Moves will be made over the next few weeks to fill three of the most senior human resource management positions in the public service, writes Gerald Flynn.
The three vacancies are for a director of human resources for the troubled Health Service Executive (HSE); an assistant secretary in charge of industrial relations and employment rights at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment; and a new secretary general for public service personnel and remuneration at the Department of Finance.
The positions could influence and shape employment relations for more than 300,000 public servants over the next seven to 10 years. The first two positions have been advertised while the third vacancy, for the effective head of the public service, will be filled through a Government appointment.
The current secretary general for personnel and remuneration, Eddie Sullivan has been in the position since May 2002, a few weeks before the first public service benchmarking report was published. Behind the scenes he and his deputy Ciarán Connolly have been the key negotiators for Sustaining Progress and the current Towards 2016 national pay agreement with the powerful public service unions.
Officially, the job is secretary general for public service management and development. It involves not just managing pay and pensions policy, but also trying to moderate the rising public pay costs from increased staff numbers, benchmarking awards and the review of higher remuneration for senior public servants and politicians.
Following last month's review of pay for senior public servants, this job will now command a salary in the range of €270,000 to just over €300,000. The likely appointee will be a civil servant at secretary or assistant secretary level.
The assistant secretary for employment rights and industrial relations is at the eye of the employment rights issue, which private sector trade union leaders have made a "make or break" issue for continued tripartite wage agreements.
While the vacancy is open to applicants from the private sector, the appointee will be someone with "a proven ability to drive and inspire people in a regulatory environment", which stacks the odds very much in favour of someone who is a career public servant. The salary is within a range of €132,000 to €151,000, with a potential annual bonus of up to €30,000.
They will be in charge of meeting the extensive pledges in the Towards 2016 agreement, including the promised appointment of 90 labour inspectors by the end of next month, and the thorny issue of regulating agency workers and tactical redundancies.
This is top of the menu for Siptu chiefs who are making further partnership talks contingent on much tighter employment regulation.
If these two jobs seem challenging, they are a lot less testing than the latest attempt to find someone to take up the role of director of human resources within the HSE. This is the third attempt to fill this key position since October 2004.
A serious disagreement over the remuneration led to the departure of a preferred candidate in January 2005. Health manager John Magner took over in an acting role while the new single health service tried to find a chief executive.
Prof Brendan Drumm was eventually appointed to that post on a personal salary of €360,000 plus a €72,000 bonus. Shortly afterwards, the HSE lost its most experienced senior executive when Pat McLoughlin resigned from his post as deputy chief executive. For the past two years, former civil servant Martin McDonnell has been the second acting HR director.
His tenure has been a difficult one, with industrial relations within the health sector probably worse now than at any time over the past five years.
The bitter nurses' stoppages and disruption has been followed by the high-profile "light bulb" craft workers dispute in Munster and general staff resistance to cost-saving measures over the past two months, not least by Siptu members in Limerick.
This is against the background of the protracted four-year discussions on a new contract for hospital consultants with the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association, which is holding out for shorter hours and a basic salary of €250,000.
While no salary has been included in the job advertisements, it will be capped at the €170,000 recommended by the recent public sector remuneration review. There is also potential of an annual, non-pensionable, bonus of up to €34,000. A further sting is that the new HR director will also be given responsibility for the costly and doomed Ppars pay and personnel system which is now renamed as the "HR Business Solutions system".
In addition the director will have no fewer than 15 assistant HR directors to co-ordinate.
For those feeling up to the challenge, applications close next Thursday.
Gerald Flynn is an employment specialist with Align Management Solutions in Dublin. gflynn@alignmanagement.net
