Dealing with Civil Service's problems in a transparent manner will ease public hostility, writes Garret Fitzgerald.
THE GOVERNMENT'S proposals for reform of the public service are welcome. This matter should have been tackled much earlier but, while there is force in this argument, it may be easier to make progress with such reform at a time of crisis like the present.
Despite the commitment and dedication of many public servants, there is a mood of hostility to the public service. As a result, a reduction in its size and/ or a pay cut for its workers is being presented in the media as the most popular remedy for our financial crisis.
Part of this reflects public frustration caused by the first, flawed public service benchmarking exercise, which lacked transparency and which, by ignoring the public service pension factor, awarded increases in pay that were not objectively justified. Although that was partly remedied in the second round, that blunder has ever since rankled with public opinion.
There is also a widespread belief that the Civil Service and the HSE's administration are overstaffed. In the case of the HSE, it is difficult to dispute this allegation because the body incorporated nine health boards. This merger should have been accompanied by a substantial reduction in administrative staff, especially at the higher level.
Unfortunately, to smooth the way for this merger, a weak government succumbed to trade union pressure, and, as a result, there are quite a number of under-employed senior HSE executives.
The Minister for Finance has expressed surprise that, despite this, the HSE has employed 1,900 additional administrative staff since it was established. Yet, despite reports in recent months of an impending redundancy programme, no action seems yet to have been taken to deal with this problem.
The OECD has said our Civil Service is relatively small among developed countries. Nevertheless, in any sizeable organisation, public or private, there are bound to be areas where numbers could be reduced without damaging the services.
The Government's proposal to move towards creating a single public service and facilitating mobility in the system, if effectively implemented - and we have been weak in implementing such schemes - should help to resolve such issues.
Numbers in the public service have grown by 55 per cent since 1991, over twice the 25 per cent growth in our population in that period. However, of this 117,000 increase in numbers, 80 per cent is accounted for by education (43,000) and health (49,000).
The growth of the actual public administration, at central and local level, accounts for only one-fifth of the total increase.
At what stage in this 17-year period did most of this increase take place? The rate of increase was low during the early part of the Celtic Tiger period - only 3,000 a year - but after Charlie McCreevy replaced Ruairi Quinn as minister for finance in 1997, the rate almost quadrupled to an average of 11,500 a year. It fell back to 7,000 a year after Brian Cowen became minister for finance.
I have found that there are two features of our Civil Service, as reported in the media, that infuriate the public, and which must be dealt with in any reform.
The first is an alleged abuse of merit payments, introduced several years ago for certain categories of higher civil servants. It has been reported - without, so far as I am aware, any rebuttal - that in some departments these payments were used not to reward individuals giving exceptional service, but were spread around equally to benefit all those in the relevant grade.
If this is not true, it should be publicly denied, and if it is true, the public should be told which departments have so acted, and taxpayers should be reassured that it will not happen again.
The second matter is the publication of investigations into reports by the Comptroller and Auditor General about incompetence or mishandling of financial matters involving loss of taxpayers' money.
In some of these cases, it appears those involved have not been held responsible for their actions, and in certain cases have even been promoted afterwards. I feel that all reports of such investigations should be accompanied by information about what action has been taken, and how those responsible have been dealt with.
I raise what some may view as a niggling problem because it is precisely such matters that create a climate that facilitates damaging media campaigns against the public service.
I am aware of how much we owe to the skills, dedication and sheer hard work of tens of thousands of public servants. I feel it is important that, as we tackle whatever problems may exist in this sector, this process is not distorted in the media.