EXTERNAL CONSULTANTS from the private sector will be recruited to drive major reforms of the public service, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin has said.
In an interview with The Irish Times, Mr Howlin said there was insufficient expertise within the public service to implement a reform agenda – encompassing the Civil Service, local authorities, State agencies and commercial and non-commercial State companies – which he described as the most fundamental in many generations.
He came to the decision to recruit external experts after long discussions with the new secretary general of his department, Robert Watt. Mr Howlin added he would begin to recruit the consultants over the next few weeks.
“We are going to recruit external consultants from the private sector who have driven reform. Conceptually we know what to do but I don’t believe we have the capacity within the public service to bring that from concept to reality.
“And we are going to do that by bringing in external help of change-makers who have carried out change in significant corporations externally.”
He said he would be focusing on individuals with strong track records rather than consultancy companies. “I want to pick individuals and have them on temporary secondment here. They will be embedded, quasi-public servants doing their work and bringing their expertise here.”
Separately, Mr Howlin said his department’s comprehensive saving review, (which now forms part of the understanding with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund), would not only bring efficiencies but alter the way the public sector was structured and reformed.
“The old idea that we have a 10 or 20 per cent reduction for each department does not apply. The attitude is that everybody has no money at all. You have a blank sheet. What do you want to spend money on? You build a case for spending rather than justifying a case for reduction.”
He said the spending review was based on a Canadian model from the 1990s and he would be in a position to announce the first results of “early wins” on savings next month. The savings would be gained through, among other things, restructuring, greater flexibilities, changes of contract and sharing of services between departments and agencies.
“The more we can restructure, the more we can share and minimise cost . . . When I spoke to the chief executive officers of State companies, I made it abundantly clear that everybody was doing a good job but that we could not afford everybody any more and there were some agencies that don’t have a future.
“I’m hoping that a lot of that will be self-analysis [where agencies say] we can amalgamate. If not, we will make the decisions [to cut].”
Referring to the Government’s 100th day in office this week, Mr Howlin said the establishment of his department within three months, in tandem with an onerous workload on the fiscal and banking fronts, was a real achievement.
He defended decisions that were being portrayed as U-turns by opponents and the media. “You hear people saying, ‘Well, you said this four months ago’. Well, it was a different world. Last week was a different world. We are taking real-time decisions.”
He said that nothing he was doing as Minister betrayed his social democratic principles. The approach was one of fairness.
Asked about the amount that could be saved by the spending review, he said he was not going to put a figure on it as it was too early. He did say that savings from the review could be used as a means to help alleviate some of the harsher conditions in the memorandum.
He cited the example of the suspension of Garda recruitment as an example where the flexibilities of Croke Park had to be utilised to make up for smaller numbers, while maintaining services.
He said the question of leave also had to be tackled.
“What struck me when I took up this job was the variety of public servants on different contractual and leave arrangements and on different scales of pay.
“I have set out the Herculean task of establishing a co-ordinated and integrated public service, so that people have common hours of working, common leave arrangements and working towards common pay scales and pension rights.
“It will also allow flexibility of allowing people to move across government departments and agencies.”
Mr Howlin also said he was confident the Government would not need to enter a second programme with the EU and IMF and would return to the markets at the end of this programme.
“If we were never in a programme, the reforms need to be done,” he added. “It will make a much better public service, a leaner and better one. It will feed into achievement of restoration of sovereignty. I am confident that we can get there.”