Civil service should have more open recruitment, board rules

The Government should be permitted to recruit more people to senior management posts in the Civil Service through open competitions, an arbitration board has ruled.

The Civil Service Arbitration Board has recommended that, in future, two-thirds of vacancies at principal officer level should be filled by means of open recruitment, with one-third being confined to competitions within departments.

For assistant principal officer vacancies, the arbitration board has recommended that one-third of posts should be filled from open competitions, one-third from inter-departmental competitions and one-third from internal departmental competitions.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform said it would be engaging with trade unions on the recommendations.

The Government had been seeking greater levels of Civil Service recruitment through open competition.

However, the changes were opposed by trade unions representing staff in the Civil Service, who expressed concerns over the promotional opportunities that would be available for existing employees.

The arbitration board report says that the Government wanted 80 per cent of principal officer posts filled by open competition and 20 per cent by departmental competition.

It says the Government side argued that more open recruitment and more competitive promotion procedures were needed as part of the continued modernisation of the Civil Service.

The report says that management had contended that evidence suggested that 70-80 per cent of successful candidates in open competitions for principal officers would be serving civil servants and that to achieve a reasonable intake of outside candidates, the percentage of assignments from an open panel must be quite high.

'Guaranteed promotions'

The Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants argued that opening up the great majority of principal officer posts "effectively means severely curtailing the one real reward that the Civil Service can offer its employees - guaranteed promotional opportunities".

“The anonymised free-for-all of an open competition cannot be characterised as a promotional outlet, and the lower chances of success that it entails can only serve as a disincentive to serving staff.

“In addition, the curtailment of internal promotions will mean that consequential promotions - or ripple down effect of an internal promotion system - will be lost.

“This permeates down through the grades and would be a serious barrier to career progression and damaging to morale.”

The arbitration board report says that the Government side had sought to have 60 per cent of vacancies at assistant principal officer level filled by open competition, 20 per cent from inter-departmental competition and 20 per cent from internal department competitions.

It says that management estimated that between 45-50 per cent of successful candidates in an open competition for assistant principal posts would be serving civil servants.

It says the Public Service Executive Union had argued that the proposition was now to go from a situation where 100 per cent of assistant principal vacancies had been confined to particular grades within the Civil Service prior to an agreement in 2006 to one where 60 per cent would be filled by public competition and the remaining 40 per cent of posts are to be open to all other civil servants.

“No justification for this radical departure from well-established precedent has been put forward.

“It appears to be based on a simple assumption that such a development is a ’good thing’ rather than any thought-out view of what is required, including a view on the career aspirations of crucial middle management grades.”