Public sector reform - bias that must be challenged

IT is a relatively minor detail in the way we run our country, but it tells a hugely disturbing and disheartening story.

It may also tell us more than we might care to acknowledge – or accept – about how we got into our current difficulties.

One sector of society – the private sector – will feel that it represents the stasis, the entrenched and destructive privilege that is a barrier to making this country more competitive. They may even feel that the figures we publish today represent corrupt insider trading. It is unlikely, however, that they will be too surprised.

Another sector – public and civil service workers – might wonder what all the fuss is about. Already feeling bruised, they might feel that even discussing the issue is an attack on them and their professional integrity.

The issue at hand? Top level jobs in our public and civil service and who gets them.

Today we publish figures about appointments to these jobs which irrefutably suggest that those outside the public service need not apply; that a closed shop policy, a policy that looks after their own, applies. It suggests that the public sector is not interested in the expertise or experience gained in private enterprise.

Just one of the 314 private sector employees who applied for a job at the higher levels of our civil service since 2005 was successful. Though non-civil servants represented 19% of applicants, they got just 0.3% of the jobs. Under different headings – gender, age, race, nationality religion or even sexual orientation – these ratios would cause alarm. If only 0.3% of women were promoted in an institution though they represented 19% of applicants for promotion, the equality watchmen would sound the war drums.

These figures are so skewed, so unbalanced that it is impossible to accept that the process is objective or determined to reach the best possible conclusions. It is impossible to accept that the process is not a hindrance to evolving a more efficient, outward looking public and civil service.

Of course not all of the applicants had the talent or experience to match their ambitions or the requirements of their prospective employers but it is hard to imagine that the great chasm represented by the recruitment rates reflects reality, fairness or best practice.

Surely some of the other 300-plus applicants would have been as good, if not better, than those who got the jobs? Surely they might have brought something new and invigorating to a culture that seems mired in inflexibility and convention?

Surely the figures add to the confusion felt by those who cannot understand why reform seems to be limited to what public sector workers feel comfortable with rather than that which would enhance services and possibly save some money?

As the outcome of the public sector unions’ vote on the Croke Park deal is awaited, these unacceptable figures are another confirmation that this society is deeply divided. They represent to consequences of a shift in power that has the capacity to ruin us all. They confirm again, as if it was needed, that we have had far too much talk of reform but little enough delivery.