Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The questions relate to the public service transformation project in which we are now engaged. There are ongoing reforms in the public service. Many of the pay agreements are based on agreed changes in work practices, etc. It is not a question of having a public service that mirrors exactly what it was in 1922, 1962, 1982 or 1992. Several initiatives have taken place which have brought benefits. In fairness, let us put that on the record. They are designed to address the immediate priority of securing maximum value from public spending and this is made even more urgent by recent Exchequer returns.

In the next six months, one expects to see agreements on more flexible ways of operating and changes in work practices. As the Towards 2016 ten year framework agreement puts it, these agreements will focus on putting at the centre of our concern the citizen and the way in which we provide services to the greatest extent possible, given the available level of resources. At question is the level of resources that can be applied to these areas. If we are to do this, it will involve much change in the workplace. That process of engagement with the social partners is ongoing. In a range of areas within the private and semi-State sectors, unions and management are making provisions for new arrangements to maintain, to the greatest extent possible, job security and the maximum number of jobs in a difficult climate. This is taking place across the board and must happen in the State sector within the public service. Such an engagement will now begin with a great degree of urgency in the context of the 2009 financial year and the difficulties we face therein. There will be a great number of changes in this respect.

As for the recommendations themselves, the establishment of an integrated public service in which people will have freedom to move across and work within various aspects of that service, such as the local authority system, the public administration system, the Civil Service itself or the non-commercial semi-State sector, will involve a process of engagement with the public service unions on which the Government will embark. I refer to the redesign of the service, which must take place over the three-year timespan that has been outlined and, while I do not need to refer to them specifically in this reply, the various recommendations and timeframes within which progress is expected to be made across the various areas, as set out in the report. While I do not wish to take up the time of the House with them at present, there is a clear need to do those things.

As for e-Government, were a specific question to be tabled on a specific issue pertaining to this website, I could get the detail on it for the Deputy. However, I make the point that e-Government certainly must improve. One major item to arise from the surveys on public satisfaction is that people are unable to get common information to the extent they would wish and that there are delays. Moreover, the level of available knowledge when people contact the public service is not as they would wish in some respects. This has been set out in the customer survey and the need to improve in this regard is reflected in the implementation plan the Government now has put in place to change how the public service works, what it does and what numbers are deployed. The plan will examine what are the outputs, whether people are in the right places — there are indications to the contrary at present — how to redeploy people and how to move people to priority areas.

This will involve engagement with public service unions, that is, with public servants and their representatives, and this report sets out how the Government intends to so do. In the first instance there is the immediate question, about which the group on public service numbers and expenditure programmes will play a part by advising the Government as to what it considers should happen in this regard. However, the Government will be obliged to make the decisions itself. Moreover, the wider social partnership process must not be forgotten in this respect. I refer to the need to engage, in an accelerated way, on how to change work practices in order that service levels in 2009 will be maintained for the amount of money that will be provided. The third and more medium-term issue concerns the redesign of the service itself in respect of the freeing up of deployment and redeployment issues etc., as well as the establishment of a senior public service. This also is set out in the report over a three-year period.

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