THE GOVERNMENT is seeking to reduce the number of personnel in management grades in the Civil Service and to give their traditional responsibilities to more junior staff.
The move to reduce the number of staff at assistant principal level and above and to revise areas of responsibility is set out in new proposals drawn up by the Department of Finance for the implementation of the Croke Park agreement in the Civil Service.
The plan will be discussed with trade unions today.
The revised plan for the Civil Service says that department and State bodies will review how work is organised and the grade level appropriate to particular tasks “to ensure that work is carried out by the most appropriate teams and at the lowest appropriate levels within each organisation and to eliminate unnecessary grade drift in decision-making”.
“Teams will be built or work distributed where necessary across existing or traditional functional or geographic demarcations. This will include revising departmental grading structures and creating and expanding cross-functional reporting arrangements or cross-functional teams.”
The plan says that areas where this will occur are the Departments of Agriculture, Communications, Environment, Health, Social Protection and Education, as well as in the Office of Public Works and the Property Registration Authority.
The new plan says that overall Civil Service numbers are to be reduced by 1,600 to 34,600 over the lifetime of the Croke Park deal which runs until 2014.
It says that redeployment of staff will take place between departments, non-commercial State agencies or other public service organisations.
The new document also states that with immediate effect there will be open competitions for positions at the highest level in the Civil Service and in State agencies.
It says that the Top Level Appointment Committee, which oversees appointments at senior level in the Civil Service, is to be reformed. It is to have an external chair and have increased representatives from outside the Civil Service.
The plan also says that the opening hours of public offices operated by some departments such as Social Protection, Foreign Affairs, Environment and the Probation Service will be extended or varied. It also states that departments and offices will, where necessary, revise standard hours of attendance and shift patterns.
The plan says that the controversial time off given to many staff to cash cheques has now been eliminated and a revised policy on the traditional privilege days given on top of holidays to Civil Service personnel at Christmas and Easter will be completed by the end of next month.
The plan says that, although there has been substantial change in the Civil Service in the past, change must now be pursued more urgently and directly over the lifetime of the Croke Park agreement so that a smaller number of staff “can meet those challenges despite a reduced staffing cohort working in fewer organisations from a reduced number of locations”.
It says that significant progress has already been made in relation to some reforms such as a revised sick leave management scheme, elimination of out-dated work practices such as bank time and the introduction of a standardised cut of pay at a fifth weekly rate for every day absent from work.