City council staffing levels to be reviewed

AN INDEPENDENT expert group has been set up to review staffing levels in Cork City Council and to make recommendations about further staff cuts.

The group, established by the Environment Minister Phil Hogan last week, will focus on senior managers in the local authority and will report back to the minister within six months.

A review of Dublin City Council was completed this year.

The group reviewing Cork City Council will have to consider:

- How the local authority can continue to deliver essential frontline services to the public.

- How those services can be delivered most effectively and efficiently.

- The scope for sharing services and for collaboration with other local authorities and public bodies in terms of service delivery and in reducing costs;

- and how their recommendations will fit in with government policy on public service reform, and its policy on restoring the national finances.

The Independent Review Group, which will be chaired by Pat McLoughlin, the chief executive of the Irish Payments Services Organisation, includes former Beamish and Crawford boss, Alf Smiddy, who is chairman of Granite Consulting, Dr Aodh Quinlivan, the director of BSc Government at UCC’s Department of Government, Anne O’Keeffe, the former director of the Office of Local Authority Management, and Des Dowling, the assistant secretary of the Local Government Division of the Department of the Environment.

The 2010 Efficiency Review Group Report on local government used a mathematical formula based on population to staff ratio as a comparator of staffing levels across local authorities.

But it recognised the unique circumstances of local authorities responsible for larger cities and said they required specific focus.

City manager Tim Lucey, who welcomed the establishment of the review group for Cork, said a simple indicator such as this, while appropriate for rural authorities, does not take into account the particular requirements of cities that serve as business and commercial centres for their region.

“I look forward to working positively with the Independent Review Group and to the early implementation of any findings,” he said.