THE FIRST official review of the Croke Park agreement on public service pay and reform has found that the deal has made “solid and measurable progress” in meeting its commitments.
The report says official targets of reducing the public service pay bill by €251 million this year have been exceeded. In addition, it finds that substantial sums have been saved on non-pay expenditure.
However, it warns there will have to be “more urgency and ambition” around the implementation of the further changes needed to maintain services and secure further significant expenditure and payroll savings.
The report, drawn up by the body charged with overseeing the implementation of the deal, says that “across and within all sectors progress must be significantly accelerated by all parties”.
The review body expresses concern at the “lack of significant progress” in key areas such as the delivery of shared or consolidated services in administrative areas, for example dealing with application processing and human resources, pay and pension administration and in the sharing of information across Government agencies to reduce the burdens on individuals and businesses.
“There will also need to be a priority put on the efficient use of all State property so that the volume of resources used to deliver services will continue to fall.”
The report has found that savings of €289 million were made on the State’s pay bill since the agreement was put in place a year ago.This was mainly due to a reduction of 5,349 on the numbers employed. The report also says overtime costs are down 5.2 per cent.
The largest reduction in employment was in the health sector, which saw staffing levels fall by 4,180, generating savings of €238 million.
It has also found that Government departments and agencies generated non-pay savings of €308 million in areas such as property rationalisation and procurement. Costs of €85.7 million, which would have incurred if the agreement was not in place, had been avoided.
“The body concluded that, in the first year of this four-year agreement, the parties to the agreement have made solid and measurable progress in meeting their commitments:
in the period under review numbers have fallen substantially more quickly than previously estimated and services have been maintained and in some cases expanded and productivity has increased;
the cost of delivering public services has fallen in a sustainable way, primarily through reducing headcount across the public service;
thousands of staff have been redeployed, including across functional boundaries, which helped to meet two challenges, avoiding gaps in service as numbers reduced and changing the way public services are delivered;
the reconfiguration of services has commenced”.
The report warns that the Government is seeking to save at least €1.2 billion on the public service pay and pensions bill by 2014.
It says to achieve this target it is imperative that savings and efficiencies are delivered urgently while ensuring that quality public services are maintained.