is re-employing retired senior public servants a scandal?

sean debuit

Get this: You retire as part of the voluntary early retirement scam for the civil service back in 2010/2011 and then two years later you reapply for your old job, get it and still collect your 60k pension. That would put you on about 100,000 a year. Now it is actually a cutback because at the time of your retirement you were making 110,000 annum (so take a bow or shine a moon, no difference in this case). One of my ex colleagues has just become my colleague again through just such a scheme. Am I jealous that he is making over twice my salary for half the work? Of course not. Xanex doesn't do jealousy.

An Coilean

I believe the idea is that because of the changes in pay and conditions in the civil service, many people aproching retirement were pushed into a decision to retire early, this is what was aimed at, but in some cases it resulted in a brain drain that left some areas short of staff with the required skill set, so some of those that retired were rehired while new people could come through the system with the necessary skills.

Its a temporary stopgap measure to moderate some of the ill effects of government policy, as far as I know.

cosbloodymick

An Coilean wrote: »

I believe the idea is that because of the changes in pay and conditions in the civil service, many people aproching retirement were pushed into a decision to retire early, this is what was aimed at, but in some cases it resulted in a brain drain that left some areas short of staff with the required skill set, so some of those that retired were rehired while new people could come through the system with the necessary skills.

Its a temporary stopgap measure to moderate some of the ill effects of government policy, as far as I know.

It was not early retirement scheme. It forced people to leave their jobs once they had their full time served in order to receive their contracted pension. If you are subsequently rehired in the public sector your salary plus your pension cannot exceed your previous salary.

amen

. If you are subsequently rehired in the public sector your salary plus your pension cannot exceed your previous salary.

what ? you retire from the CS/PS on a full pension, 60K is mentioned (66% above the average industrial wage) and the you are rehired and you take home from the pension + job is now 100K.

While it might be legally correct it is morally wrong.

If you retire from a job with a full pension you should not be back working at the same job.

Hire a new graduate, school leaver et and train them.

Whats going to happen when the person who retired dies ? Will all the knowledge be lost ?

Sand

amen wrote: »

Whats going to happen when the person who retired dies ? Will all the knowledge be lost ?

Graveyards and the civil service are full of indispensable people. A similar amount of life and energy in them too.

But yeah, its a scam. Who covered for these people when they were on holiday? Or sick? These people were closing in on retirement age (about 45 in the civil service isn't it?) and there's *no* succession training? Just more jobs for the boys.

ardmacha

This thread is a typical rant. Someone returns to work for €30k, so the State gets an vastly experienced person for about €12k net. There are plenty of people who could get jobs for €30k and who prefer to stay in bed and live in welfare, yet it is the one who wants to work that everyone is ranting about.

Sand

ardmacha wrote: »

This thread is a typical rant. Someone returns to work for €30k, so the State gets an vastly experienced person for about €12k net. There are plenty of people who could get jobs for €30k and who prefer to stay in bed and live in welfare, yet it is the one who wants to work that everyone is ranting about.

Or they get a burnout back who was doling out their vast experience in the good old days of epic mismanagement in the civil service.

I'd rather hire and promote new workers than bring back someone who retired on a scam. It has to be crippling for morale for the younger workers (i.e. the people in their thirties to forties who might be looking to step up) to see their avenues of promotion and development cut off as dinosaurs are pensioned off through the front door and then wheeled back in through the side door.

camphor

The real scandal was allowing them retire in the first place. The other scandal is that the methods of training i.e. "on the job" and "swim or sink " are no longer appropriate in the current era when people move around more. In the days of slow movement people could pick it up as they went along because there was always someone with enough experience to keep things going. It took the British Army till the Boer war to realise that they needed to have much better staff training and they just couldn't rely on chaps coming in from the public schools and being shown the ropes.

guillespe

One of the many factors as to why emigration of irish people is so bloody high..And job bridge eating up whats left of the jobs market..

**** joan burton and enda kenny and their coalition..*****

petronius

Retired public servants win both ways
pensioned off
then rehired - this is a scandal
if they are needed then they should not be allowed retire or should be incentivized to stay not pensioned and rehired which must be more expensive
any early retirement plan should exclude people from being rehired if they avail of it

Jawgap

Well before you blaming the 'returnees' it might be worth bearing in mind that a lot of these people (indeed, the vast majority) will have flagged months in advance that they are retiring - which leaves plenty of time to arrange proper succession planning.

The Civil / Public Service are crap at organising succession planning which means you end up with solutions being cobbled together at the last minute.

It has always been thus, and thus it will ever be - basically everyone knows what the problem is, everyone knows what the solution is, but given a choice between implementing a proper reform programme and just pushing through a few ol' wage cuts, the higher-ups decided to be populist and go with the wage cuts.

.....and the next crop of senior managers will change nothing because they'll want to avail of the same arrangements- if the government wanted to be properly innovative they should start promoting on merit rather than seniority [/RANT]

creedp

petronius wrote: »

Retired public servants win both ways
pensioned off
then rehired - this is a scandal
if they are needed then they should not be allowed retire or should be incentivized to stay not pensioned and rehired which must be more expensive
any early retirement plan should exclude people from being rehired if they avail of it

Of course its a scandal in many people's eyes .. in fairness anything that involves paying PS from my taxes is a scandal for many