Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 1: To ask the Taoiseach the cost which has accrued to his Department in respect of the payment of the benchmarking pay awards; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16820/07]

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 2: To ask the Taoiseach the cost to his Department of benchmarking pay awards; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18791/07]

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 3: To ask the Taoiseach the additional costs accruing to his Department arising from the benchmarking process; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21547/07]

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 3, inclusive, together.

The benchmarking phases were implemented in my Department as follows: 25% of the increase from 1 December 2001 was paid in June 2003 — the total cost to December 2003 was approximately €405,000; 50% of the increase was paid from 1 January 2004 at an approximate cost of €491,000 for that year and, the final 25% of the increase was paid from 1 June 2005 at an approximate cost of €150,000 for that year. The full year cost of the increases in 2006 is estimated at €800,000.

Under the terms of Sustaining Progress, the pay increases recommended by the public service benchmarking body were conditional on delivery of real and verifiable outputs in regard to modernisation and flexibility. The key mechanisms for monitoring overall progress in this regard were the reports on action plans prepared by individual Departments and offices, a general review by the Department of Finance and verification by the Civil Service performance verification group. The performance verification group concluded that the progress achieved warranted payment to the grades concerned in my Department.

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

There are groups on the corridors, but I do not think they are talking about the benchmarking pay awards — they are studying the Boundary Commission report. Maybe we should talk about that.

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Did the commission leave the Deputy alone?

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

It did, and yourself.

Deputies:

I thought it was independent.

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

There was no published justification for the level of awards given. Can the Taoiseach point out the justification for the benchmarking awards for increased efficiency in his Department? Will he indicate three areas where there has clearly been an improvement in public service in his Department resulting from the benchmarking reward? From his reply will Mr. John Citizen know the reason for the level of pay awards in his Department?

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Agreement was reached in the Department of the Taoiseach on an entirely new personnel management system, which was implemented fully in co-operation with staff. The new HR system increased efficiency and transparency in many area. The second major project under benchmarking was the introduction of a much needed entirely new accounting system. The third project was eCabinet, involving all Departments. My staff while availing of outside expert help, did an enormous volume of work including preparatory work across all Departments. These three major projects were earmarked by management and were agreed to and delivered by the staff. The modernisation agenda, which preceded benchmarking, has been pushed by the strategic management initiative SMI process and is ongoing. There is a need for constant change and updating of systems.

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I am sure eCabinet works very well for those involved, but I am not sure the average citizen will understand how it works. I thank the Taoiseach for outlining three areas of change. In the course of his reply the Taoiseach mentioned HR, accounting and how the changes had impacted on other Departments. For many years the Minister for Health and Children answered questions on health issues, however these are now hived off to the parliamentary section of the HSE, where there is clearly confusion on HR. The Taoiseach has agreed with me on the significant growth in administrative opportunities in the HSE, not to mention the accounting difficulties arising from the PPARS debacle. Will he indicate the efficiencies that have been achieved in other Departments, especially in regard to HR and accounting improvements in the Department of Health and Children and the HSE where there were confusion, difficulties and money wasted?

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

There are examples across other Departments. It is a lengthy process. Some of the biggest are not necessarily public schemes, but industrial stability has been maintained across the entire system. There has been co-operation in regard to flexibility and ongoing change throughout the public service and satisfactory implementation of the agenda for modernisation. Those that affect the public involve services to the public. I mentioned some of these. The agricultural payments system used to be very strung out and there were always delays before Christmas. The system has been modernised and it is now very efficient. A number of areas have been modernised. Use of information technology is something that would have been negotiated as it was seen as regrading. It was introduced without difficulty as part of benchmarking across Departments and continues to be. Systems that have been modernised include the on-line system for motor taxation which has won awards, and livestock registration and identification. The Revenue on-line system is considered to be one of the best in Europe. It was introduced with the co-operation of staff and has resulted in a far more simplified tax compliance system. The on-line service is being rolled out to PAYE workers. It started with companies and corporate taxes and has been rolled out to include on-line claiming of credits and allowances, on-line requests for reviews of one's tax position and on-line viewing of one's tax records. Full filing is not yet available but Revenue wants to include that in the next round of benchmarking, thus completing the entire process.

The efficient integration of public services, particularly where they cut across several agencies, produces benefits for customers. The integration of services relating to child registration has simplified what was a very complex process involving various procedures associated with the birth of a child. That directly affected every parent. In regard to the registration of a birth, the creation of a child's public identity, and claiming child benefit, the queues that existed until recent years have disappeared and the system works well. Everything is done at a single point of contact, making it easy for parents and for service providers. Up to approximately two years ago the Deputy would have been asking questions regarding delays in the system. We now have extended opening hours. I hold the view that that should always have been the case rather than the traditional system of closing for lunch and not having some staff working earlier and some later. That has now been achieved. There are extended opening hours in library branches, the General Register Office, the Visa Office and a host of others in the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in terms of the single payment. I could go on but it is not necessary to do that.

None of these developments is massive but collectively what has been achieved in the last benchmarking round and what I hope can be achieved in the next is significant for the Civil Service.

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

That is a list of efficiencies. The Minister sitting beside the Taoiseach, the Minister for Transport, Deputy Noel Dempsey, has a very important portfolio. Benchmarking was paid to workers in all Departments. However, at a very senior level in the Department of Transport, Aer Lingus gave notification of its intention to do what it did in respect of Shannon, but the Minister says he was not notified. That is not efficiency. One would expect that, on an issue as significant and as impactful as that, information being sent from a major company to the Minister's office should have been notified to the Minister. Will the Taoiseach comment on that level of efficiency in terms of benchmarking?

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I do not imply that every aspect of the entire public service system is massively efficient.

I did not answer Deputy Kenny's earlier question on the Health Service Executive. However, I chaired the committee on health and I am fairly familiar with the matter he raised. We are a long way from having a unified accounts system that would allow payments and quick information to be provided in an organisation with almost 120,000 staff. PPARS may have been too big a reform to undertake all at once but, for all its problems and difficulties, it gave us very useful information. The unification of all areas and divisions in order to provide proper information quickly is some way off.

We have brought in a retired eminent civil servant from the Department of Finance to look at how we can best do that. A very large number of accounting systems must be brought together and put together manually at the end of each month. Information does not become available until several weeks into the following month, which should be available on the third or fourth day of the following month, as it is in the Department of Finance for the whole country. The Department of Finance can roll out accounts within 24 hours at the end of a month or year.

The HSE faces the challenge of establishing a unified, modern, integrated accounting system. This will not happen in 2007 but it must happen in the next few years. I do not know how long it will take. We have brought in an eminent person who will be good at identifying what needs to be done over the next few years.

There are times when, for one reason or another, something is not brought to the attention of all the relevant people, whether the Taoiseach, a Minister, a Minister of State or a public servant. Reports are done in such cases. Every Department is complex and deals with a huge range of issues. I always defend those involved in such matters. When I walk the corridor from my office to the Chamber, I am stopped by numerous officials and asked for directions on various issues, such as Cabinet matters or meetings in Northern Ireland or Europe, and I give instant decisions. My decisions are then recorded in complex e-mails which I might not recognise or remember in two months time. I find it interesting to see how others are having difficulty remembering something that happened a month ago while eminent people in another location expect me to remember, with certainty, what happened 17 years ago. Perhaps they credit me with more intelligence than everyone else.

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

That is the $50,000 question.

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I do not think so. I am meant to remember everything. When decisions are made in that manner, some things can go wrong. The Civil Service does its best to avoid these situations but sometimes things go wrong. There is no question of people not doing their very best.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context

At a recent conference in Kenmare, County Kerry, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Cowen, stated that the benchmarking body, in making comparisons and recommendations for future pay awards, is "likely to give greater weight to the value of the public service pension package". At the same conference, by coincidence, Mr. Fergal O'Brien of the Irish Business and Employers Confederation called on the Government to cap its contribution to public sector pensions. Does the Taoiseach agree that this is a worrying coincidence, particularly for workers in the public service, including his Department? Those workers, on a generational basis, have campaigned and fought hard to win pension entitlements and rights to certain pension levels but the signal is very clear that these are now threatened. Will the Taoiseach assure all concerned that there will be no attempt to erode the value of pensions to workers in the public service and that there will be no attempt at the dubious exercise in balancing the value of pensions against future pay awards?

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Deputy Ó Caoláin is correct to say there has been significant reference to this issue recently but the public service benchmarking body is proceeding with a review of pay in public service grades covered by its terms of reference and will report at the end of the year. It is under the Department of Finance but, as I understand from discussions which have taken place in the past year, it involves a job evaluation of public service grades as well as a survey of private sector jobs and pay. It will assess what is happening in the public and the private sectors. Submissions were invited by the benchmarking body, via a newspaper advertisement, from interested parties and many submissions on general issues were made to its website by public service employers and the public service committee of congress. Many of the comments made by Deputy Ó Caoláin came out of that process.

As part of the overall benchmarking process, oral hearings have taken place with both employer and union groups in recent months and the results, which are currently being processed, will be included in the report at the end of the year. A fundamental examination of the pay of public service employees vis-À-vis the private sector will be undertaken. There are no predetermined outcomes and it is not, as the Deputy called it, an exercise in capping or cutting back people's pensions. However, one cannot examine the benefits an individual in the public sector receives against what one in the private sector receives, which is what benchmarking involves in accordance with the benchmarking body's terms of reference, without reflecting the value of respective pension entitlements. The public service pension arrangements are very valuable and incorporate very good schemes which would be very costly in the private sector so, as I understand it, they will be taken into account. Such schemes are of genuine benefit and a genuine examination of both sectors must take them into account. The process does not cap a pension scheme but will take into account the value of a pension scheme in the course of the analysis of an individual in the public sector as against one in the private sector.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The remarks to which I referred were made at a conference entitled the Dublin economics workshop, which of course was held in County Kerry, which makes eminent sense. The Taoiseach's response, which must be of concern to people in the public service, indicates that the linkage to which I referred exists and will exist into the future. He mentioned the present agreed pensions arrangements but has not spelled out the consequences. What will be the position in the future? The Taoiseach distinguishes between public pensions and those in the private sector but if it were the other way around what would be the attitude of the Government? In the future, there will be a link between pension entitlements and pay awards under benchmarking. This will have consequences for those who continue in the public service and the Civil Service, even those officials in the Taoiseach's Department, a quarter of whom he informed us last week have looked for the exit door under decentralisation. Will the Taoiseach explain the net effect that was signalled by the Minister and other commentators?

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The benchmarking body is an independent body which, with the benefit of those working with it, is doing a comprehensive analysis by grade of what has happened since the last benchmarking round several years ago. It will decide what increases these grades will get by examining the movements in comparable grades in the private sector over the period. It will also take into account benefits employees have. There are benefits, such as productivity bonuses and other ancillary payments, that private sector employees have which public service employees do not get, by and large.

The body must make a considered judgment. In doing that, it must examine the movements in the past five years between various grades and a comparable position in the private sector. It will then make its judgment. One issue it will have to take into account is pensions. The private sector has raised this because of the changes happening with the pension systems in its sector, which is a separate issue.

In the last round, the benchmarking body took into account pensions for public and civil servants. No one in the public service unions is ignoring the fact that the body must examine such a benefit. If, however, the body includes this one benefit, it must look at the benefits private sector employees have such as Christmas, summer and productivity bonuses. These must all be balanced in the round.

That is why benchmarking is a fair system. It is also a much fairer system than the old analogue or relativity ones, where one grade chased another. A grade was awarded an increase and then every other followed on over a few years. In benchmarking, there is a proper analysis by grade across the system with a comparable grade in the private sector, where that is possible. It is not always possible, but it is in most cases.

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

When will the second round of the benchmarking process which is under way be completed and when will a new benchmarking report be published?

Over the weekend there was newspaper speculation that this round would give rise to a ballpark increase of 3% across the board for public sector salaries. Has the Taoiseach's attention been drawn to these reports? Are they wide of the mark or close to it?

The Taoiseach describes the benchmarking process as better than the old analogue system of pay determination in the public sector. One criticism, however, of the benchmarking system is that it was a secret one. The benchmarking body decided on increases, but the basis for them was never clear. One criticism the nurses had during their dispute last year was that some public servants received very high increases while they did not and they could not see the basis for those decisions. What are the plans in the new benchmarking arrangement for the process to be more transparent so those engaged in it, as well as the wider public, can understand on what basis salary levels in the public sector have been set?

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The second public benchmarking body was established in January 2006. It is chaired by Mr. Dan O'Keeffe, SC, and he is committed to finishing the work at the end of 2007. I cannot say whether it will be submitted to the Department of Finance at the end of the year or early next year, but that is the projected timescale.

I saw the reports over the weekend and the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Cowen, tells me we are not at that stage and that anything written on this issue at this stage is totally speculative. It is too early to make that judgment.

It is important to bear in mind a key development under both processes; the present one and its predecessor. Benchmarking is a measurement of progress. The present arrangement is better than the old system because it is accepted that pay increases must be evidence based. In the case of benchmarking, the evidence will be obtained by measuring public service jobs against norms in the private sector and comparable jobs elsewhere. I hope the verification groups will be more transparent this time. I accepted the arguments made the last time. However, much of the information submitted to the first benchmarking body was of a confidential nature and was market sensitive. Those who provided it to the benchmarking body did not want that information revealed in verification reports that would undermine the raison d'être for the study. Comparisons cannot be made without the relevant information, which is concerned with bonus and ancillary schemes and benefits, and those submitting such data do not want them published because it might damage the interests of their private sector clients. This is how that element of secrecy arises.

Also the benchmarking body, last time, did not consider it helpful to publish all the reports in full. It was thought it might lead to all types of debates and arguments over how, as an independent body, it came to make its determination. Just like before, this time some people will do well, they will be happy and nothing further will be heard about them. Others will be in-between and there may be some talk about how they have done. Inevitably, those who do badly will hit the roof. For those reasons the body considers the best way to deal with matters, in the interests of industrial relations harmony and human resource concerns, is not to publish its reports in full.

Having said that, we made the point that matters must be as transparent as possible and that verifiable performance groups should be able to work on the basis of providing as much detail as they can. The eminent people who are members of the body are conscious of these concerns. However, I cannot determine from the outside precisely how the body will do its business, but its members know what the Government has asked them to do.

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The Taoiseach, in his reply, stated that the report will be available at the end of this year. Has any provision been made for the implications of the benchmarking report in the Estimates or in the pre-budget summary that was published last week? How is it intended to factor in the consequences of the benchmarking report with regard to the Estimates for public finances for next year?

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I do not know what global figures the Department of Finance is using at this stage, but the normal process is for a ballpark public service provision to be inserted, even before it has sight of the figures, to cover whatever phases must be provided for. Next year will be the last time the figures will have to be phased. They were phased over three years the last time, 2002-04, so I presume they will again be phased over a few years, and a ballpark figure inserted to provide for the levels of expenditure up to 2008.

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Working on the assumption that the pre-budget figures published last week include provision for the normal pay rounds and a notional figure for benchmarking, what will be the increase in pay? In some Departments, the proposed allocation, or Estimate, for next year is either approximately the same as that for last year or, in some cases, slightly less. What is the ballpark pay provision in the Estimates?

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

It is really a matter for the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen, but I believe it is based on the existing level of service under the new system. Subject to correction, I do not imagine that the figures, other than incremental figures for 2008, would be included. Benchmarking pay for the public service would not be associated with the existing level of service and I therefore presume the figures are not included. I cannot be positive about it. It will be budget time before we see what figure will be included but the Department of Finance will have to indicate a ballpark figure in the first week of December.

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I am sorry to pursue this further but we received last week the figures for the public finances on which the budget will be based. As I understand from the Taoiseach's second reply, the pay provisions included in those figures reflect incremental pay increases for next year.

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Yes.

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

That is fair enough. I presume they reflect the normal pay round increases for next year. I understood from the Taoiseach's first reply that there was also some kind of notional provision in the Estimates in respect of benchmarking. If not, and if a benchmarking report is issued at the end of this year, how is it intended to implement benchmarking in 2008?

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I do not know whether the Department of Finance has included the figures but, on the basis of the new system, last week's book is not like the old Book of Estimates; it is based on the existing level of service. I do not believe there could be a figure. I hope I am not proved wrong in half an hour but I do not believe the figure for a benchmarking report that has not yet been issued could be included in respect of the existing level of service. However, as I stated, the Department of Finance will, before the budget, have to make provision for a ballpark figure it believes will cover the first phase of benchmarking in 2008. I am only assuming the benchmarking payments will be phased, as they were in the last case. I will not know until the report is published whether Mr. Dan O'Keeffe S.C. will state they should be phased or whether the Department of Finance will state — probably more correctly — they should be phased over a three-year period. Provision in this regard will have to be made but it will not be made until budget time.