Decentralisation

pete

holly_johnson wrote:

Does anyone know what building in Ballsbridge he is referring to selling??

The Veterinary College, I believe.

holly_johnson

pete wrote:

The Veterinary College, I believe.

That's a relief.. for me at least. Are there staff in that building or is it just DCU?

The_Conductor

holly_johnson wrote:

That's a relief.. for me at least. Are there staff in that building or is it just DCU?

UCD you mean I think
No one left in the building- the school was moved out to Belfield. If my memory serves me right the building was condemned?

The_Conductor

AHCPS report of the decentralisation meeting last week

holly_johnson

smccarrick wrote:

UCD you mean I think
No one left in the building- the school was moved out to Belfield. If my memory serves me right the building was condemned?

Oops me bad... sorry

NewDubliner

Finance have just advertised 'Kildare only' AP and HEO competitions in CMOD for people with some IT experience:

https://www.publicjobs.ie/cand/JobDetails_eng.asp?JobID=949&hdnGUID=&hdnJobID=593

https://www.publicjobs.ie/cand/JobDetails_eng.asp?JobID=950&hdnGUID=&hdnJobID=594

I wonder how this affects the existing job-holders or has Finance sanctioned itself for additional posts?

Doctor Benway

smccarrick wrote:

UCD you mean I think
No one left in the building- the school was moved out to Belfield. If my memory serves me right the building was condemned?

Well there's no one in that building now anyway - it's been flattened by OPW contractors.

There's also the Old Faculty Building on the same site (and, let's face it, it's the site that's being sold rather than the building) which houses some Justice people who were moved out there when the building on Stephen's Green was sold off. They're due to move back into town in the New Year (to Ardilaun House, behind the Unitarian Church and to the Bank of Scotland building on Harcourt Street, as well as to a couple of other places in the general area).

NewDubliner

The AHCPS have just published updated stats received from Finance. Details of rejected offers yet to come:http://www.ahcps.ie/decentralisation/Decentralisation%20Update6Oct05.rtf

....The overall situation is that there are 7212.5 civil service jobs to decentralise but only 3741 applications from Dublin. This leaves a Dublin surplus of 3471.5. An additional 3094 staff already in the provinces have applied to relocate elsewhere down the country.

3. In the general civil service the total number of jobs decentralising is 6179 in respect of which there are 3370 applicants from Dublin (a shortfall of 2809) with 2732 staff in the provinces wishing to change their decentralised locations....

uncivilservant

Doctor Benway wrote:

houses some Justice people who were moved out there when the building on Stephen's Green was sold off.

actually if memory serves they were moved out there temporarily while their old building on Stephen's Green was "renovated" for them.... until TP decided to sell it off, that is.

The_Conductor

Hot off the presses- from the PSEU

mrhappy42

Hot of the presses...so much detail and so little conclusion. I hope the members realise their dues are paying for this...I'd be more worried about value for money from the PSEU than the goverment.

eigrod

smccarrick wrote:

Hot off the presses- from the PSEU

2 years after the initial announcement, there is finally an element of a feasibility study.

Alas it :

a) was not carried out in advance
b) not carried out by the project sponsor [ ie Dept of Finance ] but by the staff representatives

But I guess there has been plenty of evidence recently of how project management should be carried out in the 21st century :rolleyes:

Firetrap

From the Breaking News in today's (Saturday) Irish Indo
Parlon criticises decentralisation budget

16:01 Saturday October 8th 2005

The Government's decentralisation plans are being criticised again, this time by one of its own, Junior Finance Minister Tom Parlon.
Minister Parlon said that Charlie McCreevy's original budget proposals were 'overly ambitious'.

Under the plan, thousands of civil servants should have been relocated to more than 50 locations around the country within three years.

However, Mr Parlon did say that decentralisation offers the biggest ever opportunity for civil servants to work where and in what department they want.

================================================


Even the "Minister for Decentralisation" is turning on the plan! I would like to know what he means by "decentralisation offers the biggest ever opportunity for civil servants to work where and in what department they want". What about all the staff in offices who are already working where they want and don't want to move to the middle of nowhere???

NewDubliner

allie_e17 wrote:

From the Breaking News in today's (Saturday) Irish Indo
Parlon criticises decentralisation budget
... Parlon did say that decentralisation offers the biggest ever opportunity for civil servants to work where and in what department they want.

So that was the plan all along? And, it costs HOW MUCH? :eek:

From www.tomparlon.ie, statement made by Tom Parlkon on September 9th:

"....Progress has been made and is continuing on the acquisition of sites and properties and the time-table set by the Decentralisation Implementation Group can be achieved”.

ishmael whale

One might ask why, given the concern at falling tourist numbers, the board of Failte Ireland are spending their time looking at offices in Mallow. But, then, obviously everything has to take second place to this agenda.

http://www.examiner.ie/pport/web/business/Full_Story/did-sgoo1cKXKf74AsgHuTLc4nqWo2.asp
Fáilte staff want to stay in Dublin
By Seán O’Riordan
PROPOSALS to decentralise 200 jobs to Mallow could take 10 years to complete because Fáilte Ireland staff want to remain in Dublin. Concerns were raised in Mallow yesterday after the chairman and a board member of Fáilte Ireland admitted a number of staff were reluctant to move from their Dublin headquarters to the north Cork town.

……The Fáilte Ireland chairman said she couldn’t, as yet, give a timetable for any move. “I hope it will happen within 10 years, but I can’t say exactly when. Over the next 18 months, it should become a lot clearer,” Ms Bowler said.

Local county councillor Noel O’Connor said he was very concerned at the news. “From what I have heard, I’m not very confident now, but we must still keep lobbying.” ….

Dinarius

Just been thinking about the great vote buying fiascos in my lifetime.......

1. Abolition of domestic rates in 1977. The worst thing that ever happened to local government, starving it of revenue and making this country even more centralised that it ever had been previously.

2. Abolition of university fees. Insane. Feeding the middle-classes that vote them in. It now appears that private schools are having a field day with parents spending money, that they would otherwise have earmarked for third-level, on avoiding the state sector secondary schools which have been starved of resources. (My niece attends a private Dublin school which has a computer room containing 30 broadband connected Macs. The library has a further 15.)

3. Medical cards for the over 70s. I know retired civil servants and retired bank managers who do not need this and there are thousands like them. Again, robbing the poor to feed the rich. We really are the 51st state, aren't we?

4. Decentralisation.............enough said.

With all of these obscenities, it has been shown time and again that, once you let the genie out of the bottle, you can't put it back without great electoral risk. Is it any wonder that the opposition are equivocating so much in the case of decentralisation? Shameful, but what's new?

D.

pete

did someone mention the cartographers?

THE Government has received applications and expressions of interest from civil and public servants to fill less than a third of the 210 Ordnance Survey Ireland jobs it wants to transfer to Dungarvan.

But the Government has only received 15 applications from staff at Ordnance Survey Ireland, which is based in the Phoenix Park, to decentralise to Dungarvan. According to Minister Cowen, the Government has received a further 47 expressions of interest in decentralising to the town from staff working elsewhere in the civil and public service.

http://www.waterford-news.ie/news/story.asp?j=19577

ishmael whale

However, despite the lack of staff for Dungarvan the purchase of a site goes ahead.

Meanwhile SIPTU seem to be stepping up opposition. While anything that frustrates this ludicrous plan is welcome, the problem is this paints decentralisation as an industrial relations matter rather than simply an incredibly stupid way of wasting vast amounts of money to no avail.

http://www.unison.ie/offaly_independent/stories.php3?ca=34&si=1488645&issue_id=13143
SIPTU to fight Birr 390-job decentralisation
Tadhg Carey
deputy editor
The country’s largest union has set its face against the proposed decentralisation of 390-plus FAS jobs to Birr.

SIPTU, at its annual conference last week, adopted a motion seeking the removal of FÁS and all non-commercial state agencies from the government’s “flawed decentralisation plan”. It’s expected SIPTU will now intensify its campaign of opposition to plans to decentralise all state agencies.

The motion was proposed by the union’s State and Related Agencies Branch and seconded by the SIPTU FAS branch -which accounts for over 1,800 of FAS’s 2,350 members. The government is planning to move the entire FAS head office from Dublin to Birr. A date in 2009 has been set for the relocation.

However, Greg Ennis, branch secretary of the FAS branch, told the Offaly Independent internal surveys of FAS head office staff indicated just five had an interest in relocating to Birr.

Dinarius

ishmael whale wrote:

the problem is this paints decentralisation as an industrial relations matter rather than simply an incredibly stupid way of wasting vast amounts of money to no avail.

Very well put.

D.

NewDubliner

ishmael whale wrote:

Meanwhile SIPTU seem to be stepping up opposition. While anything that frustrates this ludicrous plan is welcome, the problem is this paints decentralisation as an industrial relations matter rather than simply an incredibly stupid way of wasting vast amounts of money to no avail.

It's a pity that the unions do not see the waste of taxes being paid by members as an issue in itself.

If past utterances are anything to go by, Tom Parlon will claim that the SIPTU members are just holding out for a deal. He's already insinuated this on Impact.

uncivilservant

Latest update from the PSEU:

Preliminary discussions have taken place between the Department of Finance and the PAS about the procedures to be adopted in respect of staff remaining in Dublin. It is envisaged that Departments will be asked as soon as possible to carry out a survey as to the numbers and grades of such staff. They will be provided with a standard form to be issued to staff which will invite staff to express their preferences for particular organisations in Dublin. An option to express preferences for particular geographical areas in Dublin will also be available. While it is not possible at this stage of the programme to guarantee that all preferences will be available, the PAS will take full account of these stated preferences in offering Dublin vacancies to staff. Departments will be requested to report back to the PAS with the names of staff applying before the end of 2005 to allow arrangements to accommodate staff opting to remain in Dublin to be put into place as soon as possible.

What a wonderful idea.... two years ago.

CJhaughey

Parlon on RTE right now, discussing DC.

NewDubliner

CJhaughey wrote:

Parlon on RTE right now, discussing DC.

Which program? ;-)

RTE1: 22:15 The Mentor
RTE2: 21:30 Screen Two: Scary Movie

ArthurDent

NewDubliner wrote:

Which program? ;-)

RTE1: 22:15 The Mentor
RTE2: 21:30 Screen Two: Scary Movie

Nah, you've missed him - on Prime Time - earlier on.

Masterclass in avoiding answering questions.

pete

ArthurDent wrote:

Nah, you've missed him - on Prime Time - earlier on.

Masterclass in avoiding answering questions.

http://dynamic.rte.ie/av/2084499.smil

RicardoSmith

He didn't answer a single question, even when pressed repeatedly for example on progress in numbers of FAS people who showed interest in Decentralising. Asked specifically for numbers he avoid giving any. So far its 9 out of 400 who have showed an interest. He mentioned that numbers would increase through promotions etc. But thats because if you get a promotion your new contracts includes a bit about you agreeing to decentralise. If you don't agree to that, you don't get the promotion. Very underhand.

NewDubliner

pete wrote:

http://dynamic.rte.ie/av/2084499.smil

It was the most aggressive bit of interviewing I've seen on this issue. The delicate issue of rural businessmen buying up houses and development land so as to profiteer from the incomers was tactfully ignored in passing.

Parlon stonewalled and deflected the hard questions. He even got away with a few distortions. I especially liked the interviewer's question "What part of SIPTU's 'NO' don't you get?".

Pity the ICT plans are not public yet, they would have added some more 'problems & challenges'. No doubt Parlon would have said "It's not my job to negotiate these." He's only interested in dealing in property.

ishmael whale

Again, the only people making the running on this are the unions. The alleged opposition are happily sitting on the fence. Why? At this stage who actually wants to see the decentralisation programme proceeded with?

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1491025&issue_id=13158
Plans to decentralise civil service could cost €65m a year
THE Government's decentralisation plans could top €65m a year, according to the Impact trade union. It has called for an independent investigation into this and says while some locations are over-subscribed with applications, the take-up among specialist staff is very low at just 15pc.
Impact national secretary, Louise O'Donnell, called on TDs to seek an independent investigation of the cost of the programme "before taxpayers' money is wasted". She said: "The next Government waste scandal is unfolding before our eyes but it is not too late to call a halt".
The union says that, going on certified figures which it has released, the cost of retaining the rest of the civil and public servants in Dublin will be between €50m and €65.6m a year.
SPECIALISTS
The Impact report, which was released in last night's Prime Time programme on RTE, says: "If decentralisation goes ahead as currently planned, the civil service will need to recruit 876 additional specialists to carry out existing functions in the new locations."
It adds: "Our analysis also shows that, on a conservative estimate, the taxpayer will be burdened with ongoing costs of between €51.1m and €65.6m each year in respect of a similar number of technical and professional civil servants who will remain in Dublin with no obvious role."
Impact says the 876 specialist posts include engineers, architects, probation officers, valuers and agricultural inspectors. The Impact cost analysis only covers payroll and accommodation costs of the staff concerned.

pete

pete wrote:

http://dynamic.rte.ie/av/2084499.smil

"an explosion of civil servants around the country"?

I guess that'll answers the "what'll you do with them all?" question. Chilling stuff.

ishmael whale

pete wrote:

"an explosion of civil servants around the country"?

I guess that'll answers the "what'll you do with them all?" question. Chilling stuff.

The programme is pretty good in identifying a lot of the cost concerns, and the risk of depleting skills. The point that decentralisation doesn’t really do anything of substance for the target locations wasn’t really made, there was just a few standard thick gombeens saying “it’ll be great having a few more bodies in the Centra leaving through my overpriced copies of Car and Driver” without anyone challenging the point that this would actually give any boost to local economies. It’s a little frustrating when debate on an issue of national importance ignores basic facts from the Leaving Cert economics syllabus.

The massive costs were underlined, and the impracticality of moving staff out of Dublin. But the question of what those massive resources might achieve if devoted to some useful purpose related to regional development could have been asked.

My overall conclusion was Parlon can waffle on the programme because the issue is, mostly, being looked at as an IR issue. The pure uselessness of the policy is not being addressed strongly enough.

pete

ishmael whale wrote:

The programme is pretty good in identifying a lot of the cost concerns, and the risk of depleting skills.

Unfortunately it fell into the trap of treating the majority of those affected (ie "general service" admin grades) as being one giant amorphous, interchangeable blob of humanity.

The report implied that the loss of acquired corporate knowledge, skills and experience was only cause for concern for those in "technical" grades, and presented decentralisation as a harmless fait accompli for the rest of the plebs.

Not so.

ishmael whale

pete wrote:

The report implied that the loss of acquired corporate knowledge, skills and experience was only cause for concern for those in "technical" grades, and presented decentralisation as a harmless fait accompli for the rest of the plebs.

Not so.

Indeed, you are making a necessary clarification. I take, also, that the Sunday Times article below is somewhat inaccurate in saying that 3,741 people working in Dublin have applied to move with their job. I take it what that should read is 3,741 people working in Dublin have applied to move to a regional location, but very few of these will be actually moving with their own job. The vast majority will be moving to an unfamiliar job, for which they will needed retraining.

However, at least the article gives some coverage to the fact that the programme depends on relocating people already in regional locations to make up the numbers.

That said, I would like to see some commentary on what the same resources could achieve if devoted to public transport, social housing and/or regional development to clarify how utterly wasteful and useless moving a few thousand people out of Dublin is as a means to “relieving congestion in the transport and housing markets and, at the same time, giving a fillip to rural areas.”

I know I’m like a broken record, but this constant focus on the application process cloaks the utter pointlessness of the policy. Even if the programme was inundated with applications from civil servants wanting to move with their Departments, it would still make no sense to do it.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2091-1838762_2,00.html
Decentralisation plans a farce, says civil service

ALMOST half the Irish civil servants who have applied for transfers under the government’s decentralisation scheme already live in the country.

New figures show that the controversial plan has done little to encourage civil servants working in Dublin to decamp to the country. Some 7,212 civil service jobs are being moved from the capital with a view to relieving congestion in the transport and housing markets and, at the same time, giving a fillip to rural areas.

But, according to the latest numbers, only 3,741 people working in Dublin have applied to move with their job.

Some 3,094 staff based in rural Ireland, however, have indicated they would like to change jobs, using the decentralisation scheme to move from one region to another. …..

NewDubliner

ishmael whale wrote:

... this constant focus on the application process cloaks the utter pointlessness of the policy... .

Tom Parlon said last week that the scheme will enable 'public service reform'.

uncivilservant

From an article in last Saturday's Westmeath Examiner.

Minister of State Tom Parlon met with officials from IMPACT following their report. The Minister, together with officials from the Department of Finance listened to the views of the union representatives in regard to the various staffing issues, such as staff transfers, training, career opportunities and indeed the concerns of those who choose not to opt for decentralisation and remain in Dublin.

The Minister reiterated that this Government policy will be implemented in full.

“I can understand the concerns of the members of the union and am confident that any and all of the issues raised can be resolved through detailed discussions between the Department of Finance and Union officials. Progress has been made and is continuing on the acquisition of sites and properties and the timetable set by the Decentralisation Implementation Group can be achieved.”

“I can understand the concerns of the members of the union..."!?!??!

No, Tom. Apparently you can't.

NewDubliner

uncivilservant wrote:

From an article in last Saturday's Westmeath Examiner.

Tom Parlon's version of the meeting is quite different, he leaves out all the awkward questions that might upset fans of his web site. His account was published on September 9th: http://www.tomparlon.ie/news.php?id=10

NewDubliner

Ian Campbell of Silicon Republic offers some good fair insights into the PPARS disaster at http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single5599 plus this aside about the effect of Decentralisation on ICT management:

....Someone somewhere in the bowels of the Government must be wondering what impact decentralisation will have on all of this, because one school of thought thinks consultants are going to have a field day. The majority of the Government's internal IT employees are reluctant to move to new locations, so no prizes for guessing who will be brought in to fill the gaps.....

NewDubliner

From 'Silicon Republic' http://www.siliconrepublic.com/

Wishful thinking by the ICT industry for a decentralisation windfall?

Govt to dominate IT spending in Ireland

08.11.2005 - The Government is five times more likely to increase IT spending in 2006 than the entire rest of the Irish market, according to the annual IDC Trends and Expenditure in Ireland survey.
This is the first time that there has been such a stark contrast between public and private sectors, according to IDC sales manager Keith Gaffney who advised an audience of vendors to allocate as much of their resources as they could to the public sector.

The possible caveat is that the survey took place between May and June this year, prior to the fallout from the PPARS affair. Gaffney conceded that it could have some impact on the IDC predictions though experience has taught the analysts that while there is often a short-term effect when high-profile IT disasters occur, the long-term impact on spending is negligible. He did warn, however, that the Government plan to introduce ministerial sign-off around IT projects would almost certainly slow down the implementation process.

Of the 301 interviewees taking part in the survey, 49 were from the public sector. Participants included 13 government departments, several local government departments and a single health organisation.

Highlighting what ID described as a “bullish” attitude, 62pc of government departments said they expected it to increase their IT spend in 2006 compared to only 42pc in the private sector.

The growth comes after something of a slowdown in 2004, which IDC attributes of a number of factors. “Decentralisation was somewhat of an inhibitor for spending people didn’t know where they were going to be and what infrastructure was required,” said Gaffney. “We think there’s now some light at the end of the tunnel as far as decentralisation is concerned. And hardware refresh will be more necessary that will further drive spending.”

When the public sector was asked what areas of IT were most likely to receive additional investment, security came out top followed by mobile computing, wireless networking, content and document management and e-commerce.

The survey revealed that the public sector was twice as likely to spend on these solutions in the next 12 months than the rest of the market.

Gaffney described the projected government spends as “a massive opportunity” for Ireland’s ICT vendor community. IDC said the total IT market in Ireland was now worth €2.2bn.

By Ian Campbell

holly_johnson

I suppose we should be grateful that us civil servants don't live in Burma....


Burma's military rulers have begun the relocation of civil servants and central government ministries to an isolated compound near Pyinmana, hundreds of miles north of Rangoon.

In a statement to diplomats yesterday, Kyaw Thu, deputy foreign minister, said the regime had decided to move the entire government to remote Pyinmana to help with the "formidable tasks of building a modern and developed nation throughout the whole country and, in particular, the border areas".

The +Burmese regime selected Pyinmana, halfway between Rangoon and Mandalay and surrounded by mountains and dense forests, as a "command and control centre based at a strategic location central in the transportation and communication networks of the entire country".

While construction of the complex has long been an open secret, few believed the move would take place.

Government officials, many of them civilians, were reportedly devastated on Friday when relocation orders were unexpectedly issued to 10 ministries, including foreign affairs, home, commerce, health, transport, and communications.

The first convoys of trucks with office equipment and personnel moved out of the capital at the weekend.

Rangoon residents said civil servants were warned they would be charged with treason if they sought to avoid the move by resigning from their poorly paid jobs.

In its statement, the foreign ministry advised diplomats: "If you need to communicate on urgent matters, you can send a fax to Pyinmana."

NewDubliner

Another gem from http://www.tomparlon.ie, Tom's claiming to be creating 390 new jobs in Birr....I thought that these were the existing jobs of people who live in Dublin....

Press Release - 22/10/2005 - MINISTER PARLON WELCOMES POSITIVE NEWS ON FAS SITE

Tom Parlon, T.D., Minister of State at the Department of Finance with special responsibility for the Office of Public Works today welcomed the news that FAS and RESPOND have reached agreement in principal relating to the purchase of a site for the decentralised FAS headquarters, a 5.6 acre site in Cappaneale, Birr.

Tom Parlon, T.D., Minister of State at the Department of Finance with special responsibility for the Office of Public Works today welcomed the news that FAS and RESPOND have reached agreement in principal relating to the purchase of a site for the decentralised FAS headquarters, a 5.6 acre site in Cappaneale, Birr.

Minister Parlon said, “At last agreement has been reached between both parties on the site layout and the deal can now be concluded. The site is being sold for €275,000 pre/acre and the difficulty was with regard to positioning in relation to the new road that is being constructed to connect Banagher and Tullamore This site will become the new Headquarters of FAS and will, no doubt, bring increased investment and vitality to the town of Birr, along with 390 new jobs. Some people have doubted the commitment of this Government to the decentralisation process but I feel this is a clear signal that the process is underway and continuing at pace”.

“I would like to pay tribute to both FAS and Respond on their co-operation and hard work to see that this agreement was reached and also Offaly Council who were pivotal to discussions. While these negotiations, which took place over the last few months have at times, proved protracted and arduous, successful completion of this deal has always been the priority of all involved”

“All of us who have been involved of this from the start can be proud of this agreement, the real benefit of these hard negations will be felt by the people Birr and the surrounding areas. Birr is an ideal location as the Headquaters of FAS, which has offices throughout the country. I am now looking forward to FAS pressing ahead in the construction of their new facility. I will now be calling on FAS to send an advance group of staff to Birr, where temporary offices are available in the technology centre, while the new building is being constructed ”

samb

Does anybody know whether they will employ more civil servants as a result?

I don't think it would be such a bad thing, they could retrain them and stop hiring so many rip-off consultants. Don't have much hope of this with the ideology of the PD's in power

NewDubliner

samb wrote:

Does anybody know whether they will employ more civil servants as a result?

I don't think it would be such a bad thing, they could retrain them and stop hiring so many rip-off consultants. Don't have much hope of this with the ideology of the PD's in power

Here's what will happen in ICT: New people will be hired to fill seats in the rural offices. The existing experienced people will be assigned to non-jobs in Dublin.

'Consultants' (contractors) will then be hired to do the jobs the new hires will be too inexperienced to do. Work will be sub contracted to China by the consultants.

Once the newly hired ICT staff are experienced, they'll be offered non-ICT jobs. This is common practice in the Civil Service.

ishmael whale

I’ve only one quibble with this article. The lack of volunteers for decentralisation isn’t a cause for concern. It’s a cause for relief, as it’s the only thing holding this utterly wasteful scheme back.

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/opinion/2005/1202/40312964OPLEADECENT.html
Decentralisation
02/12/2005
The number of public servants willing to relocate from Dublin under the Government's decentralisation programme is a cause for concern. The quality of public administration is under threat from this half-baked scheme and no proper cost/benefit analysis has been conducted to justify the risks. Loss of corporate knowledge and disruption of services are practically guaranteed.

The cavalier response by the Minister of State responsible for decentralisation, Tom Parlon, is par for the course. The Government, he said yesterday, would have no difficulty in filling "early mover" posts. But filling public service posts with inexperienced officials must not become the purpose of this exercise. Improving the quality of service to consumers, securing better value for money and providing more effective administration is what the public wants.

Just a year ago, the Government effectively acknowledged that its plans to relocate 10,000 public and civil servants out of Dublin by 2007 were unworkable. Instead, 2,000 officials would be appointed to local offices by the end of 2008. However, many of those who have applied for these positions already work in decentralised offices. An extremely poor response has been forthcoming from senior officials. Figures secured by Fine Gael show that only one in nine plans to move with their existing jobs under a programme that envisages the decentralisation of eight government departments. That is a worst-case scenario. Some officials may be prepared to transfer to a separate agency or to a different department. However, the figures emphasise continuing difficulties with this badly-planned and politically-motivated exercise. And they pose a danger to good governance by fragmentation of policy-making.

Some €300 million has been raised through the sale of State properties to fund the programme. But while that might help to pay for new offices, the loss of experienced staff across a broad swathe of the public service could do incalculable damage to the economy. Many young public servants favour the programme since it offers an end to long commutes and promises better promotional prospects, cheaper housing and a better quality of family life. But middle and senior management, settled in Dublin and with children at university, are fiercely opposed. Among "early movers", only 7 per cent of staff at the Department of Tourism will leave Dublin for Killarney. Five members of Fás want to fill 250 jobs in Birr. And there has been no take-up whatsoever from Fáilte Ireland and Bord Iascaigh Mhara for positions in Killarney and Clonakilty. The Government should revise its plans.

© The Irish Times

Dinarius

Ishmael,

Who wrote that?

Thanks.

D.

ishmael whale

Dinarius wrote:

Ishmael,

Who wrote that?

Thanks.

D.

Don't know - its their editorial.

The_Conductor

With the Department of Agriculture still on the list for an early move to Portlaoise, and the Houses of the Oireachtas clambering to take over the Department of Agriculture HQ on Kildare Street - personnel officers and the Department of Finance have been desperately seeking new avenues of finding alternate meaningful employment for the soon to be surplus staff.

A once in a life-time offer has issued to Dublin based staff (at up to EO level) offering them the chance to transfer to the Department of Transport and become Driving Testers. (Its only open to staff up to EO level as the max of the tester salary scale is below the max of the Executive Officer salary scale).

Apart from the usual rules and requirements that apply to joining the civil service (lack of criminal conviction etc) the only qualification that is required is to have a full clean European driving licence (and preferably a reasonable knowledge of the rules of the road). Applicants must be available to attend a 6 week training course starting in early February and be willing to transfer Departments immediately. The posts of Driving Tester are located throughout the country, there is no guarantee that a position will be offered to any candidate in their chosen location.

Applicants are requested to reply urgently to (named), Personnel Officer.

Does a full clean driving licence mean no endorsements, or no penalty points? Sounds like a possibility- but not for me, no thanks..... I'm still trembling at the thought of the terror teaching my sister to drive was......

eigrod

smccarrick wrote:

A once in a life-time offer has issued to Dublin based staff (at up to EO level) offering them the chance to transfer to the Department of Transport and become Driving Testers. (Its only open to staff up to EO level as the max of the tester salary scale is below the max of the Executive Officer salary scale).

What half-wit came up with that idea ?

Can we all submit ideas of what to do with the Dublin surplus ? Perhaps to start us off :

• become a roadsweeper between the hours of midnight and 6am ?
• Join up as an army reservist ?
• wheel oiler for the trollies in the A&E departments ?
• ASBO enforcer ?

As Mr. Parlon becomes more desperate, this project becomes more frightening.

ishmael whale

Is there actually anyone left who thinks the proposed decentralisation programme is worth pursuing?

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1520150&issue_id=13371&printer=1
Two years on: Government's €3bn decentralisation is going nowhere. Some state agencies and government departments could grind to a halt under plans for decentralisation, confidential documents reveal. ….Internal Fas memos show the agency is seriously concerned about losing its top staff if it moves to Birr, Co Offaly. In the Department of Foreign Affairs, where senior diplomats with Development Co-operation Ireland (DCI) have refused to move to Limerick, documents show grave concern about its ability to operate if it loses experienced development aid specialists. The problems facing the two bodies are mirrored in almost all other specialist units.

Labour's finance spokesperson Joan Burton, who obtained the documents under the Freedom of Information Act, last night called on the Government to scrap its entire decentralisation plans and go back to the drawing board. "Decentralisation can work and it does work, but this was a political stroke and it was never costed or thought out," she said. "The eventual cost to the taxpayer will be €2bn to €3bn, money that could be better spent on health, education and front line services that people desperately need," she said. ….

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1520272&issue_id=13371&printer=1
…. The problems in FAS represent in microcosm the massive difficulties facing the whole decentralisation scheme. In letters obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, FAS management have warned of a "brain drain" of quality staff if they are forced to move. FAS director general Roddy Molloy says they could replace staff by taking civil servants from other departments but this would lead to "mismatch between those available to work in Birr and those needed". ….

Notes of internal soundings of staff show they are at best lukewarm and at worst openly hostile to the move. The notes say staff expressed concern that the agency's own decentralisation plan ignored the needs of those that do not wish to locate. A 'them and us' approach is evident, they say, adding that the move is both discriminatory to Dublin people and anti-family. ….

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1520192&issue_id=13371&printer=1
…. Seven senior diplomats at counsellor grade are required to run the Development Co-operation Ireland unit. Six senior officials from other departments have applied to go to Limerick but the department has been reluctant to take them. The unit, which controls a budget of more than €500m annually, works with NGOs and co-ordinates aid on behalf of the Irish Government. In a letter to the Department of Finance's decentralisation implementation group dated October 12, officials spelled out in clear terms the problems the department is facing. It warned that the unit could lose as much as 86pc of its existing staff if the transfer to Limerick was to go ahead. "The loss of senior management and corporate memory will have an adverse impact in the short term," the letter says.

…Other documents suggest the physical distance from Dublin will create difficulties in dealing with foreign government embassies, NGOs and other aid agencies. The documents stress it will be necessary to keep a 'liaison office' in the capital. … Diplomats spend over half their careers abroad on foreign postings, and flexibility in moving around is part of their job. Internal memos have highlighted this as a major problem in recruiting senior staff from other departments, as those staff would not have such flexible work arrangements.

delboy159

"Is there actually anyone left who thinks the proposed decentralisation programme is worth pursuing?"

Probably the 3,300 Civil Servants based in Dublin who have been treated as if their lives are stitches in the political football that decentralisation has become.

What about the spouses of these people who are equally as excited about the opportunity, and who also feel as hopeless and doubtfull about the whole process because of the negativity and political messing that has occured .

The 11,000 people who applied for the Executive Officer exams recently - using a new regionalised recruitment process - which could give thousands of people "not in the Civil Service", but who would be delighted to have a permanent pensionable job close to their home. I don't know how many of the 11,000 applied for outside Dublin (I have no doubt its over 5,000 and close to 8,000 or 9,000) - thats a lot of people that want decentralisation to happen.

I agree that specialised posts (professionals, diplomats etc) should not be decentralised, due to the fact the short term negative effects are so major they outweigh any long term benefits.
However, decentralistion of general grades and the majority of the "general service" has many business and social and cultural benefits for the Departments, Dublin and the Rural areas that are receiving them.

People tend to ignore this, and focus on any negative aspects they can.

Aidan1

I agree that specialised posts (professionals, diplomats etc) should not be decentralised

All civil servants are professionals, and the vast majority work in specialised positions, of one form or other. Some 'back office' type work can easily be decentralised, but not whole Depts, which is one of the main problems with this 'plan'.

NewDubliner

Aidan1 wrote:

Some 'back office' type work can easily be decentralised,

Such as IT? That has very low takeup.

ishmael whale wrote:

Is there actually anyone left who thinks the proposed decentralisation programme is worth pursuing?

The Sunday Business Post donated major column inches to Tom Parlon's spin doctor: http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqid=10185-qqqx=1.asp

delboy159 wrote:

People tend to ignore this, and focus on any negative aspects they can.

Just because some people might benefit does not make it right to waste billions of taxpayer's money.