Doing less with less

The Government can try to spin it as reform by its own volition but the truth is that our dire financial situation is the driving force behind these cuts, writes Political Editor Paul O’Brien

THERE’S a scene in the acclaimed TV show The Wire where a character, whose company has just announced job cuts, takes issue with the bureaucratic mantra “doing more with less”.

“You don’t do more with less,” the character states. “You do less with less.”

The scene came to mind yesterday as Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin launched the Government’s public service reform plan.

The plan, he said, would deliver “far-reaching reform” that would see the public service “do better with less”.

In fairness, you would expect him to say that, and given that he’s the minister tasked with overseeing the changes, he is no doubt intent on delivering.

But it takes quite a stretch to believe that cutting another 23,500 jobs will actually improve the public service.

Anybody who’s been to an emergency department recently, for example, will find it hard to accept that fewer health service workers will somehow magically improve waiting times.

The job cuts are being made solely because there is no money in the public purse. If times were better, there is simply no way that a coalition government involving Labour — traditionally viewed as the party of the public service — would be slashing jobs in the sector. In fact, in better times, governments of all hues tend to increase the numbers in the public service because it is an easy way of creating jobs.

This is precisely what the Fianna Fáil-led governments did, at least until the economic crisis struck in 2008.

The Fianna Fáil-Green administration was then forced to begin cutting jobs and its successors are — through necessity — continuing that process.

“To make Government leaner we are going to reduce the total number of people employed in the public service back to more sustainable levels,” Taoiseach Enda Kenny said yesterday — “sustainable” being the key word.

The risk, though, is in judging what’s sustainable or not. The public service may be bloated but it’s hugely debatable as to whether frontline services are. Giving a patient a pill to relieve a bloated stomach is one thing. But it’s no good if the pill has side-effects that seriously damage the digestive system.

In that respect, the Government will be hoping that the other changes in the reform plan will minimise the effects of the job cuts.

Many of the 200-plus proposals are technical and dull-sounding but could produce positive change.

For example, the Government is considering ways to allow people renew their passports and make social welfare applications online.

It wants all departments and agencies to share payroll and banking services to reduce duplication. On the procurement front, the Coalition envisages bringing in private-sector experts with “technical/account manager sales experience and proven commercial/negotiation skills” in order to reduce the amount of money the state spends on equipment and goods. And so on. All of these measures could save time and money.

The Government will also save money — and arguably prevent further erosion of skills in the public service — by finally calling a halt to the decentralisation fiasco.

Decentralisation was dreamt up by Charlie McCreevy and Bertie Ahern and announced on Budget Day in December 2003.

The intention was to transfer 10,300 public service jobs from Dublin to 53 locations across the country. This was later increased to 10,900 jobs in 59 locations.

But experts warned from the start that it could have a fracturing effect, as public servants who had accumulated significant policy expertise would not necessarily want to leave Dublin and would seek private sector employment instead of moving somewhere else.

Former Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader John Bruton was among those who questioned the wisdom of the move at the time.

“The making of policy at headquarters… requires constant and easy contact among decision-makers in all departments. It also requires that senior civil service decision-makers be easily accessible to members of the public and organisations that wish to make representations to them,” he said.

“What is a capital city and why does every country have one? Capital cities exist in most democracies to make policy at national level. This is done in one place because there are inherent economies of scale in making policy in one place.”

But neither Charlie McCreevy nor Bertie Ahern chose to listen.

The only problem was that decentralisation had been conjured up without proper analysis and planning. While some projects went ahead, others got heavily delayed. Then, when the economic crisis hit, they were postponed, with then Finance Minister Brian Lenihan announcing they would be mothballed until circumstances improved.

Most political observers anticipated at that point that the decentralisation project would never be completed. The Government confirmed it yesterday, announcing that 40 planned projects would be scrapped. Another 22 are being reviewed, and may yet be cancelled. Just 32 projects are going ahead — and those only because the moves have already taken place or permanent office accommodation is near completion.

The scrapping of decentralisation will come as a blow to a number of towns and villages across the country, such as Athlone, Ballinasloe, Edenderry, Fermoy, Kanturk, Kildare, Killarney, New Ross and Youghal.

But given the shambles that decentralisation had turned into, those communities must have already realised some time ago that the bright new dawn promised by McCreevy and Ahern would never materialise.