Plans for shake-up in top state jobs
The majority of the body that makes top appointments will now come from outside the Government machine.
The Top Level Appointments Committee will be expanded to nine members — five of whom, including the chairperson, will not come from the civil service.
Public Expenditure and Reform Minister Brendan Howlin said that a new “head-hunting” culture would be encouraged to shake-up Government thinking.
“It is essential the right people capable of taking on the complex challenges our country faces now, and in the future, are in place.
“The structure of Top Level Appointments Committee will be radically overhauled so that the chairperson and the majority of members will be drawn from outside the public sector. This Government is committed to reforming the public sector and this reform must happen from the top down” Mr Howlin said.
Up until now only one member of the five-person appointments committee has been an outsider.
For the past three years candidates from outside the civil service have been allowed to apply for senior posts within it, but only on a strictly limited basis.
Despite the fact that around 300 people from outside the civil service applied for senior positions in Government since 2007, only one was successful — and that person was a former civil servant.
The overhaul, approved by the Cabinet, is intended to draw expertise from the business world to get “fresh thinking” and a wider range of experience to bear on driving through policy and managing departments.
The move is in line with proposals in the Croke Park agreement to end the “closed shop” system of appointments that has dominated the civil service in the past.
