Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

521. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the average time it takes for a recruitment process by the Commission for Public Service Appointments to be completed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37462/23]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Commission for Public Service Appointments (CPSA) was established under the Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) Act 2004. The Commission is the principal regulator of recruitment and selection processes within the public service. It has a statutory role to ensure that appointments in the organisations subject to its remit (that is, those that fall under the authority and scope of the Commission) are made on candidates’ merit and as the result of fair and transparent appointment processes. Its primary role is to ensure probity and fairness are at the heart of public service recruitment. While the CPSA can deal with complaints from candidates about selection processes they have participated in, it does not undertake recruitment itself and therefore has no direct responsibility for the operation of any particular recruitment process, including the timeliness of any such process.

The Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) Act 2004 also established the Public Appointments Service (PAS) and gave it powers regarding the undertaking of recruitment for the civil service and certain other public service bodies. These powers include responsibility for operational issues in recruitment in the public service bodies for which PAS has remit.

PAS is the centralised provider of recruitment services to the Civil Service, as well as to over 150 public bodies in Ireland. PAS carries out recruitment campaigns for a wide range of public sector bodies across the civil and public service. PAS, through publicjobs.ie, conducts recruitment for clients in a range of sectors: for the civil service, An Garda Síochána, the Irish Prison Service, the Health Service Executive (HSE), for local authorities, for other public services and for State Boards. The types of roles for which campaigns are conducted are extremely varied; they range from campaigns for high-volume entry-level administrative positions through to the most senior executive and State Board positions. These roles are filled by a mixture of large volume campaigns creating multi-annual panels and smaller scale individual campaigns.

Depending on the nature of the campaign (volume of applicants, level of position, administration versus specialist, etc.) a range of different assessments may be utilised which can affect the length of a campaign (these include psychometric testing, short-listing, written exercises, role or group exercises and interviews).

*Advertising for individual competitions is sometimes extended due to nature of specialist roles, this additional time is not included in these figures.

** From advertising date.