IMPACT has rejected a claim by public expenditure minister Brendan Howlin that the HSE has identified ‘at least 1500 administrators who are surplus to requirements.’ The Minister made the claim in a radio interview on Monday (2nd September).

During the interview, the minister added “We need to get those [surplus staff] out of the system. We are not going to keep people in public employment as a social scheme. They have to be doing something that is absolutely essential. That is my job - to ensure that every element of the public service is delivering value for money.”

In a letter to the minister, IMPACT national secretary Louise O’Donnell said that the claim of 1500 surplus admin staff was entirely at odds with IMPACT trade union’s day to day dealings with health management and the experience of IMPACT members on the ground.  

“It is our experience that no area in the HSE has identified a surplus of administrative staff. In fact, most areas have identified shortfalls. The number of administrative staff in the HSE has been reduced to 2002 levels, a far more significant reduction than in any other area of public services in the recent past” she said.

She added that IMPACT members throughout the health service are working extremely hard in the most difficult circumstances. “They are conscious, regardless of their role, that there are patients needing treatment at the heart of everything they do. It is unfortunate, at best, to suggest that any of them are employed in any kind of social scheme” she said.

Louise added that the HSE employs roughly 500 administrative staff through external agencies as a direct result of shortages in some areas.  She said that, in general, outsourcing at this level is more expensive than recruitment.

“For example, the centralised PCRS centre, which issues medical cards, recently outsourced some work due to shortages of clerical and administrative staff. Cork University Hospital has sought to outsource the clerical and administrative functions of its A&E department because of similar shortages.  The recent proposal to outsource HSE payroll included a provision to move the existing payroll staff to other areas of the health service in order to cover shortfalls.

“None of these experiences suggests that there is much in the way of surplus clerical and administrative staff available within the HSE” she said.

Louise said that the health service has taken in clerical and administrative staff from parts of the civil service in order to deal with staff shortages and prevent gaps in services. “The recent opening of an incentivised career break scheme in the HSE received nearly 3000 applications. Of these, 280 were granted, but most clerical and administrative staff who applied for the scheme were refused.

“Our daily experience is that clerical/admin staffing has been cut to the bone in most areas. In every instance management concede there is no more scope to cut. On redeployment issues, it is our experience that departments are desperately holding on to staff.

“Based on these experiences, I believe that there is more than a hint of urban myth in the assertion of such a surplus of administrative staff.  The figure has been publicly floated a number of times over the last few years and yet, when challenged, the HSE has never been able to identify where the alleged surpluses exist.  If new information is available which demonstrates such surpluses Minister, I would be very keen to learn where they are, so that we can constructively address the issue” she said.

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Many commentators are fond of framing their comments about public servants by reserving particular contempt for so-called 'backroom' staff or 'pen pushers'. Received wisdom suggests that the public sector is composed of a gigantic swathe of extravagantly paid clerical and administrative staff with nowhere to go and nothing to do, while a tiny army of 'frontline' staff do all the work for next to nothing. It is a cartoonish vision of public servants which has served to divide workers almost as effectively as the wedge that was driven between private and public sector workers, most notably in the early years of Ireland's economic collapse. Read more