Confusing admissions of failure simply don’t add up
Take decentralisation. It was on Budget Day in December 2003 that the then finance minister Charlie McCreevy unveiled arguably the most ambitious reform in the history of the civil and public service. Eight government departments and the Office of Public Works were to be relocated outside Dublin, meaning 10,300 civil servants would be moved from the capital to 53 centres around the country.
But decentralisation was bogged down by delays almost from the start. It was also the cause of many raised eyebrows, observers wondering how government departments could function effectively if spread throughout the country.
The Government carried on regardless, stubbornly insisting decentralisation would work. Yesterday, it became one of the first victims of the economic squeeze, the Government announcing that “further expenditure for the acquisition of accommodation for decentralisation will await detailed consideration of reports from the Decentralisation Implementation Group”.
This means the Government has called a halt to the programme, effectively. And the ease with which it has sacrificed decentralisation — at least temporarily — arguably demonstrates how unnecessary it was in the first place.
Decentralisation, only partly achieved and now stalled, is truly a mess of the Government’s own making.
It’s not the only one. There is to be a “targeted surplus staff reduction scheme” in the Health Service Executive. This comes less than a week after the Government confirmed it was changing the HSE management structure, to make it less centralised and return more decision making to regional directors. No matter what spin the Government put on it, that was an admission that the HSE was not working properly.
Now comes a second admission of failure: if there truly are “surplus staff” in the system, why did the Government wait so long to do something about it? And how much money has been wasted up to now?
The Government stands similarly indicted on the tribunals. It announced it would review the cost of the inquiries, with a view to ensuring that “expenditure is minimised”. Yet the Government realised several years ago that the tribunals were costing too much money. In 2004, it announced a reduced fee system for tribunal lawyers. Fees paid to senior counsel were to be cut from €2,500 per day to €969 a day.
But the Government caved in after objections from the lawyers and the old rates remained.
The Government also announced that ministerial pay rises — circa €38,000 for the Taoiseach and €24,000 each for ministers — would not be accepted.
The lack of detail supporting yesterday’s announcement created little other than confusion. The Government says that, overall, the measures will save €440m this year and €1bn next year. But there was no comprehen- sive breakdown provided, and what figures the Government did supply were immediately called into question by the opposition.
The best the Government could manage to say was that, of the €440m savings target this year, roughly €10m would be achieved by a 3% reduction in the public payroll bill.
Another €50m would be saved by efficiency reviews, and €21m would be saved by cutting back on PR, advertising and consultants.
That left roughly €360m to be saved by the Government departments, which are supposed to tail back their spending. But not every department has identified where it will save money.
The best a government spokesman could manage was to say that, “in time”, every department “should be able” to identify where it is making savings.
Calculations “on the back of an envelope” was how Labour leader Eamon Gilmore described yesterday’s announcement.
It is not hard to see why.
