merrion street

Minister of State with special responsibility for Public Service Reform and OPW, Mr. Brian Hayes, T.D., speaking this morning (12 January 2012) at the BT Public Service Reform breakfast briefing outlined the Government’s public service reform objectives and plans for the future. The Minister stated "this Government is committed to meaningful reform and we have published an ambitious reform plan with a broad range of actions and associated timelines. The benefits that these reforms will yield are significant; not only in terms of savings needed by the State in relation to fiscal consolidation, but in the delivery of more cost effective, integrated, customer-focused public services."

Croke Park

Minister Hayes also set out the Government’s priorities under Croke Park Agreement for 2012 stating "In terms of the Croke Park Agreement in 2012, the priorities for the Government have to be using all the opportunities under the Croke Park Agreement to:

maximise the productivity of the existing staff. That will be pursued through for example annual and sick leave reform, redeployment and rerostering, better performance management;

reduce additional costs where possible, for example through the Government’s comprehensive review of allowances and premia pay, the tech pay review in the Defence Forces, maximising civilianisation in the justice sector which has the added benefit of releasing uniformed personnel for other duties, reforming the payment structures for lab technicians and radiographers in the health sector, and, not least,

enable the Government's ambitious public service reform programme announced last November.

Some of these issues are being led centrally by Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. In parallel, the Implementation Body has now asked for new action plans from the sectors. It is now time for local management to show a level of ambition about opportunities for change under the Agreement. There are sectors where both the challenges and the opportunities are very great. Management agendas that were hard won in Croke Park now need to be pursued by sectoral management even where that means that they have to go into a difficult negotiating space. Implementation needs to be approached with greater urgency in all sectors.

That will also be challenging for their interlocutors on the union side. The almost unprecedented atmosphere of industrial peace across the public service, which is the major benefit of the Agreement to date, presents the space for both sides to get engaged on this work."