THE GOVERNMENT has signalled that it may require staff from State agencies to transfer into the Civil Service as part of the new public sector reform programme.
Separately, health service management has indicated that it wants personnel to work over an expanded day running from 8.00am to 8.00pm as part of the new reform plans.
Management indicated that this would mean an end to existing arrangements under which premium or bonus payments are made to staff for working after certain hours in the evening.
Following a series of meetings yesterday on the public service transformation programme, trade unions said they believed that co-operation with redeployment proposals was the biggest change being sought by the Government.
The Government believes that redeployment arrangements are necessary to facilitate the planned new incentivised early retirement and career break schemes in the public sector which are designed to reduce the State’s overall payroll bill.
Unions believe that the facility to move State agency personnel into the Civil Service could be needed if the forthcoming report by the so-called An Bord Snip proposes the abolition or merger of a number of such bodies.
Unions also believe the Government will press for the facility to move staff from one local authority to another or between health service agencies.
Union sources said that Government officials had maintained yesterday that the overall public service transformation programme would be on a scale which had not been experienced before.
At talks yesterday, Government officials discussed reform proposals for the Civil Service as well as the health and education sectors.
There was also a plenary meeting between trade unions and Government officials on the overall operation of the reform proposals.
It is understood that at meetings yesterday senior trade union leaders expressed disappointment that the reform proposals put forward over the last week by senior officials on the public service management side had been vague.
Sources said that union leaders had argued that it was essential that management got to the core of the change proposals and that these be “drilled down” in further talks to determine how they would affect staff members in each sector as well as on services.
Union leaders also pressed for an “audit” to be carried out to show the public the benefit of the changes as part of the reform plans.
At the plenary meeting on the transformation programme yesterday, it was decided that further talks should take place on reform in individual sectors of the public service – such as the Civil Service, local authorities, education and the health service – over the next fortnight.
The talks on Civil Service reforms dealt exclusively with redeployment proposals. According to a number of sources, it was at these discussions that management indicated that it may require staff to transfer from State agencies into the Civil Service.
Union sources also said that management had mentioned social welfare services as one area which had a need for additional staff which could be made available through redeployment.
At the health sector talks, unions criticised the unilateral move by the HSE on Tuesday evening to suspend applications for the early retirement and incentivised career break schemes because of instructions by unions to members not to co-operate with redeployment proposals.
The HSE believes that this facility is critical if it is to deal with the reduction in staff numbers as a result of personnel availing of these schemes.
At the talks, the HSE signalled that it wanted to operate services over an expanded day from 8.00am to 8.00pm.
However, the length of the working week for individual employees would remain the same. Hospital consultants, under their new contract, are already rostered to work between 8.00am and 8.00pm.
