Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Under section 159 of the Local Government Act 2001, each Chief Executive is responsible for the staffing and organisational arrangements necessary for carrying out the functions of the local authority for which he or she is responsible. My Department oversees workforce planning for the local government sector, including the monitoring of local government sector employment levels. To this end, my Department gathers aggregate quarterly data on staff numbers in each local authority on a whole time equivalent basis. However, granular data, in terms of the specific grade of each individual staff member is not collected and consequently is not available in my Department. The relevant information would be available from individual local authorities.

Staffing numbers for the local authority sector are available on the Public Service Numbers databank, which is hosted and maintained by the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (DPENDR) and is available at the following link:

databank.per.gov.ie/Public_Service_Numbers.aspx?rep=LA

During the period 1 January 2023 to end January 2024, my Department approved 1027 staffing sanction requests from local authorities for new posts above agreed workforce plan numbers across various local authority functional areas including housing (122 posts), planning (164 posts), fire (134 posts), integration support (107 posts), water quality (39 posts) and many others.

While my Department has responsibility for processing staffing sanction requests from local authorities, the recruitment and filling of posts in the local authority sector is undertaken both by individual local authorities and the Public Appointments Service. Following the approval of a staffing sanction request it is then a matter for the Chief Executive, who is responsible under Section 159 of the Local Government Act 2001 for the staffing and organisational arrangements necessary for carrying out the functions of the local authority for which he or she is responsible, to progress the appointment as appropriate.

I understand that the Local Authority Sector is currently in the process of finalising updated workforce planning guidelines, based on the guidelines prepared by the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform. Local Authorities will commence the preparation of new workforce plans alongside the development of Corporate Plans following the forthcoming local elections.