Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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5. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform his decisions with respect to the recommendations for Civil Service reform by the independent panel on strengthening Civil Service accountability and performance and by the Civil Service renewal task force. [42276/14]

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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My question relates to the publication, One Vision Civil Service: The Civil Service Renewal Plan, which is an interesting document. The process by which it has been produced has also been interesting. I am concerned that it does not pass us all by in the busyness of everything else. First, I wanted the Minister, Deputy Howlin, to set out his initial plans for the implementation of what is contained here and then I have a couple of specifics to tease out with him. As he mentioned gender, let me just say that, although 60% of the 35,000 civil servants are women, only 33% of management grades are filled by women and there is clearly a glass ceiling in the service. It is one of the issues in which I am interested.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I appreciate the Deputy placing a focus on this. We might find an opportunity, perhaps at a committee, to discuss it because this is the culmination of two streams of work.

The Civil Service Renewal Plan, which I launched with the Taoiseach last week, is the product of a year-long engagement involving more than 2,000 staff and stakeholders. It brings together the outcomes of two separate but related streams of work: the work of the independent panel on strengthening Civil Service accountability and performance; and the work of the Civil Service renewal task force, which was a group of civil servants that went around the country talking to civil servants.

The renewal plan, approved by Government, aims to build the capability of the Civil Service so it can meet the needs and expectations of the Government and the public into the future. More than 2,000 staff and stakeholders made formal contributions to the development of the vision "to provide a world-class service to the State and the people of Ireland" and a practical plan with 25 actions will be delivered within the three-year timeline that we have set out.

The four areas of focus are: a unified Civil Service - a breakaway from the silos that have caused problems in the past - managing the Civil Service as a single, unified organisation; a professional Civil Service - maximising performance and potential of all civil servants to do their job effectively; a responsive Civil Service - changing our culture, structure and processes so that they become more agile and more flexible to meet the changing environment; and a more open and accountable Civil Service - continuously learning and upskilling. Details of the plan and the two related documents on staff engagement and background data are available at www.per.gov.ie.

I note the point the Deputy McDonald made about gender, that, while 60% of the Civil Service overall is women, not enough are managers. We have migrated from 25% to 30% at the top, but we should have equality at the top and we need to have mechanisms to do that.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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I agree that this needs a considered discussion, if not by way of debate on the floor of the House, certainly at committee. We need to explore all of these matters.

Why did the Minister decide to go for what he calls a "collective responsibility" model rather than, as has been proposed by Professor Rafter and others in the course of their work, a head of Civil Service? I understand Deputy Howlin also envisages an individual spokesperson on behalf of that collective. I am concerned that the immediacy of a person in charge, accountable and answerable gets lost in the Minister's collective model.

In terms of organisational capability, which is crucial, the plan talks about - the language is probably a little unfortunate - "Design and implement a light touch, objective review process". The Minister and I would not be so keen on the term "light touch". Could he shed light on those two specific issues?

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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On the Professor Kevin Rafter group proposal to have a single head, I spoke to him at length. The group looked at the model in Britain and in other countries, and they changed the model a couple of times. Their recommendation was to have either of two options, the first of which was a designated person involving the set up of a new entity with a new Secretary General who would be the head of the Civil Service. Given the capacity - there is 25,000 civil servants here and 250,000 in the United Kingdom - I wondered whether that would work all that well. The alternative, and probably preferred, recommendation was to have an existing line Secretary General be head of the Civil Service on a part-time basis, which I did not think worked.

My first objective was to have a collective entity because the biggest deficiency, as I have seen looking deeply into it, is the siloing of the Civil Service, that everybody in the Department of Justice and Equality looks at the Department of Justice and Equality and many civil servants go in at a relatively low grade and then migrate, never having moved beyond. It is the same in a lot of line Departments. The first task is to have a much more integrated public service and a collective leadership is a better way of doing that.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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I ask that that matter be kept under review. It might well emerge that the Minister is, in fact, correct in that assessment, and if it works, it is fair enough and all is well. However, Deputy Howlin hears my concern. The beauty of having a head of Civil Service is that accountability does not get lost in the collective. I ask that we do not entirely jettison that idea as, perhaps, one for the future.

I note the proposals also contain what is termed "an end-to-end review of the disciplinary code". I am curious that we tease that out. I note it makes recommendations in terms of recruitment to more senior managerial posts within the service. That needs to be considered. I am not a believer in privatising, or importing entirely a private sector ethic into the public sector as a way of reforming it. That is wrong-headed.

Finally, this report does not deal with the issues of reward and pay within the service, but the Minister will appreciate that manners of rewarding staff are inextricably linked in with the culture of any organisation and the morale of those who serve. We need a commission on pay within the civil and public service. It needs to right the wrong where we currently have at the upper ends excessive levels of pay and at the lower levels paltry wages and rewards for staff, but that may be an issue for another day.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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There were a lot of detailed questions that I will not have time to answer and we need a better forum than one which provides a minute to answer these questions.

On the first question, I will have an open mind on the leadership. If the other model presents itself in 18 months' time as a better model, I will support that.

The review of the discipline code will happen. It is part of what we need to do to ensure that everybody is optimum. We, first, must give real tasks to staff in the Civil Service so they know what they are supposed to do. One cannot state they are not delivering if they do not have a clear understanding of what they are supposed to deliver and the tools to deliver it, in terms of training and skills.

That brings me to the other point. Deputy McDonald talks about recruitment. We now have opened general recruitment, but most of the recruitment we had been able to do in the recessionary times was of specialists because there are specialist deficiencies in a number of areas. We have established a new economic advisory group, that has been trained in my Department and now gives economic analysis across all Departments. We have looked at better human resource management by bringing in trained human resource specialists, the same as in procurement, on which my colleague, the Minister of State, will answer questions.

Low pay is a real issue. That is why we are establishing a low-pay commission which will look not only at the private sector, but also at the public sector. It will have a broad remit when it is established next year.