Public servants face 10-week benchmarking deadline

PUBLIC servants face a 10-week deadline to prove hey have made improvements to work practices sufficient to warrant payment of the next round of benchmarking awards.

Close to €1 billion is due to be paid out from January 1, 2004, in the second installment under benchmarking, but employees must show by the end of October that they have introduced radical changes in terms of modernisation and flexibility before the payments will be approved.

Plans detailing how 27 Government departments and civil service branches will implement the changes, which they committed to under the Sustaining Progress partnership , were published yesterday.

By the end of October they will also have to have submitted progress reports to the Civil Service Performance Verification Group which will announce on December 1 if the groups have made the grade. Kevin Gaughran, assistant general secretary of the Civil and Public Service Union, said he did not anticipate any difficulties meeting the targets.

“There are presentational issues around the affordability of benchmarking but whatever way they present it, at the end of the day the Government signed up to these payments and we expect they will be made.”