Tom Parlon (Laois-Offaly, Progressive Democrats)

I am pleased to introduce the Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) Bill 2003 to Seanad Éireann. The Bill has been amended in Dáil Éireann and I will draw Senators' attention to these amendments when I describe the Bill in detail.

The Bill is an important step in the reform of the public service. Our public service has a major role to play in the economic and social life of the country. To fulfil that role effectively requires that a modern and flexible recruitment system be put in place. The systems which will be established on the enactment of the Bill are essential to the wider modernisation programme set out in the strategic management initiative and in Sustaining Progress.

The human resources management working group, a cross-departmental body established under the SMI, recommended to the Government that the structures governing the recruitment of civil servants should be reformed. In particular, it was considered that there should be an option for public service bodies to recruit directly from the labour market. Currently, the Civil Service and the Garda Síochána are required to recruit through the Civil Service commissioners. Innovations in the management of public service organisations will be enhanced if the recruitment system works in support of those changes. The measures in the Bill introduce a significant new element of flexibility into the recruitment system. As a direct consequence of this Bill, public service organisations will be able to recruit the staff they need, when and where they are needed.

The measures will also ensure that the best people are recruited by requiring that best human resources and recruitment practices will be observed at all times. The institutional arrangements contained in the Bill are specifically designed to ensure that recruitment procedures are in line with best practice and will remain so as this evolves. The measures in the Bill are part of the strategic approach to the management of human resources in the Civil Service and in the other public service organisations to which it will apply. The Bill is not an isolated initiative and it must be seen in the broad context of public service reform. It is a significant element of the programme of public service modernisation which was agreed with the public service unions in Sustaining Progress. The public service unions were fully consulted about these measures and they agreed to the introduction of the Bill in Sustaining Progress. The changes being introduced are another sign that the benchmarking agreement implemented in Sustaining Progress has produced real, practical changes in the way the public service operates.

The Civil Service and Local Appointments Commission and its staff have performed an important role over the years. The efficiency and probity with which the commissioners have carried out their work has been a major factor in creating civil and public services which has allowed the State to develop and prosper. There have been many examples abroad where public confidence in the institutions of Government was undermined in part because of a failure to maintain the probity of the public appointments system. It is to the credit of the commissioners that this did not happen in Ireland and, moreover, that there has never been even the slightest suspicion that the system could be compromised. This is a major achievement and it is right to acknowledge it as the torch passes to the Commission for Public Service Appointments.

It is essential that all institutions adapt and change to take account of the new challenges facing them. We know that the LAC was established at a time when the public service was smaller and was expected to deal with a much narrower range of functions. As society has evolved, the roles and functions of the civil and public services have also evolved. In recent years, the commission has been actively restructuring and refocusing its resources to ensure that it is best placed to provide a modern and expanded recruitment service to all its clients in the public service. In addition, it has been providing a range of services outside its traditional, more restricted remit. This Bill will enhance and accelerate this programme of change.

The evolution of the civil and public services demands that we change the way we manage our human resources in the Civil Service. It means giving Secretaries General and Departments the ability to manage their areas of responsibility more effectively, while maintaining the high standards of probity and the levels of expertise established by the Civil Service commissioners. In recent years, it became clear that the public appointments system needed greater levels of flexibility to meet modern labour market conditions. On occasion, the Civil Service found it difficult to recruit the staff it needed because of labour market pressures. It is imperative that the public service is best positioned to exploit whatever flexibilities are required in the recruitment environment. We must ensure that the new recruitment processes presented here will ensure maximum efficiency and eliminate any scope for bottlenecks. No organisation can allow itself to be put in the position of being unable to recruit, in a timely fashion, the staff it needs to carry out its work. The reforms proposed in the Bill are designed to modernise the recruitment system by allowing public service bodies to recruit directly and quickly under a licensing system which will guarantee good practice.

The point has been made that the independence and probity of recruitment to the public service must be safeguarded at all costs. I know from personal experience, and as a public representative, that it is widely accepted that an application for a post in the civil or public services will be treated in a fair and impartial manner. In Ireland, people have confidence that, following the selection process, the best people are appointed to jobs. In any reform of the recruitment system, it is essential that the public trust established by the Civil Service commissioners over the years is maintained. The Government is determined to make certain that this public confidence in the probity of the system will not be undermined.

As I outline the details of the Bill, I ask Senators to bear in mind that many, if not all, of the new institutional arrangements have been designed to ensure that this key public value of probity is preserved. At present, recruitment to the Civil Service and the Garda Síochána is carried out by the Civil Service commissioners. Recruitment to senior posts in the local authorities and the health boards is carried out by the Local Appointments Commission. The Bill will repeal the Civil Service Commissioners Act 1956 and amend the legislation relating to the Local Appointments Commission. The Bill proposes to create two new bodies, the Commission for Public Service Appointments and the Public Appointments Service.

The Commission for Public Service Appointments will become the principal regulator for public service recruitment. The commission will set standards for recruitment to the Civil Service and the public service and will monitor compliance with those standards. While initially the commission will broadly oversee the same range of recruitment as the Civil Service and Local Appointments Commission, it is intended that provisions to extend its remit to cover the full range of public service recruitment will be implemented in due course.

In accordance with the policy of devolution of authority, public service bodies regulated by the commission will be allowed to undertake their own recruitment. This is a departure from the current system. It will be a matter for the Garda Commissioner and the Secretary General of each Department to decide whether to avail of the opportunity to apply for a licence to recruit. If they decide to apply for licences, they will be able to recruit directly from the labour market without the requirement to use the centralised recruitment agency as an intermediary while following the standards laid down by the commission. However, the option of using the services of the centralised agency will continue to be available.

The Commission for Public Service Appointments will licence public service bodies to recruit, according to clear codes of practice, on its own behalf, or with the assistance of private sector recruitment agencies specifically approved by the commission. The commission will have the authority to alter or to revoke a licence, or to issue directions to a licence holder. These arrangements are designed to maintain the probity of the recruitment process. The Bill also provides for the establishment of the Public Appointments Service, PAS, as the centralised recruitment body for the public service. The professionalism and expertise in public sector recruitment that has been developed within the Office of the Civil Service and Local Appointments Commissioners will now reside within the PAS. This body will continue to play a critical and vital role in the future of public sector recruitment and in the future development of HRM across the public service.

The Bill is arranged in eight Parts and there are two Schedules. Part 1 provides for the dissolution of the Civil Service and Local Appointments Commission. It also allows the Minister for Finance to appoint a day on which the Commission for Public Service Appointments and the Public Appointments Service will come into being and determines which public service appointments are covered by the legislation. The Department of Finance and the Civil Service Commission are meeting to plan the establishment of the new bodies. In order to establish the new bodies, the financial and staffing resources currently allocated to the Civil Service Commission will be divided appropriately. A director will be appointed to head the Office of the Commission and an adequate number of staff of the Civil Service Commission will be seconded to the Commission for Public Service Appointments to set that body on a firm foundation, although the commission may opt to appoint its own staff in the long term. The remainder of the staff of the Civil Service Commission will be transferred to the Public Appointments Service. It is intended that arrangements will be put in place to allow the Minister for Finance to establish the new bodies shortly after the Bill is enacted.

On establishment day, appointments to the Garda Síochána, to most positions in the Civil Service and to certain managerial, professional and technical posts in local authorities, health boards and vocational education committees will be covered. Section 6 permits the Minister for Finance to make orders which will extend the application of the Bill beyond these appointments. However, certain appointments are excluded from the scope of the legislation and the Minister cannot make an order bringing them within the remit of the Bill. These include appointments made by the Government or President, appointments to posts established under the Constitution and the appointment of special advisers. A number of other appointments are excluded but the Minister may make orders bringing them within the remit of the Bill. It is the Minister's intention to ensure that in time the overwhelming majority of public service posts will be subject to the system of regulation established by the Bill.

There have been comments that the Government was using this Bill to gain power to appoint its advisers to permanent and pensionable posts in the Civil Service. I assure Members that this allegation is utterly without foundation. To put the matter beyond doubt, the Bill was amended in the Dáil to exclude the appointment of special advisers from the scope of the legislation. The effect of the amendment to section 7 is to ensure that special advisers cannot be appointed by Ministers, or by Government, to established positions in the Civil Service unless there are further amendments to this Bill and to the Ethics in Public Office Act. That Act requires that advisers lose office at the same time as the Ministers they serve. Taken together, these measures ensure that special advisers will continue to leave the Civil Service at the same time as their Ministers leave office.

I have already outlined the main provisions relating to the Commission for Public Service Appointments as set out in Part 2 of the Bill. The Bill was amended to provide that the Commission will be composed of five ex officio members, namely the Ceann Comhairle, the Secretary General to the Government, the Secretary General, Public Service Management and Development in the Department of Finance, the Chairman of the Standards in Public Office Commission and the Ombudsman.

Section 12, as initiated, provided that only three members of the commission would be commissioners ex officio. It also provided that up to six other commissioners may be appointed by Government. To lay to rest any concern that the power of appointment to the commission might be open to question, section 12 was amended to add two more ex officio members and to delete the Government's power to appoint members to the commission. Consequently, the commission will be composed entirely of ex officio members and the Government will be unable to appoint additional members. These measures are intended to place the commission on the most secure footing and to dissolve any suspicion that any influence may be brought to bear on the appointment of the commission. I suggest to Senators that this is the clearest indication of the Government's commitment to maintaining the highest standards of integrity in public service recruitment.

The Bill also requires that the commission establish standards of probity, merit, equity and fairness to govern the recruitment and selection of appointees and will publish these standards as codes of practice. It will grant recruitment licences but it can also issue instructions to licence holders and revoke licences, where appropriate. The commission will report to the Oireachtas every year. It will prepare and publish codes of practice setting out the principles to be observed by licence holders in recruitment to the public service. Each code will include instructions on probity and fairness, the need to ensure that candidates are selected on the basis of merit, the protection of the public interest, the implementation of best practice and the general procedures to be adopted to deal with grievances and complaints brought forward by candidates.

The commission may consolidate, revoke or amend a code as it sees fit. Except in the case of the Public Appointments Service, which will hold a recruitment licence on the establishment day, recruitment licences will be granted for the conduct of recruitment processes only where codes of practice for the posts concerned have been published. This will ensure all recruitment processes are governed by codes of practice approved by the commission. Candidates will be selected for appointment in the order of merit as determined by the recruitment process.

As an additional safeguard, this Part includes provisions, which require persons who have knowledge of an attempt to influence a recruitment process to inform the commission in order that it may take appropriate action. The commission may investigate the exercise of recruitment functions by any licence holder or recruitment agency. Licence holders, recruitment agencies and any other person who may have information which is materially relevant to the exercise of functions under the Bill must co-operate with an investigation and it will be an offence to obstruct an investigation. A person found guilty of the offence will be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding €3,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, or both.

While this Part of the Bill gives the commission responsibility for setting and safeguarding standards of probity in recruitment, it also provides them with the powers necessary to enforce standards. Taken together, these responsibilities and powers will guarantee the high standards of probity which have been the hallmark of the Civil Service commissioners and the Local Appointments commissioners will also characterise recruitment under a licence issued by the Commission for Public Service Appointments. As I said before, probity is essential. It is not the Government's intention to introduce flexibility at the cost of lowering standards and undermining public confidence. I am satisfied the Bill strengthens and protects the high standards that have been established in this area.

The number of recruitment agencies in Ireland has increased greatly in recent years. These agencies have a good deal to offer public sector organisations in carrying out their recruitment. The Government wants to provide public service bodies with the opportunity to draw on this expertise in identifying and selecting the best people for a particular job. Accordingly, provision is being made in the Bill for licence holders to obtain assistance from these professional agencies. The Minister for Finance listened to the representations made about the practical involvement of private sector agencies in public service recruitment and agrees the role of private sector recruitment agencies should be limited to assisting licence holders. While he believes these agencies can and should perform a wider set of functions, he proposed an amendment which will require the licence holder to retain sole responsibility for the final selection of candidates for appointment or placement on a panel for appointment. This is reasonable clarification of the policy approach already in the Bill. The amendment met the concerns expressed without compromising the need to give flexibility to licence holders in recruitment. It will also help to secure the probity of the recruitment process by placing responsibility for final selection of candidates unambiguously on the shoulders of the licence holder.

Part 3 deals with the Public Appointments Service. The Public Appointments Service, while retaining all the expertise and professionalism of the existing Civil Service Commission, will be established in a manner that will allow it to be more responsive and to compete more effectively in the jobs market than was the case heretofore. The new PAS will be well placed to deliver a wide range of services in the area of recruitment and selection and to support client organisations across the civil and public service through best practice approaches in the area of human resource management.

The Public Appointment Service will be independent in the exercise of its functions, which will include acting as the centralised recruitment, assessment and selection body for the Civil Service and public service bodies where it is requested to do so; ensuring the commission's codes of practice are followed in the recruitment process, undertaking other selection competitions, including promotion competitions and competitions to posts in organisations outside the Civil Service where requested by the relevant Minister; and providing expert services on recruitment, assessment and selection matters.

The board of the PAS will consist of a chairperson, the chief executive of the PAS and seven ordinary members. Its functions will include considering and approving plans and strategic objectives put forward by the chief executive, monitoring the PAS in the exercise of its functions and ensuring appropriate review procedures are put in place for recruitment and promotion procedures. Throughout the Bill, the Government is determined to uphold the probity of the system. It is a requirement that the board members must not participate in political activity. This is essential to ensure there will be no suspicion of political interference in the work of the PAS.

Part 4 sets out the provisions relating to recruitment licences. The commission will consider applications for recruitment licences from the chief executive of any public service body which is within the remit of the commission. Recruitment licences may be granted for particular positions and each licence will also include the terms and conditions upon which the licence is held. Licence holders may delegate all or part of the task of recruitment to the PAS. In those circumstances, the chief executive of the PAS, rather than the licence holder, will be responsible for adherence to the terms of the licence. The commission may issue instructions and advice to licence holders in situations where it forms the view that an aspect of the recruitment process has been or is likely to be compromised. The commission may amend or revoke a licence if necessary. Where it is deemed necessary to revoke a licence and a recruitment process is already in train, the commission will have the power to make transitional arrangements.

Part 5 sets out the obligations applying to candidates in respect of recruitment and selection procedures. Candidates taking part in competitions within the civil and public services have important obligations, which the Government wants to set down in statute. This Part of the Bill prohibits in any public service recruitment, selection or promotion competition the provision of false information, canvassing, bribery, personation and any interference with the competition. A person engaging in such activities is guilty of an offence. If a person who has been found guilty of such an offence was or is a candidate at a competition, he or she will be disqualified as a candidate. If he or she has been appointed, he or she will forfeit the appointment.

Part 6 deals with selection for promotion and provides that the Minister for Finance, following consultation with any relevant Minister, may ask the PAS to hold promotion competitions for civil servants or other public servants. Part 7 sets out the powers and responsibilities of the Minister for Finance and other Ministers in respect of recruitment and selection.

Part 8 contains technical provisions dealing with transitional arrangements, repeals of legislation and consequential amendments of legislation. Anything commenced but not completed before the establishment day by the Civil Service and Local Appointments Commission may be continued and completed after that day by the PAS if it relates to the conduct of a competition or by the commission in all other cases.

The First Schedule to the Bill lists a number of scheduled occupations. Recruitment to such occupations is outside the remit of the Bill, although the Minister for Finance may make an order bringing them within its remit at some future point. The Second Schedule to the Bill sets out consequential repeals, revocations and amendments to Acts and statutory instruments.

As I said at the outset, the Bill will introduce important reforms in recruitment to the civil and public services. The management of recruitment in any organisation can affect every aspect of its work. It can affect the way its customers see it and it will affect the way its employees work. The argument that an organisation's culture can be shaped positively if its recruitment process is handled properly is particularly relevant to public service organisations.

The civil and public services advise the Government and implement its policies on behalf of the community. Public service recruitment must continue to be open and fair, and to be perceived as such by the public. All members of the community who apply for a post in the public service must feel that their applications will be treated without prejudice. If this were ever to change, the effect on our public service would be serious. It would alter the way our public and political institutions operate and it would change the nature of public life for the worse.

The Government is determined to continue to modernise the recruitment system, but it will not undermine the trust and confidence, which the public has in public service recruitment. The civil and public services must be in a position to recruit the staff they need quickly and efficiently. They need to be able to compete with the private sector in selecting their staff from the best available people. Without the ability to act in this way, the quality of service available to the public will suffer. The Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) Bill 2003 meets these requirements. The amendments made to the Bill in the Dáil copperfasten the integrity of public service recruitment and address the specific concerns, which have been raised. I commend the Bill to the House.