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 strategic 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.

I understand that the local government 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 strategic workforce plans alongside the development of Corporate Plans following the forthcoming local elections. Given the independent role of the Chief Executive in relation to staffing matters, my Department has no role in collating such specific, individualised data.