Public Sector Reforms

Nidot

Hi all,

I was just reviewing some of the agruments which have been ongoing about the levels of work in the public sector.

Alot of the agruments revolve around the issue of reform of our public services. This issue is also used by union leaders such as David Begg in order to explain why a paycut was not the way forward and rather a reform of the public service would of been better.

What I am wondering, and I would like geniune asnwers to this now, easpecially from public servants employed across the country, is what are these reforms he refers to?

Are these reforms in how work is carried out or assigned? Or are the reforms in how the public service is staffed?

Regards

Nidot

DiarmaidGNR

Nidot wrote: »

Hi all,

I was just reviewing some of the agruments which have been ongoing about the levels of work in the public sector.

Alot of the agruments revolve around the issue of reform of our public services. This issue is also used by union leaders such as David Begg in order to explain why a paycut was not the way forward and rather a reform of the public service would of been better.

What I am wondering, and I would like geniune asnwers to this now, easpecially from public servants employed across the country, is what are these reforms he refers to?

Are these reforms in how work is carried out or assigned? Or are the reforms in how the public service is staffed?

Regards

Nidot

I don't know about David Begg, but when Brian Cowen mentions reform he refers to computerization of services to save money and speed the process up.
I totally agree with Cowen, - I became unemployed so I signed on -It took 87 week for me to get my first payment!!!!!!!!!!!!
The dole office was very unhelpful, they open at 10 close at 12, open at 2 close at 4, but the most annoying thing is you spend hours in a queue watching the office workers chat and have the craic with each other while they do little work and ignore the ringing phones. - Anyone that tries to call the cavan dole office will know what I'm talking about.(Call 20 times in a day and the phone rings out everytime, but you know that they are sitting there ignoring the phones!)

That is just one of many examples of public sector incompetence.
Don't get me started on the customs office !!!!
There is no incentive for public sector employees to work hard and do their job right because they know that they are guaranteed a job for life.

rant over..

ei.sdraob

Nidot wrote: »

Hi all,

I was just reviewing some of the agruments which have been ongoing about the levels of work in the public sector.

Alot of the agruments revolve around the issue of reform of our public services. This issue is also used by union leaders such as David Begg in order to explain why a paycut was not the way forward and rather a reform of the public service would of been better.

What I am wondering, and I would like geniune asnwers to this now, easpecially from public servants employed across the country, is what are these reforms he refers to?

Are these reforms in how work is carried out or assigned? Or are the reforms in how the public service is staffed?

Regards

Nidot

didnt they promise us reforms in exchange for benchmarking?

whatever happened to those reforms

Nidot

DiarmaidGNR wrote: »

II totally agree with Cowen, - I became unemployed so I signed on -It took 87 week for me to get my first payment!!!!!!!!!!!!
The dole office was very unhelpful, they open at 10 close at 12, open at 2 close at 4, but the most annoying thing is you spend hours in a queue watching the office workers chat and have the craic with each other while they do little work and ignore the ringing phones. - Anyone that tries to call the cavan dole office will know what I'm talking about.(Call 20 times in a day and the phone rings out everytime, but you know that they are sitting there ignoring the phones!)

I don't know if these are actual reforms which can be implemented, it would be more effective management possibly.

I'm just looking for examples of these reforms so that when I read about a public sector worker explaining their role, I am more aware of how their role can be improved.

Basically I'd like to see a quality review audit of the services and work performed.

Sleepy

This is where we need a government with balls. You don't ask employees if it's alright with them if you make a few changes to how things are done: You inform them of the changes coming and listen to any input they have. If any of the input is worthwhile to the organisation (e.g. that process will cause problem x here or could have a knock on effect to process Y there) you incorporate it into your plan and then proceed.

If the only feedback is along the lines of 'we want more money for that' or 'we're not doing that' you point them to the door with their P45 in hand and thank them for their sevices to date.

Nidot

Lets not have a complete go at public sector workers.

But does anyone have a legitimate example/examples of where these reforms can be made. i.e. you identify a specific problem, you can accurately measure the wasteful resources and then you can implement necessary changes which would result in cost savings.

I don't want a complete PS bashing thread but real examples of wastage, not the sort of well I walked into the tax office and 10 of them were sitting there doing nothing so they should be fired, I want actual visible and measurabel reforms which could be discussed.

Chatelaine

DiarmaidGNR wrote: »

There is no incentive for public sector employees to work hard and do their job right because they know that they are guaranteed a job for life.

rant over..

Well, I work in the public sector, on a fixed-term contract, and don't know if I'll have a job after July this year. . . Not what I'd call a job for life!

Idbatterim

Sleepy hit the nail on the head with his post... I dont understand why such work cant be outsourced to private operators, they would be far more efficient and far cheaper for the taxpayer and at the end of the day they are there to serve us, not to make out lives more difficult which you would swear was their sole purpose in life! I can only imagine the amount of departments that could be privateised!

Nidot

Chatelaine wrote: »

Well, I work in the public sector, on a fixed-term contract, and don't know if I'll have a job after July this year. . . Not what I'd call a job for life!

But isn't that the basis of the fixed term contract, i.e. you have a specified date at which the contract is finished and after this date future employment is based on an extension to the current contract or another contract being offered.

Nobody is saying that contract workers have jobs for life, DiarmaidGNR was referring to fulltime workers in his post I'm sure.

Chatelaine

Nidot wrote: »

But isn't that the basis of the fixed term contract, i.e. you have a specified date at which the contract is finished and after this date future employment is based on an extension to the current contract or another contract being offered.

Nobody is saying that contract workers have jobs for life, DiarmaidGNR was referring to fulltime workers in his post I'm sure.

His post suggested that all public sector employees are guaranteed a job for life - I was just pointing out that some of us aren't! And yes, I do understand the concept of "fixed-term"

ei.sdraob

Chatelaine wrote: »

Well, I work in the public sector, on a fixed-term contract, and don't know if I'll have a job after July this year. . . Not what I'd call a job for life!

then you are part of the unlucky 15% or so of PS workers who are not on a "job for life" scheme

you should thank the unions and the seniors members of PS for screwing you and the country

Sleepy wrote: »

This is where we need a government with balls. You don't ask employees if it's alright with them if you make a few changes to how things are done: You inform them of the changes coming and listen to any input they have. If any of the input is worthwhile to the organisation (e.g. that process will cause problem x here or could have a knock on effect to process Y there) you incorporate it into your plan and then proceed.

If the only feedback is along the lines of 'we want more money for that' or 'we're not doing that' you point them to the door with their P45 in hand and thank them for their sevices to date.

thats how companies in the real world operate, unfortunately the PS have shown themselves to live in a gold-plated bubble

im still waiting on reforms promised all them years ago

Idbatterim

If Labour come looking for a vote from me they will be greeted with 2 words and then told to get off my property!

Nidot

I give up. I wanted to try to have a debate on the reforms and where these reforms could take place in the PS. But it seems impossible to have that.

How can I argue I'm one of the most anti-PS people I know so I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the inability to have in informed debate on the merits and ability of reforms.

Idbatterim

Reform shouldnt be up for negotiation anylonger! its reform or pay cuts. This whole issue is being made overly complicated when its very simple!

ei.sdraob

Nidot wrote: »

I give up. I wanted to try to have a debate on the reforms and where these reforms could take place in the PS. But it seems impossible to have that.

How can I argue I'm one of the most anti-PS people I know so I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the inability to have in informed debate on the merits and ability of reforms.

they could have a system like the private companies with support staff have

where the customer gets a questionare to answer on how they rank various aspects of the service, then this is fed back into the system and the system improved (think of the paypal questionnaires after contacting their impressive support in Dublin, they are hiring btw)

is there any system like that in the PS?

Idbatterim wrote: »

If Labour come looking for a vote from me they will be greeted with 2 words and then told to get off my property!

believe it or not i actually voted for them before seeing how they handled the recent "situation" i dont think i will vote for them again, continuing to rack up huge debts without reform is not an option

ZYX

The obvious reform is performance related pay reviews. Most public servants get pay rises every year for simply still being in the job. So if you work really hard and do a great job your pay will only go up as much as the person next to you who does the bare minimum. These are pay increments. These should be abolished and replaced with performance related pay reviews. The better you are at your job the more you get.

Those with poor performance should not get a pay increment. Persistent poor reviews should result in an offer of retraining or lose the job. It is time to reward those in public service working well and weed out those who aren't.

Nidot

The system you descibed has already been implemented with all public sector workers being evaluated by their managers as part of their annual appraisal.

Unfortunately there never seems to be anyone gaining a below average evaluation and thus all increments are paid with no reason to improve performance above bare requirement.

ei.sdraob

Nidot wrote: »

The system you descibed has already been implemented with all public sector workers being evaluated by their managers as part of their annual appraisal.

Unfortunately there never seems to be anyone gaining a below average evaluation and thus all increments are paid with no reason to improve performance above bare requirement.

so can the evaluations be done by a private and independent company?

edit: wait the unions would scream murder, remember when private driving test instructors were brought in

Chatelaine

ei.sdraob wrote: »

they could have a system like the private companies with support staff have

where the customer gets a questionare to answer on how they rank various aspects of the service, then this is fed back into the system and the system improved (think of the paypal questionnaires after contacting their impressive support in Dublin, they are hiring btw)

is there any system like that in the PS?



believe it or not i actually voted for them before seeing how they handled the recent "situation" i dont think i will vote for them again, continuing to rack up huge debts without reform is not an option

Apologies, Nidot! I would love to see a decent debate on where reforms could be made as well, even though if it were extended to the whole public sector (and not just the civil service), I'd probably end up unemployed! But attitudes on both sides of this particular fence seem to me to be rather old-fashioned.

I worked in the public sector (non-departmental public body - i.e. offshoot of a govt. dept.) in the UK for seven years, and couldn't believe how different the entire PS culture was here when I moved back in 2007. Where I'd worked, we had annual performance reviews, mid-year development reviews, reviews by outside bodies. . . We were even encouraged to get feedback on our work from our clients. APR scores helped to inform individual pay rises, and if you scored badly your payrise was less, sometimes just cost-of-living.

Whereas, where I'm working now, people just get their annual increment without having to show that they've achieved anything during the year, increased their skills, met any objectives. . . It does annoy me when people lump everyone in the public sector together and give us a bad name, but I can understand what's driving them! I've always been committed to working in the public sector because I enjoyed the sense of doing something for the public/community, but that feeling went flying out the window before I'd been back a month. Now I feel like Canute trying to stop the tide rolling in. . .

Idbatterim

Its time the public sector workers actually told the unions to get real, that things cant stay as they are! that changes have to be embraced! As has been said you cant tar all the Ps with one brush! Currently it is a Public v Private sector war! when it should be lower v higher paid Public Sector war!

Nidot

I think the tide keeps on coming...


I feel if protected interests were removed from the arguments i.e. unions, media and government attempting to retain as much power as possible, most people would be in favour of a complete performance and utility audit. It would allow people know what they are doing well and how they can improve.

This of course will never happen due to vested interests.

Sleepy

Some options for reform:

1. Consolidation of IT Support into a central function. The duplication of effort between departments and many of the agencies is massive.

2. Investigate the potential for consolidation of Financial Systems - All the Institutes of Technology run their Financial System from a single server rack maintained by a third party. Each Co. Council has it's own implementation on separate hardware despite a common financial structure.

3. Centralised purchasing of hardware and stricter rules around replacement (i.e. get longer life out of the hardware than many currently are - the amount of mid level workers who replace their laptop on an annual / bi-annual basis is phenomenal when compared to private sector)

4. Assess training budgets - many seem to see training days as cushy numbers and some of the training taken is ludicrous - I've heard of people getting diplomas in photography paid for because they took a few pictures for an internal newsletter. Never mind the amount of staff with MCSE's acquired entirely through expensive training courses etc. rather than using self-paced learning kits.

5. Utilise technology to cut staff levels. A former colleague had implemented a system in a previous job to print cheques on pre-printed stationary and later discovered that someone was sitting down with the printed cheques and manually re-writing them out with a cheque book because the system had replaced her job!

6. Get rid of increments. Have staff increases based on performance appraisals by their line managers who are given inflation-linked budgets to distribute amongst their staff on a percentage basis e.g. a maximum of 10% of staff receive an 'excellent' appraisal, 20% a good, 40% an 'adequate', 20% a 'could do better' (and an inflation only raise), 10% a 'poor' (and no raise). Two/Three successive 'poor' reviews and the employee's contract is terminated. That's just a suggested basic system for illustration purposes, something more complex would probably be required in real life.

There's just a few options, mainly related to my own experiences of providing IT consultancy to public sector bodies.

Nidot

Sleepy,

many of those suggestions are very good and if implemented could produce both savings and improve on productivity.

Good ideas.

ei.sdraob

Nidot wrote: »

I think the tide keeps on coming...


I feel if protected interests were removed from the arguments i.e. unions, media and government attempting to retain as much power as possible, most people would be in favour of a complete performance and utility audit. It would allow people know what they are doing well and how they can improve.

This of course will never happen due to vested interests.

exactly there must be good hard working people in PS but as in any large organisation theres always a bunch of "floaters" who go with the flow and slack of

if someone is doing a good job they should be rewarded for it, and vice versa

the current system just gives more money for no extra productivity, and then there was benchmarking scam

there a reason why the USSR collapsed, there was little incentive to work hard (100% public sector employment and no private sector) once they stopped sending people to Siberia, the stick was removed but there was no carrot in place either

sodaev

Sleepy wrote: »

Some options for reform:

1. Consolidation of IT Support into a central function. The duplication of effort between departments and many of the agencies is massive.

2. Investigate the potential for consolidation of Financial Systems - All the Institutes of Technology run their Financial System from a single server rack maintained by a third party. Each Co. Council has it's own implementation on separate hardware despite a common financial structure.

3. Centralised purchasing of hardware and stricter rules around replacement (i.e. get longer life out of the hardware than many currently are - the amount of mid level workers who replace their laptop on an annual / bi-annual basis is phenomenal when compared to private sector)

4. Assess training budgets - many seem to see training days as cushy numbers and some of the training taken is ludicrous - I've heard of people getting diplomas in photography paid for because they took a few pictures for an internal newsletter. Never mind the amount of staff with MCSE's acquired entirely through expensive training courses etc. rather than using self-paced learning kits.

5. Utilise technology to cut staff levels. A former colleague had implemented a system in a previous job to print cheques on pre-printed stationary and later discovered that someone was sitting down with the printed cheques and manually re-writing them out with a cheque book because the system had replaced her job!

6. Get rid of increments. Have staff increases based on performance appraisals by their line managers who are given inflation-linked budgets to distribute amongst their staff on a percentage basis e.g. a maximum of 10% of staff receive an 'excellent' appraisal, 20% a good, 40% an 'adequate', 20% a 'could do better' (and an inflation only raise), 10% a 'poor' (and no raise). Two/Three successive 'poor' reviews and the employee's contract is terminated. That's just a suggested basic system for illustration purposes, something more complex would probably be required in real life.

There's just a few options, mainly related to my own experiences of providing IT consultancy to public sector bodies.

Some good common sense stuff there but from the IT perspective you'd have to wonder what the Local Government Computer Services Board is there for if not to co-ordinate and oversee these types of thing.

ei.sdraob

Sleepy wrote: »

Some options for reform:

1. Consolidation of IT Support into a central function. The duplication of effort between departments and many of the agencies is massive.

2. Investigate the potential for consolidation of Financial Systems - All the Institutes of Technology run their Financial System from a single server rack maintained by a third party. Each Co. Council has it's own implementation on separate hardware despite a common financial structure.

3. Centralised purchasing of hardware and stricter rules around replacement (i.e. get longer life out of the hardware than many currently are - the amount of mid level workers who replace their laptop on an annual / bi-annual basis is phenomenal when compared to private sector)

4. Assess training budgets - many seem to see training days as cushy numbers and some of the training taken is ludicrous - I've heard of people getting diplomas in photography paid for because they took a few pictures for an internal newsletter. Never mind the amount of staff with MCSE's acquired entirely through expensive training courses etc. rather than using self-paced learning kits.

5. Utilise technology to cut staff levels. A former colleague had implemented a system in a previous job to print cheques on pre-printed stationary and later discovered that someone was sitting down with the printed cheques and manually re-writing them out with a cheque book because the system had replaced her job!

6. Get rid of increments. Have staff increases based on performance appraisals by their line managers who are given inflation-linked budgets to distribute amongst their staff on a percentage basis e.g. a maximum of 10% of staff receive an 'excellent' appraisal, 20% a good, 40% an 'adequate', 20% a 'could do better' (and an inflation only raise), 10% a 'poor' (and no raise). Two/Three successive 'poor' reviews and the employee's contract is terminated. That's just a suggested basic system for illustration purposes, something more complex would probably be required in real life.

There's just a few options, mainly related to my own experiences of providing IT consultancy to public sector bodies.

thats roughly what was done in the semistate ESB in last few years, it was broken into several companies with IT, HR etc being put into "Shared Services" division, removed alot of duplication and allowed each dept and subcompany to concentrate on their own well defined goals

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Quandary

I worked in IT as a Systems Administrator for over 5 years in the private sector. Sometimes i attended seminars on various new technologies on behalf of my employer and would meet up with other Sys admins from other companies/ govt depts. We would all eat lunch together,chat about our jobs and compare responsibilities etc etc. Any public service Sys Admins i met had very very cushy jobs (they admitted this themselves). I was chatting to one lad in particular - after telling him what my day to day workload was like his jaw hit the floor and told me in his dept they had 5 Sys Admins to complete a similar work load!!!IT is just one area of the PS where job replication is rife.

Of course there are lots of people working in the PS who work their asses off and are a credit to their dept but they get dragged down by the coasters.

ParkRunner

ei.sdraob wrote: »

where the customer gets a questionare to answer on how they rank various aspects of the service, then this is fed back into the system and the system improved (think of the paypal questionnaires after contacting their impressive support in Dublin, they are hiring btw)

is there any system like that in the PS?

http://www.onegov.ie/eng/Publications/Irish_Civil_Service_Customer_Satisfaction_Business_Survey_2006.pdf

This is from 2006, when the private sector was rolling in it and enjoying a perceived boom..how attitudes change when things go bad!

I agree that there is room for more reforms in the public sector to make it more efficient with advancements in technology and the overlapping of some agencies with others.

Where I work in the public sector we have a new IT system designed and ready to be rolled out but the funds just aren't there at the moment to actually bring it on stream. It is a bit of a chicken and egg scenario as some reforms need an initial large investment to get them put in place but some just cannot be afforded at the moment.

By the way I would love to see this IT system come in as it would make my job easier, interaction with other sections of the public sector easier and it would improve customer service no end. Also neither the staff nor the unions are blocking such reforms, it is the lack of funds that is stopping this much needed reform.

The results of this survey provide an objective account of business attitudes towards, and satisfaction with, the Civil Service and the services it provides. They indicate that the vast majority of those who have had contact with a Civil Service Department or Office are satisfied with these services. In terms of the Public Service Change and Modernisation programme, it would appear that the Civil Service is delivering and improving on quality customer service. Services are perceived to be more convenient than in 2002 and, as one might expect with greater convenience, there are high levels of contact with Civil Service Departments and Offices amongst business customers. The Civil Service is also perceived as more efficient than in 2002. There is also a significantly greater perception of efficiency within the Civil Service amongst businesses compared to 2002, and a much greater level of advocacy amongst business customers.

The survey demonstrates that differences exist in how business customers contact and conduct business with the Civil Service compared to the general public. Businesses are more inclined to use e-mail to contact the Civil Service, while the general public have a greater preference for contact in person. However, as noted above, the perceived convenience of contact methods is vastly greater than 2002. E-mail is perceived to be convenient by 73% of all respondents, compared to 63% in 2002, and the same proportion (73%) perceive Internet contact to be convenient, compared to 56% in 2002.
For those involved at the frontline in service delivery, such as civil servants who deal with customers directly on a day-to-day basis, it is worth noting the high levels of reported satisfaction with the staff responsible. Civil Service staff are perceived by customers to be courteous, knowledgeable and professional.

Finally, given the high levels of satisfaction reported here, it is clearly important that the Civil Service continues to provide at least these levels of delivery to its customers and, furthermore, identifies ways in which it can improve and develop its service. Efforts to improve the experience of business customers will need to focus on the positive and negative characteristics associated with particular services or Departments/Offices. While this level of detail is beyond the remit of this survey, itis precisely such information that is necessary to provide direction for the improvement of the Civil Service customer experience for businesses.

Tragedy

In my hospital, very little has been done to computerise/streamline decades old systems.

A couple of examples;

The filing room(where they keep all charts) has approx ~200,000 paper charts, all of which are kept in an archaic numerical filing system which makes actually getting them a nightmare.

Goods inwards: All delivery dockets and internal deliveries are done by paper

Purchasing: All in hospital requisitions are done on paper requisition sheets, which have to be filed away under one system, and when delivered, filed away under another system.

IT: Has one project manager, 3 network admins, one network admin manager, three helpdesk staff, one helpdesk supervisor, a deputy it manager and an it manager.

Could easily be brought down to one network admin, three helpdesk staff and one IT manager cum project manager.

doc_17

ei.sdraob wrote: »

didnt they promise us reforms in exchange for benchmarking?

whatever happened to those reforms

benchmarking is reversed due to income/pension levies and pay cuts.