Call for public sector ‘reward’ system

Public sector workers and those in semi-state agencies should be given “reward” payments if they work over and above their required duties, the junior finance minister has suggested.

OPW Minister Brian Hayes also revealed that the Coalition was examining the use of external, private- sector auditors to benchmark the performance of public sector workers.

In an interview with the Irish Examiner, he said that reforms for public service workers needed to go further than the recently- signed Haddington Road agreement.

He also hit out at management in departments and agencies, arguing that the “culture” of overseeing workers needed to change.

The new pay deal for nearly 300,000 workers includes proposals for a performance management system. Managers — particularly in the health sector — will only be hired for a set number of years and will not have contracts renewed unless they have proven themselves.

Increments, in the main, will be frozen for up to six months and overall, the agreement proposes to cut public pay by €1bn by 2015. Up to now, the majority of workers received increments or bonus payments without fail.

A review by the Department of Public Expenditure released last year found just 1% of workers were graded as receiving the lowest mark of one or two out of five for their performance.

Mr Hayes, a junior minister at that department, says he thinks a new system of assessing workers should include opportunities for reward payments.

“I’d like to see a reward system where people who go over and above what they are paid to do should be able to get more pay.”

Tougher performance measures were also needed to root out inefficient work practices, he added: “At the moment everyone gets it, that’s not credible as far as I’m concerned.”

He said the department wanted to bring in external auditors to assess public sector performance, adding: “It [the private sector] also has outside agencies determining whether people are achieving this.

“At the moment, it’s just people who are the grade above you deciding this.

“The key issue is to move to a credible performance management system right the way across the system.”

Mr Hayes is also adamant that reform must start from the top in the public sector: “The biggest thing is, we need managers to manage it; Government ministers can’t do that. To get time and efficiency in place.

“It’s the culture in management that needs to change, it’s not the people on the ground working all hours God sends.”

Employers’ group Ibec has criticised public sector pay increases, noting an ECB report which said that under benchmarking, pay increased by 67% on average between 1999 and 2006.

Benchmarking was also famously once described by Joe O’Toole, a former teachers’ union leader, as an “ATM”.