All top 20 civil service hires last year were ‘inside jobs’
THE hiring of outside talent into the top echelons of the civil service has come to a ‘juddering halt’, a damning report brought to Cabinet reveals.
The memo on the Annual 2020 Top-Level Appointments Commission (TLAC) report was written by Public Expenditure Minister Michael McGrath’s department.
It revealed not a single appointment for the 20 top jobs in the civil service last year came from the private sector.
A total 94% of appointments came from the civil service, with 6% from the wider public sector.
Sources said the report has caused ‘alarm’ within Government, with Tánaiste Leo Varadkar warning the public service needs people with a ‘different perspective’.
The role of the TLAC is to recommend candidates to ministers for the most senior positions in the civil service, at assistant secretary level and upwards.
One of its key responsibilities is to carry out its function in ‘an independent manner and by making its decisions strictly on the basis of the relative merit of the candidates’.
The TLAC says it aims ‘to strengthen the management structure of the civil service and to provide a means by which the best candidates can aspire to fulfilling their potential’.
Despite these lofty aims, the hiring of top mandarins became a source of controversy earlier this year after the €81,000 increase in salary for the secretary general of the Department of Health, which brought the top civil service salary up to €292,000.
The Government has argued that a salary scale far in excess of norms in Britain and Europe was required to source ‘outside talent’. It then hired Robert Watt, the previous secretary general of the Department of Public Expenditure.
During a subsequent investigation by the Finance Committee, Minister McGrath revealed 10 candidates for the role were women, 17 came from the private sector and six from the public sector.
Representatives from the TLAC, the body which recommended Mr Watt for the position, declined an invitation to appear before the Finance Committee on the grounds of not having any input into the terms and conditions.
The TLAC chooses an average of around 20 of the senior mandarins who run the country each year.
One minister told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘They only deal with the cream, the decision-makers, at most 25 a year, last year it was 20.’
Some ministers have reacted with alarm to the quiet takeover by the mandarins of the public sector.
Mr Varadkar described TLAC as ‘very influential as it determines who gets the top jobs in the civil service’.
He said these appointments ‘can be as significant as the appointment of any minister or the CEO of a State body’.
Stressing the need for a diverse public service, the Fine Gael leader said it was important to have ‘someone not from the parish’.
Another minister said of the TLAC report: ‘It was slipped through very carefully that memo, gone and disposed of before anyone could notice, but people did. There was a lot of looks and quite a bit of rattling of the political teacups.’
Another Cabinet member said: ‘Zero is a fairly drastic number. There is a real sense that we need to reform the whole process.
‘It has been a decade since we had a good look under the mandarins’ bonnet – we do seem to have slipped back into the age of jobs for the boys. There is a bit of a sense of a stitch-up surrounding it all. There is a real danger that the age of groupthink is back. The Sir Humphreys are back in the saddle.’
The TLAC has been encouraged by a variety of ministers to promote greater levels of outside appointments.
In 2011. the then-public expenditure minister Brendan Howlin ensured a majority of its members were appointed from outside the public sector.
In a comment about the ongoing low numbers of women in top civil service posts, one source said: ‘We are back in the age of “we must promote the best man for the job, regardless of sex”.
‘Reform has come to a juddering halt. There seems to be a reverse takeover by the old boys.’
‘A reverse takeover by the old boys’
‘The Sir Humphreys are back in saddle’