Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the procedures whereby some vacancies in the public service are filled through redeployment; the circumstances in which other positions are filled through transfers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2084/13]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Public Service Agreement 2010-14 (Croke Park Agreement) provides for agreed redeployment arrangements to apply in the Civil Service and in other parts of the public service. Under the Agreement, redeployment generally takes precedence over all other methods of filling a vacancy and supersedes any existing agreements on the deployment of staff. It sets out the agreed redeployment arrangements within the Health, Education, and Local Authority sectors and within and between the Civil Service and Non-Commercial State Sponsored Bodies (NCSSB). It also provides that cross sectoral redeployments will follow the arrangements agreed for the NCSSBs.

The Public Appointments Service (PAS), which has day-to-day operational responsibility for the implementation of redeployment, has put in place a system of Resource Panels of Civil Service and State Agency staff to support the redeployment processes in those sectors agreed under the Croke Park Agreement. Posts to be filled by redeployment are offered in the first instance to the relevant panel or panels. It is a matter for the employer to identify the number and grades of posts to be redeployed in the first instance and to upload the posts onto the PAS panels. Employers can do this early in the redeployment process to maximise the opportunities to place their staff. There is no set time-limit within which individuals awaiting redeployment must be redeployed.

To ensure an effective system, Personnel Officers in sending and receiving organisations have put dedicated Redeployment Liaison Officers in place to proactively manage the redeployment of staff. In addition, my Department works on an ongoing basis with PAS and other stakeholders to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the redeployment processes and of the panel system in particular.

Civil Service departments and other public service organisations vary in relation to the approaches they adopt to the transfer of their own staff between locations and no centrally agreed approach is applied. There are no formal arrangements in place within the civil service to facilitate requests for transfers to other locations/employments, except in the case of grades represented by the Civil & Public Services Union. Transfers for these (mostly Clerical and Staff Officers) are arranged in accordance with formal procedures agreed with the Staff Side at General Council under the Conciliation and Arbitration Scheme for the Civil Service.

Transfers between grades in the civil service can be arranged on an informal, head-to-head, basis. Such transfers are arranged between the officers seeking to move and the relevant Personnel Units and require the agreement of both Personnel Officers. The arrangements for the other Public Service sectors are a matter for the relevant parent Department in each case.