Some thoughts on the Audit Office report on the Northern Ireland Civil Service…

Country Ways is a Slugger reader from Belfast

Following a recent report on the Civil Service, here are my personal perspectives, which I share with you. As a retired senior manager in the NI Civil Service, I find it difficult to disagree with the findings of the Comptroller and Auditor General, Dorinnia Carville. The basic findings are that the Civil Service needs “strong leadership and a right-sized workforce”. I would also add to this that it needs the right people with the right skills at the right grades and the right locations.

Over the past 15 years or so the Civil Service has taken kicking after kicking. We have seen austerity, which in effect has seen budgets being cut by around 5% year on year, death by a thousand cuts. We have seen a mismanaged voluntary exit scheme, we have seen a moratorium on recruitment and we have seen a “brain drain” by way of retirement. 

One of these events would have a detrimental effect on any workforce, private or public, but add to that lack of leadership and strategic direction and you have a recipe for disaster. I don’t blame senior civil service management for a lack of leadership; in my opinion, leadership must come from our politicians. Over the last 15 years, we have had numerous occasions when the Assembly had collapsed, leaving the Service in limbo and only able to implement decisions and policies which had Ministerial approval, with no Ministers to sign off on any new approvals. It was a similar issue with the Programme for Government, or lack of one to provide strategic direction and help with joined up government, forward planning and significant projects. 

The sickness record could be improved, however, the figures need greater analysis. This again is challenging as Human Resources was outsourced years ago, making information challenging and expensive to source. The result was that HR was removed from internal specialists and the burden placed on management. There is also a perverse means of calculating sickness where the number of incidents is as much frowned upon as the number of days sick, therefore staff tend to take more days leave and keep the incidents lower.

One day equals one incident, 7 days also equals one incident. With so many vacancies, particularly at the middle management level and the burden falling to the lowest common denominator, it is no wonder the most common illness is now depression related. This in itself has become a spiral which is difficult to break, especially when you don’t have control of all the levers. Trying to fill vacant posts can be particularly challenging. The average time from having a vacancy recognised to have it filled is around 6 months, much, much longer than the private sector which means that often we select a great candidate only to find that by the time we get to appoint them they have secured alternative employment. Not a great way of doing business. This also affects the perception that civil servants are risk-averse. In a lot of areas, there is a lack of experience as experienced staff have retired or moved on. There are also significant processes, checks and balances associated with activities including comprehensive economic appraisals, separate procurement processes etc. These can be very time consuming and laborious for inexperienced staff.  

So “strong leadership and a right sized workforce” is what is required, however the pathway to achieving this is fraught.

This is a guest slot to give a platform for new writers either as a one off, or a prelude to becoming part of the regular Slugger team.