Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Question 163: To ask the Minister for Finance the number of civil servants within his Department at the grade of assistant principal or higher; the number of whom were recruited to those roles from outside of the Civil Service; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20676/08]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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The number of officers within my Department at the grade of Assistant Principal or higher, and the number recruited from outside the civil service are as follows:

Mary Upton (Dublin South Central, Labour)
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Question 164: To ask the Minister for Finance the amount of money spent in 2005 to recruit three candidates from 2,737 applicants from an open higher executive officer competition; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20693/08]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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Traditionally the recruitment grades to the civil service were at Clerical Officer, Executive Officer and Administrative Officer (graduate) levels. Appointments to the middle management grades of Higher Executive Officer and Assistant Principal and more senior management grades of Principal Officer and above were made exclusively through internal promotion processes and therefore were confined to serving civil servants.

These arrangements changed as a result of the National Partnership Agreement Sustaining Progress 2003-2005. In this agreement arrangements were put in place for open recruitment into the civil service at Higher Executive Officer (HEO), Assistant Principal (AP) and Principal (PO) levels. The quota of vacancies to be filled was to equal the number of staff who had resigned from the civil service in the previous year to take up positions in the private sector or elsewhere in the public sector.

As a direct result of this agreement recruitment campaigns open to all qualified people were launched in 2003 and 2005. These campaigns were initiated to fill the vacancies that arose as a result of civil servants leaving to take up positions in the private or wider public service.

For the 2005 Open Higher Executive Officer Competition 2,737 applications were received. Based on the agreed criteria in Sustaining Progress it was determined that 3 positions were due to be filled. The Public Appointments Service could, if the need had arisen, have filled many more vacancies from this campaign.

While initially small in number, the establishment of the principle of open recruitment to higher grades is an important one in the context of the public service modernisation programme. Subsequent National Agreements have now significantly increased the quota of people who can enter the civil service at senior management grades from outside the system.

Costs:

For reasons of efficiency and economies of scale the Open HEO campaign was run alongside a number of other campaigns (Open AP and Confined AP). This meant that test centres were shared as indeed were staff costs and advertising costs. It is not possible therefore to be definitive and apportion specific costs to the HEO campaign component alone.

The approximate cost for the running of this particular HEO campaign was €37,000. This included: equipment hire, staff costs, staff expenses, venue hire and advertising.