Dept of Finance has not enough qualified staff : Indo

[BodyofEvidence]

[FONT=Arial]Being discussed on the pin also

Lack of qualified finance staff 'damaging economy' - National News, Frontpage - Independent.ie

Just one civil servant in over 600 staff at the Department of Finance has the top-level business qualification -- a PhD in economics.

As the department grapples with issues like the recapitalisation of the banks and a collapse in confidence in the regulatory system, it seems that the minister may be going into complex negotiations without the backing he needs.

Labour Finance spokeswoman Joan Burton said: "He urgently needs to hire some fiscal hit-men if he is serious about getting tough on our banking culture."

Former Taoiseach Dr Garret FitzGerald recently drew attention to the lack of qualifications among staff at the Department of Finance.

"When I was Taoiseach there were 17 economists working in the department. When I last checked a few years ago, there were only three, only one of whom was working on macro-economic issues -- on policy issues relating to the performances of the economy," said Dr Fitzgerald in a column in the Irish Times.

He said that he was raising the issue because of "some very wide margins of error" that had occurred in the government Department's financial forecasts.

Less than 10 per cent of the Department's 614 employees have any qualifications in finance or accountancy.

According to Joan Burton, the lack of qualified people may hamper the department in dealing with the worst recession in the history of the state and the ongoing collapse of the banking system.

Over the last seven years alone its financial forecasts have been wrong by a staggering €20bn.

"The Department has brilliant people who are superb administrators -- but they may not be the sort of people needed for this crisis,'' said Ms Burton.

"Basically we need some sheriffs to sort out the cowboys.'' She also warned that many departmental advisors are "academic economists" who were recruited from college and spent their entire careers in the public service.

"They are very traditional civil servants who are superb political analysts but who have absolutely no experience of dealing with the sort of negotiators the banks are sending in,'' she claims.

"This has been an absurd, ramshackle and dangerous approach to policymaking," said Dr FitzGerald.

"The absence of an adequate number of qualified staff on the macro-economic side of the Department policy area is indefensible -- and has contributed significantly to our current economic difficulties."

- JOHN DRENNAN

After anglo, the regulator had an ad in the next day seeking additiional qualified staff - perhaps too late but credit where its due. Doubtful if the mandarins in Kildare Street, with their vastly overinflated sense of their own importance and abilities will "get it"
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[BaudrillardNeverExisted]

Less than 10 per cent of the Department's 614 employees have any qualifications in finance or accountancy.

The depressing reality is that things like that don't surprise us anymore.

[cyberianpan]

Given that they don't need to do any real work and are never held accountable for their errors - it is not surprising that they are not qualified to do work

Indeed with the culture of the civil service we'd be wasting bright people if we put them in finance

I was working with a decent sized state body a while back - they had to do "accounts" for Dept of Finance ... when I looked at the "accounts" they were something that only an accounting archaeologist might appreciate the value of - basic, simplistic - probably based on 1960's GAAP. The state body itself was very embarrassed and ran it's own system in parallel in order that they could actually track what was going on.

Finance is a dinosaur, a tottering, failed Department whose time has long since passed.

cYp

[TheIrishRover]

That is one of the main elements that should be reformed in the Civil Service this thing of all Civil Servents just being put in one central recritment pot and and sllocated a number then sent wherever ignoring totally their skillset means we the best people are never placed where they should be and higher qualifications do not get you anywhere within it.

A current example is the amount of clerical officers in the Oireachtas who go around in tracksuits-there just numbers and people are not matched to where they should be.

[lostexpectation]

who makes the decisions consultants? what qualifications have they?