Poverty agency weakened by recruitment ban

I AGREE with all of the points made by Hugh Frazer in his excellent article on the closure of the Combat Poverty Agency (‘Silencing dissent’, July 7).

However, having spoken to Hugh that day, there is one point which he makes (and which is repeated in your editorial) that I wish to clarify.

He writes that “... the department blocked the appointment of a new director when the former director moved to a new job, thus weakening the leadership and ability to resist abolition”.

As the acting director who lead Combat Poverty during the very difficult past couple of years, I agree that the organisation was severely weakened during the “internal civil service review” he refers to.

However, this was not because it lacked leadership from myself and a very committed management team but because of an embargo by the Department of Finance on the recruitment of any permanent staff, including the position of director, after the date of the Government’s decision to undertake this review in June 2007, and a limitation on providing any temporary staff brought in to fill vacancies with contracts past December, ‘08.

This embargo had the effect of creating a situation of uncertainty for existing staff and was a serious challenge to myself and the management team to ensure the agency had the necessary qualified staff with the expertise to complete the annual work programmes and fulfil the statutory obligations set out in the Combat Poverty Act, 1986.

It is worth noting this act was repealed in December ’08, suggesting that a timeline for the closure of the agency was in place from the beginning of this flawed review process.

I share Hugh Frazer’s pessimism that the new unit established within the Department of Social and Family Affairs (DSFA) to tackle poverty and social exclusion will have the ability to build on the achievements of Combat Poverty over the past 23 years.

It is my experience in dealing with this and other government departments that the existing administrative structures are inadequate for addressing social change – decision-making is slow and the system does not respond quickly to the rapidly changing social environment.

There is also an inbuilt resistance to new ideas and, where policies are adopted, very often there is poor implementation, an absence of realistic timeframes and none, or limited, evaluation or measurement of outcomes.

Furthermore, civil servants are reluctant to consult with or to allow the participation of people affected by public policies (or organisations representing their interests) to be involved in the design and implementation of these policies.

Consequently, this new unit, as part of the DSFA structure, will not have the independence to respond to the concerns of people experiencing poverty or to address new and emerging causes of poverty at a time when it is on the increase, as highlighted by Brid O’Brien in her article in the same issue of the Irish Examiner.

Kevin P O’Kelly

Rathcoole

Co Dublin