FG outlines plans for major public sector reform

[DeathKnell]

A suggested move to zero based budgeting has been mooted before but never got anywhere - they aren't universally acclaimed btw. The better model is a form of staggered term budget - basically a zero based 5 year budget with specific milestones set within that term.

FG are great at looking for reform and demanding accountability but it's bull if the unions are going to go on strike as soon as you try to implement it and if areas like performance related pay and dismissal of managers for consistent underperformance are simply impossible to achieve in the PS in less than 10 years.

Lets get back to basics here - we are spending nearly twice as much as we are taking in - we need to immediately reduce spending/increase taxation to bridge that gap. Borrowing is fine short term but only if we are putting in place reduced spending/increased tax take in the future to bridge the gap because like it or not we cannot increase borrowing by 10bn every year.

Aspirational long term reform projects are needed but the priority is real tangible short and immediate term projects

Agreed. However, as we know the MO of FF and the Unions, once the medium term pressure on budgets is releived, they will go right back to abusing the system when/if the country's finances allow.

There is no better time to institue reform when the system is creaking and under such pressure.
Otherwise the motivation to do so becomes less pressing.

[Dios]

We don't see private sector companies employ multiple work forces in the expectation that they will bid against each other to get work done. Everyone is still on the pay roll.

Its an attempt to divide and conquer, get various unions fighting each other. Doubtful it will work, and very expensive. There are some good ideas there, but the problem is that even the managers are unionised in the public sector. I also find it rather disturbing in that they refer to people as "clients" and "customers". These are citizens of the state availing of taxpayer funded state services, and you can't run the state or machinery of the state like a business.

With the exception of the rather bizarre "replace Kenny with Bruton", FG have proposed virtually everything in your post.

No really, according to the documents I have read, they want to reduce not eliminate the junior ministers, no mention of a fixed cap on pay just a removal of pensions for sitting TDs (and thats been implemented by FF now), and a reduction in expenses in certain cases. Once again its a case of the foxes guarding the henhouse.

[Ballyfermot Man]

Saw Simon Coveney on Q&A last night and I was impressed. Very much improved in terms of presentation, and ability to express an opinion without appearing arrogant, something one or two front benchers could work on.

[selfemployedmar]

To be perfectly honest I am not impressed by any of the polititians, there are local elections in June, that seems to be their agenda, not getting the problems solved, all you see is constant bickering, anyone else sick and tired of it??

[InReality]

Its not a bad plan.
However ..
The problems in ireland mainly come from politicans & ourselves not the Public sector.
Irish Politicans have vast power in comparision to other countries and we do not hold them accountable at elections.

Mcreevy did a runner on decentralization and harney on health.
2 people's ideologies changing thousands of people lives more or less on a whim (1) or a bad decision which was never fixed (2).

Thats the not the PS thats failing us.

Similarly cowens weasel words recently - "best advice I was given".
If he had any courage or intellectual ability he would say I took decisions and I was wrong.

He hides behind PS advice when the reality is he was under no obligation to take it.

If they didn't like PS advice they could have got a report done - they spent 10 of millions on reports for other things if they got PS advice they didn't like.

[patslatt]

A bit more detail... I'm sure this will be fleshed out at the ard fheis...

Speaking to senior public service officials at the UCD Business School, Richard Bruton TD said that Fine Gael in government would issue clear riding instructions to the public service to drive radical reform.

"We will back ambitious managers who are crying out for change. We shall end the tolerance of failure by Ministers or senior public service managers. We shall introduce accountability with consequences, naming and shaming under-performance, and requiring managers to shape up or ship out.

"The tragedy in our public service is that talented and committed people are trapped in a system that is failing them. The government has allowed the system to be corrupted by a budgetary system not fit for a corner shop, by their habit of soft-option politics and by their refusal to apply professional standards either to themselves or those around them.

"Under our radical plan for public sector reform, we shall implement a series of changes which will promote excellence in the provision of government services. The first change we must now make is turn ministers into buyers on behalf of the people. How would this make a difference?

- The onus will clearly be on Ministers only to spend what the country can afford and get best value.
- The commitment to deliver results will determine who gets the money.
- Ministers will expect the resignation of managers who dont deliver what they promised.
- Managers will be given the power to run their operations - to cut the fat and not the muscle.
- Programmes will be closed down that deliver poor results.
- Staff no longer needed by an organisation will be moved to areas where they are needed.
- Managers will be charged for the cost of capital so that they will be encouraged to save on space and improve the utilisation of equipment.

"This would be a revolution in the way we spend taxpayers' money. Like in a business, delivery to customers, high performance, and efficiency will be at a premium, and managers will be expected to deliver.

"We need the political will to make this happen. It means ending a political culture -

- where problems are bought out, not confronted;
- where failure is tolerated;
- where powerful interests can shelter from scrutiny and change.

"Beyond the political will, such a change will present our public service leaders with very significant new challenges. We shall need to design -

- systems for moving staff to areas of greater need;
- systems to support managers with their new responsibilities;
- metrics to measure the quantity and quality of services delivered;
- a system for dealing with people who underperform;
- an obligation on every unit to publish its performance;
- systems of reward for exceptional performance .

"We have a choice in next week's Budget. We can travel the familiar route adopted in bad times of 'slash and burn' leaving the bureaucracy intact, the systems undisturbed while the vulnerable clients of public services are turned away, and those losing their jobs to shoulder most of the pain of our economic failures. Alternatively we can use this crisis to embrace the need for radical reform, to signal that spending in 2010 will be decided not by the demands of agencies for inputs but instead by obliging them to make a bid for money on the basis of what they intend to deliver to clients.

"It is by embracing a bold agenda of reform that the public service can help make Ireland more competitive, help keep down burdens, help protect jobs. This is a challenge we cannot pass up. The debate about the public service has always been one about inputs, never about outputs. That should have changed years ago. It must change now."

All of the above reform proposals are very commendable and businesslike.But when it comes to making tough decisions on moving people to different jobs and demoting underperforming managers,the public sector unions will block change. Any government that tries to push reforms through will encounter clever, bloody minded campaigns from unions to undermine the government with strikes, working to rules, other disruptions to government services,plus threats to campaign against the government in elections. Maybe a necessary condition for reforms is the abolition of public sector unions. With their jobs for life security,do they need union representation at all?

For decades,many states in the USA have utilised "zero based budgeting" under which governments justify each major activity as if starting from scratch each year. If the activity should be eliminated or cut back drastically,the zbb system is supposed to quantify that. In reality,many bureaucracies manage to game the system by justifying their activities with clever PR. It would be interesting to research how well the states have succeeded in implementing zbb.See http://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/article/704 and http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=5928

[Tressell]

What a ridiculous and never likely to happen post.

[patslatt]

What a ridiculous and never likely to happen post.

Not a surprising reaction if you work in a cushy government job for life.

[rokz]

Just a little clip.......

Navan auctioneers and business partners Raymond Potterton and Loman Dempsey - brother of the Minister for Education, Noel Dempsey - are strenuously denying allegations of any wrongdoing in two land deals that involved their property company and two local authorities.
The controversy over the deals resurfaced this month when a garda superintendent confirmed that gardai in Navan were investigating the sale of two parcels of land by Navan Urban District Council and Meath Co Council, in 1995 and 1999 respectively, to a company called Eracase.

Eracase, a Louth-registered company, is owned predominantly by Potte r ton and Dempsey. Potterton holds 60 per cent of the shares in the company and Dempsey 20 per cent.

The deals were reported in the media about three years ago. The two partners are employing a Dublin legal firm to defend them against any suggestion of impropriety in the transactions.

Potterton said they had "done absolutely, totally and completely nothing wrong" in the deals. He said they had sought legal advic e from Matheson Ormsby Prentice over the allegations.

The Garda investigation is at an early stage.However, Potterton and Dempsey have stated publicly that neither of them has been contacted by a member of the Garda investigating team.

The 1995 land deal involved the disposal of a 5,000 square foot plot of land at Market Square in the centre of Navan, behind Curry's (now Everard's) pub.

Publican Jim Curry sold the land, in the back yard of the pub, to Navan Urban District Council in August of that year for »45,000.

Potterton and Dempsey had earlier offered Curry »35,000 for the land, but he refused to sell it to them. Curry says he was told by the council that the land was to be used for a car park.

In 1996 the council sold the land to Eracase for »45,000. The plot was used for an apartment complex known as the Steeples. It was one of five plots bought by Eracase for the development.

Curry said he would not have sold the land if he had known it was to be used for apartments.

Potterton described the deal as "a straightforward business transaction". He expressed some bewilderment now as to why the deal was being scrutinised by the Garda Siochana and the media.

The 1999 deal involved the sale of land at Mullaghboy industrial estate outside Navan to Eracase for €67,000.

A local factory owner has claimed that the council promised him a site in 1997 and that manufacturing firms should have been given priority for sites.

For Potterton and Dempsey, the deals must seem like minute blips on a large radar. Their auctioneering business sold €28 million worth of agricultural land last year.

This year it will be involved in thesaleof €100 million worth of development land, 500 new homes and 350 second-hand homes in the midlands and north-east.

The name Raymond Potterton is known to many wealthy farmers in the rich agricultural heartland of Meath-Westmeath.

Potterton set up his auctioneering business in 1990 and since then has built it up into a large independent agricultural, commercial and residential estate agency.

The firm employs 20 people. Potterton is its managing director. Dempsey is a director of the business.

At the end of last year, Raymond Potterton & Co had cash of €1.44 million its bank account and had retained profits of €88,200.

The partners could not have come from more different backgrounds. Potterton is from a wealthy Protestant farmingfamily, Dempseyis the second-youngest of 14 sons in a Catholic family. Potterton, at 63, is 25 years older than Dempsey.

Potter ton prev iously worked for the family auctioneering business, TE Potterton, with his late brother, Elliott. The family come from the Kildalkey farming region of Meath.

Raymond's younger brother, Homan, a former director of the National Gallery, recently wrote a memoir entitled Rathcormick, about growing up in a Protestant family in rural 1950s Ireland.

The family business, established in 1886, is one of the oldest auctioneering firms in the country. Raymond left the family firm in the 1980s.TE Potterton, which is now run by Elliott's son, Thomas, is in the same line of business as Raymond Potterton's firm. It is based in Trim.

Ray mond and Loman Dempsey joined forces in business when they became colleagues in the Navan offices of Gunne auctioneers. They left to set up their own firm in Navan in 1990.

One of Dempsey's associates described him as bright, and "a grafter and go-getter". He said Dempsey was outgoing, and active in the local GAA club in Trim.

He also said that the Dempsey family was very closelyknit,with obvious connections to Fianna Fail, Noel Dempsey's party.

Potterton is described by his peers as a direct man, with a no-nonsense approach to business. "He would not be outwardly political, although he would know the Dempseys well," said one source.

The re-airing of the allegations concerning the 1995 and 1999 land deals have predictably angered Dempsey and Potterton, both of whom have developed a formidable business reputation in the midlands region.

In a statement released to the media last week, the two men stated that the property transactions were "perfectly normal" and that they negotiated the deals in "the ordinary course" of business.

It is understood that Dempsey managed the purchase of theTimmons Hill site formerly owned by Curry. The apartment development overlooks the main road running alongside the Boyne.

Once planning permission for the development was obtained in the mid-1990s, Potterton and Dempsey tried to sell the land, but were unsuccessful.They decided to develop the land instead.

Eracase has enjoyed considerable profits in its property deals. Its most recent accounts, for the year to the end of October 2000, show retained profits of €506,000.

More than a year after the completion of the Timmons Hill development, Potterton rented out the offices in Adare House, which was part of the complex, to Meath Co Council, as it had been seeking offices for its own engineers and those from the National Roads Authority (NRA).

Last week, a spokeswoman for Meath Co Council confirmed that it rented office space at Adare House through Raymond Potterton & Co from November 16,1998.

The engineers were working in the NRA's regional office while designing new roads in the county. The office was initially rented for six months for »10,000, but the design team remained there until November 2000.

The total of the rent that was paid by the council was »40,000. The NRA's design office in Meath later moved from the 2,000-square-foot Adare House office to a larger office in the town.

The council's rental of the office predated Potterton's appointment to the board of the NRA by more than five years. Potterton was appointed to the NRA board in February last year by Noel Dempsey; he was then minister for the environment. Potterton is still on the NRA's board.

As environment minister Dempsey asked a senior official in his department to investigate whether there were a need for a full independent inquiry into the 1995 and 1999 property deals.

The official, John Cullen, reported back in 2001 saying there was no basis for a formal inquiry.

Now the Garda Siochana is probing the property deals. Dempsey and Potterton both say that they have nothing to hide and that they will cooperate fully with any official inquiry that takes place into the transactions.

[InReality]

And what has that got to do with this thread ?
If you want to debate/highlight that issue start a new thread !