Written answers

Wednesday, 23 March 2011

Department of Finance

Public Service Recruitment

9:00 pm

Photo of Mary Lou McDonaldMary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 37: To ask the Minister for Finance the personnel from outside the current system that will be brought into the public sector as per the programme for Government; the number of new personnel expected to be brought in; the proposed grades of these new personnel; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5398/11]

Photo of Michael NoonanMichael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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In regard to public sector reform, the Programme for Government 2011 set out the following: the introduction of new personnel from outside the current system, particularly experts in change management. New talent and skills brought into the Department of Finance; new skills and rigour brought into policy-making across all Departments. All appointments at Principal Officer level and above will be open to external competition and at least one-third of such appointments will be reserved for candidates from outside traditional civil service structures for a 5-year period.

As the Deputy is aware, there is a recruitment and promotion moratorium in place in the Civil Service, local authorities, non-commercial State bodies, the Garda Síochána and the Permanent Defence Forces. Decisions in respect of future recruitment campaigns will be taken in the context of the business needs of the relevant organisation, the moratorium on recruitment and promotion and any redeployment arrangements agreed for the civil and public service. Open competitions have always been held for recruitment to entry level grades of Clerical, Executive and Administrative Officer. The Social Partnership Agreements, Sustaining Progress and Towards 2016 , made provision for open recruitment to other Civil Service grades under the themes of Public Service Modernisation. A number of open competitions at Principal Officer, Assistant Principal Officer and Higher Executive Officer levels have been held since 2003.

The current situation is that appointments at senior level are already open to external applicants. It is already the case that for some grades, more than one third of appointments are offered to external candidates. Applicants from outside the Civil Service who make it to the final stages of the competitions do well.

In late 2010 the Revenue Commissioners recruited, by open competition, Principal Officers and Assistant Principals with relevant skills (taxation, IT, audit) and Solicitors. This resulted in a very significant proportion of appointments from the private sector. This shows that once there is a clear and targeted identification of specific skills to suit the needs of the organisation that appointments may be made, and are made, of people with the skills required, whether from public or private sector.

In relation to the grades above Principal Officer, since early 2007 the policy has been that open competitions are held for Assistant Secretary, Deputy Secretary and equivalent posts. More recently this policy has been extended to Secretary General Posts, with the exception of a limited number of Secretary General posts which are filled by the Government without a TLAC competition. In 2010, from 12 competitions for posts at Assistant Secretary level, the TLAC recommended the appointment of three candidates from outside the civil service, two from the private sector (one of whom did not take up the post) and one from the public service.

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