IMPACT was challenging a bizarre HSE plan to outsource payroll for the new Children and Families Agency (CFA) in the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) yesterday (Thursday), after management admitted its proposal would cost the cash-strapped public health service €250,000 a year. IMPACT says the work can be done by existing staff at “little or no additional cost.”

The union has told the LRC that the proposal would also breach an agreement reached in the recent Haddington Road talks, which says shared services in HR and payroll must be kept in-house as a preferred option.

The LRC hearing is to reconvene next Tuesday (22nd October).

IMPACT official Robbie Ryan said it would be madness to spend an extra quarter of a million a year, particularly when management is seeking talks on shared payroll services across most of the health sector including the HSE and voluntary hospitals. He accused the HSE of refusing to fully cooperate with union efforts to calculate and achieve cost savings by keeping the work in-house.

“The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform recently told us that health service management claims it has 1,500 surplus staff. Now it’s telling us it can’t find ten people to reallocate to this work. Instead it wants to squander €250,000 of public money each and every year. Either it’s madness or there’s a more sinister privatisation agenda at play,” he said.

IMPACT says the cheapest and best solution is for the HSE to provide the CFA with payroll services on a shared-service basis. The union points out that management has constantly argued for more shared services, which are central to the reforms required under both the Croke Park and Haddington Road agreements.

In meetings with HSE management, IMPACT has also put forward other options for providing payroll services using existing resources, including the possibility of redeploying staff to work on CFA payroll under Croke Park redeployment provisions. The union disputes management claims that it would need up to nine additional staff to keep the service in-house. This is because, even under HSE privatisation plans, most of the payroll work would be done by HSE staff.