come on, €50m or maybe if very generous €100m - it is peanuts, a drop in the ocean.
You say the department of justice have streamlined payroll for its agencies. Then what about health and education?
Yep, Education did this years ago - all teachers are paid from Dept Ed in Tullamore. Health - Remember PPARS, where the cream of the private sector (Deloittes, IBM et al) leached €220m out of the health boards for a system that never delivered.
I really don't see how H&S is affected.
There is quite a lot you don't see. You don't see the lack of focus and further dilution of accountability that occurs when you lose a dedicated, focussed agency like the RSA or the EPA.
Why do you think that AIB run Goodbody's as a seperate operation? Why do Irish Life run ILIM as a seperate operation? Why do multinationals like Johnson & Johnson run Janssen Pharma as a seperate operation?
Integration is not a panacea solution, and may well cause serious damage.
Generally speaking, with all of these agencies, you have a section of staff in the Government Department who's job is to watch over or liaise with the agency. Say for example, the agency has 30 staff and the Dept has 4 staff watching over them. If the Government Department does the job itself, you save the cost of 4 staff.
I also have a personal view that many of these agencies are over staffed. I think that it would be possible to do a lot of their work with less staff. So in the case of the above, the Government Department could probably do the same job with 15 staff. Some of this is down to being able to do the back office functions such as HR, payroll, procurement etc. rather than having the agency hire separate people for these functions, some of it is down to having greater flexibility/productivity in a larger organisation and to be truthful, some of it is down to eliminating quango type behaviour such as empire building (the larger your staff, the more important you are) and jobs for the boys.
So, in my above mention example we go from having 30 quango staff and 4 civil servants administering this area to having 15 civil servants. A saving of 19 people.
Generally speaking, with all of these agencies, you have a section of staff in the Government Department who's job is to watch over or liaise with the agency. Say for example, the agency has 30 staff and the Dept has 4 staff watching over them. If the Government Department does the job itself, you save the cost of 4 staff.
There is a bit more to it than that. These people have more than just an oversight role, including driving through relevant legislation, working with Dept Finance on budget and spending, dealing with the Minister on policy and PQs. There may possibly be some savings possible here, but they are not material in the overall scheme of things.
I also have a personal view that many of these agencies are over staffed. I think that it would be possible to do a lot of their work with less staff. So in the case of the above, the Government Department could probably do the same job with 15 staff. Some of this is down to being able to do the back office functions such as HR, payroll, procurement etc. rather than having the agency hire separate people for these functions, some of it is down to having greater flexibility/productivity in a larger organisation and to be truthful, some of it is down to eliminating quango type behaviour such as empire building (the larger your staff, the more important you are) and jobs for the boys.
Your personal view is your personal view. Please let's not base a huge infrastructural change (which has the potential to incur huge cost, huge time, huge energy and divert people from productive work) on your whim. Again, start being specific - name say 3-5 agencies which are overstaffed.
Many agencies already share resources on IT, HR, payroll, procurement, facilities management, health & safety etc, so integration is going to have very little impact here.
So, in my above mention example we go from having 30 quango staff and 4 civil servants administering this area to having 15 civil servants. A saving of 19 people.
I really hope that the Govt have a sounder basis for their policies than this kind of fiction.
