Civil Service

stevoman

Ok maybe this will prob end in tears but in the face of "doom and gloom" this question has been or willed be raised.

Do you think its fair that civil servants jobs are safe?

sink

stevoman wrote: »

Ok maybe this will prob end in tears but in the face of "doom and gloom" this question has been or willed be raised.

Do you think its fair that civil servants jobs are safe?

No the employment terms for civil servants are too stringent. It makes it very difficult to implement necessary reform and restructuring. So long as we elect populist politicians this will continue. If a function of the civil service is no longer useful it should be cut, the present situation does not allow for that as they can't make employees redundant and so the fat builds up and the civil service becomes bloated.

Boggle

Another civil servants bashing thread if not managed correctly but...

Do you think its fair that civil servants jobs are safe?

How safe are these jobs really? If things get REALLY bad, surely the cs is going to feel the hit also?
I mean if posters like Pa_El_Grande over on the accom/property forum are proved right and we reach 12%+ employment (apologies if my memory has failed me and pa_el_grande didn't say this or gave a lower number - I think the number given was actually ~16.5%), can we still afford to pay the new (higher) salaries of the civil service AND maintain numbers??

Although this whole point could be negated by accounting for the amount of subcontractors who work for the cs...

irish_bob

stevoman wrote: »

Ok maybe this will prob end in tears but in the face of "doom and gloom" this question has been or willed be raised.

Do you think its fair that civil servants jobs are safe?

it breeds complaceny in general and results in hard working and dynamic civil servants being rewarded no more or less than thier slacker counterparts

aidan24326

stevoman wrote: »

Do you think its fair that civil servants jobs are safe?

No. Civil Service departments should be run on a similiar basis to how a private business is run. The CS is treated as a gravy train in this country, and it's a bit of a joke that no matter how overstaffed and inefficient a public department is, nobody ever gets laid off and it's nigh on impossible to get fired unless you shoot somebody.

Manic Moran

On the other hand, one also has to remember that the Civil Service is an apolitical professional organisation trying to exist in a world controlled by professional politicians. Long-term civil servants are the only people who actually know how anything in particular works, and must be able to speak their minds to politicians (in private) without fear of random removal on some minor or trumped up charge when attempting to explain just why the latest hare-brained idea from the politicians on running all of the Irish rail network on three locomotives and two controllers (Or whatever) just won't work and the politician is a downright idiot for thinking it would.
Civil servants -can- be fired, there's a process for doing it, but rightfully it takes a little more work than an arbitrary 'Pack your bags and go home' declaration from the Minister.

NTM

irish_bob

Manic Moran wrote: »

On the other hand, one also has to remember that the Civil Service is an apolitical professional organisation trying to exist in a world controlled by professional politicians. Long-term civil servants are the only people who actually know how anything in particular works, and must be able to speak their minds to politicians (in private) without fear of random removal on some minor or trumped up charge when attempting to explain just why the latest hare-brained idea from the politicians on running all of the Irish rail network on three locomotives and two controllers (Or whatever) just won't work and the politician is a downright idiot for thinking it would.
Civil servants -can- be fired, there's a process for doing it, but rightfully it takes a little more work than an arbitrary 'Pack your bags and go home' declaration from the Minister.

NTM

you honestly think the civil service is apolitical , everything about it is political

stovelid

No.

The private sector shouldn't have to bear the brunt of recession alone. Nor should the one job sector have to accept pay freezes while the other expects pay rises as a given.

Manic Moran

irish_bob wrote: »

you honestly think the civil service is apolitical , everything about it is political

Leaning which way, would you think? Labour? Fianna Fail? FG? Just whose policies and ideas do you think the Civil Service, as a body, prefers, and why would you think so?

NTM

Belfast

stevoman wrote: »

Ok maybe this will prob end in tears but in the face of "doom and gloom" this question has been or willed be raised.

Do you think its fair that civil servants jobs are safe?

Civil servants jobs are safe are only as safe as the Dail decides.

If a Dáil votes to down size them the jobs are not safe.

Not much chance of that, unless the money turn out even then they may not down sized.

The only difference between the state sector and the private sector, is the private sector companies then to be closed down soon if they are rub badly as the money runs out faster.

ejmaztec

I wonder how bad a civil servant hast to be to get the sack. The last civil servant that I remember, who not only got the sack, but also got a prison sentence, was the Revenue Commissioner guy involved in a huge vat fraud in Limerick a few years ago. He was pounced on prior to he and some others obtaining £3 Million in vat repayments.

In these parts, also a few years ago, another chap in the planning department was in trouble, when it was discovered that he was involved in some very dodgy planning matters e.g. getting planning permission, and for some reason using the names of dead people in the applications. He wasn't sacked, just transferred to another town. In a commercial concern the man would have been out of the door and gone into oblivion, via the legal system.

As far as a civil servant's political leanings are concerned, I suppose most of them leave these at the door when they go to work, otherwise the system would become unworkable.

I worked for an accountant in England during the time of a Tory government, and he was always moaning about a particular tax inspector, referring to him as a fucking socialist. He arrived at this conclusion because the tax inspector always seemed to go after the local toffee-nosed twits who had gone to public schools and lived in stately piles. The tax inspector might not have been a socialist, simply someone doing his job. Who knows.

irish_bob

Manic Moran wrote: »

Leaning which way, would you think? Labour? Fianna Fail? FG? Just whose policies and ideas do you think the Civil Service, as a body, prefers, and why would you think so?

NTM

take for example a case in a hospital some time back where a light bulb was blown and the nurses or baschically anyone who wasnt the janitor refused to change it , they wouldnt change it because it might get them in trouble with some union rep , union politics is all over the civil service , no one gets sacked in the public service because it would be bad for votes and have unions making politicians look bad , again politics

Fratton Fred

Just read some of the reports on FAS in the Indo. Amazing stuff.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/shane-ross/sshh-fas-is-in-the-wars-and-billions-of-euro-are-at-stake-1432130.html

Board members are happy campers too. Chairman Peter McLoone, who doubled as president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu), nets a tidy €24,000 while others receive €14,000. Most directors are ultimate insiders, loyal social partners, four from IBEC and four from the unions.

And what comfort FAS provides for the same insiders! FAS looks after Ibec. In 2006, FAS paid Ibec a €57,000 membership fee.

On top of that, the same IBEC lapdogs received a mammoth €864,000 from FAS -- for "training"!

I gulped, then checked whether the figure carried two noughts too many.

A clear case of corporate necrophilia. Politicians are the third part of this magic circle.

Bad and all as these numbers are, they are more than 18 months out of date.

True to form, FAS has still failed to publish its 2007 annual report, pleading that a "preliminary" electronic copy has been sent to the Government. The completed version is expected by September.

But, on subject, this bit stood out.

Aware that FAS had, generously, awarded a 10 grand bonus to an employee under investigation, I had posed questions on bonuses for the director-general and other staff.

FAS has a €20m per week budget. Shocking.

Manic Moran

irish_bob wrote: »

take for example a case in a hospital some time back where a light bulb was blown and the nurses or baschically anyone who wasnt the janitor refused to change it , they wouldnt change it because it might get them in trouble with some union rep , union politics is all over the civil service , no one gets sacked in the public service because it would be bad for votes and have unions making politicians look bad , again politics

With respect, I think you'll find that such union problems exist in the private sector as well. It's a problem in any organisation which has a union.

My current union object of derision are the various unions involved in Alitalia right now. The airline's about to go under, the government has managed to find some people willing to rescue it, and the unions are all up in arms looking to make sure no jobs are lost, and pay is high. They keep that up, and everyone will be out of a job, and there will be no pay at all.

In any case, that sort of politics is not what I meant by 'apolitical.' Like any organisation, there are internal 'office politics', but this is different from government politics.

NTM

oscarBravo

Manic Moran wrote: »

My current union object of derision are the various unions involved in Alitalia right now. The airline's about to go under, the government has managed to find some people willing to rescue it, and the unions are all up in arms looking to make sure no jobs are lost, and pay is high. They keep that up, and everyone will be out of a job, and there will be no pay at all.

QFT. It's a pattern I've seen over and over again. If/when Alitalia goes to the wall, the blame game will start - as if that will achieve anything.

cyclopath2001

ejmaztec wrote: »

In a commercial concern the man would have been out of the door and gone into oblivion, via the legal system.

Really? I think the private sector is quite good at hiding its skeletons too.

aidan24326 wrote:

No. Civil Service departments should be run on a similiar basis to how a private business is run

That might be possible if the Civil Service was a business. A lot of the waste has been caused by mad-cap vote-winning schemes with no sound value-for-money basis.

Just imagine if Microsoft ran the Revenue, roads were administered by RyanAir and if your health service came from Eircom.

irish_bob

Manic Moran wrote: »

With respect, I think you'll find that such union problems exist in the private sector as well. It's a problem in any organisation which has a union.

My current union object of derision are the various unions involved in Alitalia right now. The airline's about to go under, the government has managed to find some people willing to rescue it, and the unions are all up in arms looking to make sure no jobs are lost, and pay is high. They keep that up, and everyone will be out of a job, and there will be no pay at all.

In any case, that sort of politics is not what I meant by 'apolitical.' Like any organisation, there are internal 'office politics', but this is different from government politics.

NTM

its goverment policy that no one in the civil service is sacked , would mean a loss of votes , i call it the bertie doctrine

ejmaztec

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

Really? I think the private sector is quite good at hiding its skeletons too.

Yes, that goes without saying, but the "skeleton" in my post wasn't hiding, the local press reporting the matter in full.

dresden8

Really? If the capitalist model is so good why is America, the home of capitalism, taking all it's privately owned banks into public ownership to save them from their private capitalism failures?

ejmaztec

dresden8 wrote: »

Really? If the capitalist model is so good why is America, the home of capitalism, taking all it's privately owned banks into public ownership to save them from their private capitalism failures?

Perhaps external forces attacked the US banking system for gain, so the US government is taking control to prevent any further deterioration. Barclays got themselves a nice little bargain in the autumn sale i.e. a chunk of Lehman's US operation at a knock-down price.

They'd keep very quiet about any "dirty doings", if to come clean would show the rest of the world how vulnerable their financial sytem is.

Manic Moran

why is America, the home of capitalism, taking all it's privately owned banks into public ownership

"all"?

Fannie May/Freddie Mac were unusual because they were semi-state bodies to begin with (Created as purely federal bodies back in the 1930s, and made put on the semi-public level in trhe 1960s). Outside possibly of Amtrak, I'm not particularly aware of any other such. AIG was given a loan at 11.5% APR, it's not an ownership takeover.

Have I missed any?

NTM

Esel

Please differentiate between civil servants and public servants. The vast majority of the bloat is in the public service - the HSE in particular.

dresden8

Manic Moran wrote: »

"all"?

Fannie May/Freddie Mac were unusual because they were semi-state bodies to begin with (Created as purely federal bodies back in the 1930s, and made put on the semi-public level in trhe 1960s). Outside possibly of Amtrak, I'm not particularly aware of any other such. AIG was given a loan at 11.5% APR, it's not an ownership takeover.

Have I missed any?

NTM

Ok, so I over-egged the pudding. Nevertheless the fact remains, the guys who called for minimal regulation and government interference, made out like thieves, fecked everything up and then called on big bad government to bail everything out.

Privatised profits and socialized risks. Classic.