Howlin backs penalties for civil servants who underperform

Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin has thrown his weight behind a drive to penalise poor performance by senior officials in Government departments.

Months after he cut public pay in the Haddington Road agreement, the Minister has also said efforts are required to boost Civil Service morale.

While “Trojan work” should be recognised by paying bonuses, he also argued that people who do not do their job effectively should face sanctions.

Mr Howlin wants progress on this front this year. He will flesh out his thinking in an official paper and open the question to public consultation. He aims to provide greater certainty over who answers to whom in Government departments and establish clearer lines of accountability.

In an interview with The Irish Times, Mr Howlin made it clear the power to impose sanctions for poor performance should come in tandem with rewards for "recognised work done".

Previous efforts
While he hopes to achieve this by agreement with workers, previous efforts to assess civil servants' work have fallen flat.

The current system was deemed a failure after a 2012 review found the performance of only 0.08 per cent to be “unacceptable” and a mere 0.84 per cent were found be in need of improvement.

“I think we need to do that so that we devolve responsibility as well as accountability,” the Minister said.

Any bonuses would be modest, and sanctions would apply only to senior grades. “What I’m saying is that there should be much more clarity about the level of performance, obviously above a certain grade.”

“We’re not going to hold a clerical officer to account for everything they do but where you have lines of responsibility there should be an accountability as well.”

However, he declined to elaborate on the extent or force of any new sanctions.

Varadkar
While Mr Howlin's Cabinet colleague Leo Varadkar says there should be powers to sack officials for poor performance, Mr Howlin indicated he would operate within the current system. "I mean we don't have a situation where we fire public servants, but where people are demonstrably not doing the job, I think there has to be sanctions available," he said.