Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

A number of questions arise from Deputy Kenny's points. He referred to the loss of the talent from the public services to the private sector. People took up opportunities to go into the private sector, having served in the public service. Others have returned and some have gone from the private sector to the public sector. That interchange in the world of work is a more common experience than was the case years ago. One of the reasons for benchmarking was to ensure that, where there were jobs of commensurate responsibility, the public service would not be denuded of any talent it had and that the public sector would be seen as an attractive career prospect for those in a position to obtain earnings of a similar nature in the private sector. The question of how to marry that with reform and change is one we seek to address in a comprehensive way through the transforming public services agenda. The Croke Park agreement provides the oil in the wheel to enable it to turn and bring about the change people want to see.

It is open to people from any sector to apply for public sector jobs. We have seen changes and reconstitution in the top level appointments commission to ensure more private sector people are employed so that the disciplines available in the private sector, the innovation and change culture that must be part and parcel of any enterprise in the private sector seeking to adapt to changing trading circumstances can, in an appropriate way, be replicated in the public service, which must show a level of innovation in terms of delivering quality service at a time of tightened financial circumstances. In terms of the level of planning, policy making and policy evaluation and accountability one wants to see in the public service, there are lessons to be learned between both sectors.

There are also lessons to be learned by the private sector from the public service ethos. Perhaps the dearth of that ethos in some respects has been the cause of some of our problems. Unfortunately there has been a stereotypical ongoing argument about public versus private, to which I have never subscribed. Life is not that simple. There is a basis for a solid and well merited critique of both sectors of the economy.

The overall position is that there must be change and it must happen more swiftly than we have been able to achieve before. I now believe we have a framework in which to do that. We have the means to achieve it and to do so in an ordered way. Many of the mechanisms that are now in place provide us with probably the best prospect we have had in a very long time.

Many people have prescribed how change should occur but the best way of achieving it is through a collaborative effort on the part of those who work in the service who have a stake in it and who have a professional ethic to see the service fulfil its objectives, namely, to be as efficient and effective a public service as one could find anywhere and that will deliver for people. That means delivering for people in far more atypical work patterns than would have been the case in the past. For example, where people need services after 5 p.m., rosters will have to reflect that. There is a whole range of customer-focused initiatives that would improve the responsiveness of the service and how people view it. This can be achieved by demonstrating flexibility and by putting in place new practices.

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