Aside from the front line services however…

The public service is wildly over staffed at the administrative and so called management levels. Some article I read recently said there were over 2000 people employed in Human Resources alone in the health service!! And the payment people are taking home from grade 4 (junior admin) upwards is by private sector standards absolutely scandalous considering the lack of formal qualifications or actual professional experience in some functions. And this is despite a pretence at competency based recruitment.

In the private sector a generalist in HR in a stand alone role might if they are lucky take home €45-50k PA in total, based in a 40 hour week with 20 days annual leave plus public holidays, with no other benefits, demanding at least an undergraduate honours degree if not a masters degree and professional accreditation in an SME with say 500 staff. And if they don’t do their job well they will be fired. And if their organisation needs to cut headcount by redundancy they are as likely to lose their job as any other employee in the private sector. And if their organisation needs to make pay cuts they are as likely to have to take a cut in pay or work reduced hours but still get the job done as any other private sector worker.

A person with no formal 3rd level qualification at grade 4 in the health service pay scale can expect to take home over €40k!! Plus a long list of benefits and compensations better leave flexi-time paid sick leave job security and so on and so forth.
To be a senior HR manager, grade 7 or 8 all you need to have is enough time served in any area of the organisation to land a role, you do not need specific qualifications or accreditation or even relevant professional experience and can earn over €95k PA based on a 33.45hr week 33 days leave plus public holidays and having a staff of 4 and basically only really dealing with a head count of the average small company. Add to this the pensions and paid sick leave which is almost viewed as additional annual leave, flexi-time annual pay increments which have no bearing on competence capability or performance and countless other benefits which you just don’t get in the private sector and job security – heaven forbid we enforce involuntary redundancy (in the way it is all too common in the private sector) I’m surprised anyone wonders why the country is broke.

There is no accountability and no such thing as performance related reward, a culture of ass covering and passing the buck and a serious cultural problem in respect to the manner in which people communicate with each other in the workplace and no concept of innovation or strategic thinking or working. But then they are employees of the government or are government supported on the same model and out of the above list of characteristics it is hardly any wonder that such attitudes and behaviours filter down, is it?!

And some of you wonder why private sector commercially focussed workers ie: people with qualifications and professional accreditations in profit based organisations have a problem with the headcount and the salary levels of public sector workers.

I doubt that Roisin ever contemplated a career in the public service herself considering the pay and conditions are so good. Once upon a time it was looked on as an alternative route to middle class when access to third level was much more restricted. Now it is a target for the vitriol of the private sector.Apply the same terms of employment to the public sector as in the private sector .. Who in their right mind will work in the public sector except those with some mislead notion of vocation? That is a virtue you won’t find in the money grabbing private sector. .. a sector where the euro is God. You can turn out as much anti public sector propaganda as you want but come to terms with the fact that we are all in this mess together.. Both sectors need each other to function. I for one am tired of the absolute cheek of those elite business people that continue to pontificat from their ivory towers. Everyone else should suffer to maintain them in the lifestyle they are accustomed too. Getting to the level of pay talked about is subject to a long series of increments. .. Another area of complaint from the private sector. I agree that there are way too many middle managers. I also agree that many of the top managers are paid too much. Public servants have been patient, we have shed staff and taken substantial paycuts … Keep pushing the envelope and we’ll eventually walk out … Someone else can look after your elderly mother, your addicted son, check your food for contaminants..i think an all out strike is about all that will garner some respect for the work we do.