I’m going to claim partial credit for that idea.  I can’t remember whether I actually said it to Ruairi himself, but I was punting the idea around the Labour Party backrooms for a couple of weeks before I left for Canada.  Here’s some of the flesh I put on the bones of the idea while talking to people about it.

From East Lothian Museum (licenced under Creative Commons)

Why a Minister?

So why do you need a Minister for public sector reform?  Why not a committee or a working group or even just a Junior Minister?  The reason for this is that in order for the Public Service to both respect and cooperate with the process, and for the person in question to be able to legislate (both primary & secondary) at will, a cabinet level post is required.  This also stops, or at least hinders, interference from other Ministers. 

Who that Minister should be is a different matter, but it would need to be someone with a very good idea of what they wanted, the determination (and vision) to see it through, and a strong two-way respect for/from the public service as a whole.  Preferably, it should be a TD who’s not going to run for election again – this avoids too much personal risk entering the decision-making equation.

This Department Will Self-Destruct in…

Public service reform of the type we’re envisaging here isn’t an ongoing process.  This is a once-a-generation type of change we’re looking at.  Smaller, incremental change should be ongoing, (and the bigger process must create systems that facilitate it) but this is the time – and the opportunity – for major structural change.

Because of this, it’s important to give the proposed Department of Public Service Reform a predetermined lifetime.  Five years, being the normal lifetime of a Government (all going well), would be appropriate.  It’s long enough to hopefully avoid procrastination and “waiting them out”, but short enough that there’s a visible endline at all times.

The staff (more to follow) hired for the Department should be on five year contracts or secondments.  Those not already Civil Servants should not become Civil Servants in the old sense of the term (job for life, etc), but should of course have decent terms and conditions.

Civil Servants Deciding Public Sector Reform?

As I’m sure readers are already mentally pointing out, establishing a Government Department of Public Service Reform will mean having a building full of civil servants doing the work.  The people who best understand the public sector are public servants themselves.  But they’re also an interested party – some interested in strong reform, others interested in the status quo.  Group theory would suggest that in large numbers they’ll tend towards the latter.

So yes, you need civil servants working in this hypothetical Department.  But you also need to bring in people from the wider public service and from the non-public sector.  I’d say that your ideal mix would have the analysis/decision-making units of the Department made up of civil servants, other public servants and non-public sector people (be they from academia, private sector, NGOs or elsewhere).  It would also include people from each of those sectors (civil/public/non) from other countries.  The US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand should be considered just as much as European nations.

The civil servants assigned to this Department should be hand selected from the best and brightest in the rest of the public sector.  They should be recruited by the new Department, not sent to it because they’re an inconvenience or of no use to their previous Department (as is alleged to so often happen in the Irish public service).

A mix like this would, hopefully, allow for some creative thinking while taking into account how the public service actually works in practice.

Bringing it all together

With a good Minister and the active cooperation of other Government Ministers, such a Department could be making a real difference in a realatively short time.  Its remit should be broad enough to allow for service improvements, quality control improvements and cost-beneficial additions as well as cost cutting.

But, I hear you cry, the Unions would never allow it.  Not right now they wouldn’t.  And that’s why one or more parties needs to run into the next General Election with a policy like this (in about as much detail as I’ve given) clearly laid out.

While the Unions might complain about such proposals, and some of the consequential reforms, being brought in off the cuff, it’s a different ball game altogether when there’s a clear mandate in place from the people.  One might take one’s chances on industrial action when there’s no clear mandate.  But if the people have spoken clearly, they’re not going to take withdrawl of any services well.

So, what we need is:

• A Minister for Public Service Reform
• A Department that only lasts 5 years
• Lots of non-civil servants staffing that Department
• Wide-ranging powers and terms of reference
• An election

Shouldn’t be a problem, then.

Medium size (which seems to work best for Twitter profile images):

Small:

Feel free to use as you wish.  This is a copy of something someone else did, remade with the higher res versions of the logo.

Update:

By popular demand, here’s a version that works as a Facebook logo too.

For balance, here’s John Gormley’s response.  The Greens are getting a bit upset at Pat.

(Okay – not entirely balanced, the vid’s smaller, it’s below the fold and John’s just not got the wit of Pat, but at least it’s a token effort at balance!)

The cries from the media (and many of the assembled public) that nobody told them there was anything wrong with the economy are becoming annoying now.

By jazzmasterson, Flickr (cc)

They were told – but they chose to ignore the warnings.

Two years ago, in January 2007 (yes, despite the media’s insistence that nobody said anything before the 2007 General Election), Pat Rabbitte, then leader of the Labour Party, told a conference that Ireland “could not take a continued strong economy for granted, and claimed the current coalition was complacent to the point of smugness about the situation.”

The following day, Ruairi Quinn, a former Finance Minister, said that “any minor fluctuation in the international economic situation would leave us extremely exposed.”  And:

“Complacency will get us nowhere. We must be vigilant and mindful of our economy’s weaknesses. Otherwise, we risk losing the prosperity built on the efforts of hardworking people across the country.”

But the media in particular didn’t want to know.  Despite their normal penchant for bad news, journalists at the time just wouldn’t cover any negative talk about the economy seriously.

So please, stop saying nobody warned you.  You were warned, and you either chose to ignore the warnings or chose to take Fianna Fáil’s counterclaims at face value.  Face up to it.

This is a great opportunity for the Labour Party to reinvent itself for a new century.  I’m still getting through the main points of the report (to reiterate, even as a staff member, I hadn’t seen any of the report until now).

The headlines & summary are here on the Labour website, and I’ll blog a bit more on it over the next six weeks up to Conference.

It’s going to be a tough job for the next six months but it’s a challenge I’m really looking forward to.  Liz McManus TD (one of the few TDs to blog on a semi-regular basis) is Director of Elections, and with Nessa being a member of the party in Bray, and me being originally from Ashford, we’ll have a strong Wicklow presence.  We’ve already been out and about working on the campaign – including canvassing in Louth with Senator Dominic Hannigan and Cllr Eoin Holmes before Christmas, and I’m lucky to be joining the team after plenty of groundwork has already been put in by other local TDs and Councillors (and Labour staff).

Unemployed in June?  Am I entirely mad?

The second part of the plan, for those asking why the hell any one would give up a permanent job for a six month contract given the “prevailing economic circumstances”, is to do a full time MBA starting in July or August.   I’m currently looking at UBC in Vancouver, University of Western Ontario, and of course Smurfit here in Dublin.  I’m also investigating what seems like an interesting double MBA with a tech leaning in Singapore and Japan.  I think that the next few years are going to be very tough in Ireland, so no better time to get some more education under my belt – especially education tha will greatly increase my employability and earning potential.   More on all that anon.

A good start is half the work

I start the new job on January 5th – exactly five months to the day before the Local and European Elections count takes place (the elections, which by law have to take place on the same day are currently scheduled for June 4th).  It’ll be a busy time, but I’ll keep the blog updated nonetheless.  Maybe I’ll even rob some of Damien’s ideas from last year.

Wish me luck (or do something more practical if you live in Leinster and vote #1 for Childers!).

Declan Ganley (from RTE)

Declan Ganley is now suing RTÉ over their depiction of him on Prime Time.  That’s on top of Joe Costello, the Labour Party.  The rumour mill says he’s also threatened The Irish Times and Colm Keena with action.

Is there anyone left who isn’t being sued by Declan Ganley?  Give us a pingback or a comment if you’re one of the remaining ones.

Eamon Gilmore TD

With the buzz mounting in the hall, and the temperature rising (literally) in the hall, delegates are cramming in for the last few seats already.  Gilmore’s speech doesn’t start for another hour, but with seats at a premium, everyone’s trying to get themselves into the hall before it fills up.  For what I think is the first time ever, we’ve had to supply a video relay room due to high demand for places.  Those who can’t get in to the hall will be able to watch on a big screen downstairs.  Already there are only a few seats left.

In the style of American conventions, signs have been handed out to delegates to hold up during the speech – mainly for TV viewing, of course.  While they sometimes seem a bit silly on the ground in the conference hall, where you don’t get a proper view of them, they look brilliant on TV, and are a great way of getting a message out to viewers at home.  TV news coverage is more or less obliged to show a crowd shot, so why not use it to convey a message.

I haven’t seen GIlmore’s speech yet, but those who have tell me it’s going to be great.  I’ll be twittering and Jaikuing the highlights on Labour’s channels live, and you can also watch the whole thing on RTÉ1 from 20:30 or on our live stream from 19:30 (see below).