Public sector culture - Government must tackle inefficiencies

THE chasm between the world public and civil servants inhabit, and the one their fellow citizens live in has been brought into focus by our economic difficulties.

State employee unions insist they are efficient, responsible, accountable, committed to the common good and deserve everything they are paid. Others demand state jobs be slashed, meaningful reform imposed and that anyone paid more than €50,000 a year by the State should have their wages cut by 10%.

It would be nice to suggest that the truth lies somewhere near halfway between these extremes, but that becomes more difficult with every day that passes. This was underlined yesterday when Niamh Brennan, professor of management and director of academic centre for corporate governance at UCD, addressed a seminar on public sector accountability.

The event was attended senior civil servants though their reaction is not recorded.

In a refreshingly direct way she attacked the “sickie” culture in the public sector, saying that absenteeism rates were 3.5% in the private sector and 6.5% in the public sector. She said public servants who pulled “sickies” were guilty of fraud and theft against taxpayers.

Prof Brennan attacked benchmarking as money for nothing and that the level of under-performance in the public sector is twice that of the private sector.

This analysis comes shortly after it was revealed that nearly every civil servant received increments of between €500 and €6,000 this year, because managers ignored the constraints of a performance evaluation scheme. The increases followed a 5% pay award.

The Performance Management and Development System (PMDS) set out a five-point scale, with “one” being the worst and “five” the best. Consultancy firm Mercer, who designed the scheme, said 20% would typically be rated as either a “one” or “two”. Astoundingly, figures covering 19,000 employees show that just 1.6% were in the bottom two categories. Only 18 merited a “one”. Mercer’s map suggested this should be about 3,800. Go figure.

Another contribution to the debate this week came from Dan Murphy, of the Public Service Executive Union. He argued that “the purpose of the campaign against public servants is to divert attention from the failure of the deregulated market...”.

It is possible that Mr Murphy believes this twaddle, though how he imagines that even “attacks on the public service” could distract anyone from the economic collapse and the immoral practices that caused it is hard to understand. Most certainly the tens of thousands losing their jobs — none of them state employees — won’t be distracted. Neither will the tens of thousands of workers happy to sacrifice the prospect of any pay rise just to keep their jobs. They will not even be distracted when the public service gets 3.5% next year.

Yesterday, a poll recorded the lowest level of support for Fianna Fáil since polling began. This rebuke may be partially rooted in the budget debacle, but the lack of leadership, the unwillingness to tackle issues no matter how uncomfortable, also influenced the outcome. Because it has refused to confront public and civil service feather-bedding the Government has allowed this debate to become too divisive and bitter. Mr Murphy and his constituency might like to dismiss these arguments as attacks on the public service. They are not. They are attacks on inequity, dishonesty inefficiency and privilege. By refusing to confront these wrongs the Government is tacitly supporting them. That is why Taoiseach Brian Cowen has a 21% popularity rating.