Irish Civil Service Pay Analysis - Depressing Reading

You cannot beat engaging with detail. The attached analysis of the pay of Irish civil servants snappily entitled “Analysis of Irish Civil Service General Grade Increases from 2004 to 2008 Including Annual Increments and Pay Agreement Increases - For Civil Servants Who Pay Lower Rate of PRSI and No Pension Contribution” shows the effective pay increases obtained by civil servants. The dirty secret of civil service pay structures is annual increments. Even in the event of pay pauses, most civil servants (except those who have languished at the same grade for a considerable period of time) receive an annual pay increase called an increment. They also get pay increases on top of this.

The analysis applies to the rates of pay for civil servants who pay a low rate of PRSI and no pension contribution unlike the rest of the real world.

Some grades have long pay scales, that is, civil servants at those grades receive annual increments for up to 17 years before reaching a maximum. Others have shorter pay scales.

So, in the case of the Secretary General grade, this experienced a total increase over the four years from 2004 to 2008 of 37% which equates to an average annual increase of 8.16%. Note that this annual increase value is cumulative. So year 1 = 100%, year 1 = 100% x (1+ 8.16%), year 2 = 100% x (1+ 8.16%) x (1+ 8.16%), year 3 = 100% x (1+ 8.16%) x (1+ 8.16%) x (1+ 8.16%) and so on. This is known as CAGR (Cumulative Annual Growth Rate).

In the case of a person who was appointed to the Assistant Secretary grade in 2004, he or she got a 57% over the four years or 12.01% very year. Because this grade only has four pay scales in the grade, the increase lessens for those appointed to the grade before 2004. The worst case is a person who was Assistant Secretary for 10 or more years in 2004 and remained at this grade for another four years. This person got a 37% over four years or 8.28% every year. Not bad for someone who was not worthy of promotion in 14 years. And probably gets a free car space. And 35 days holidays a year. And only pays a very minor PRSI and no pension contribution but gets would get a pension of €75,000 a year (at current rates but that is linked to the pay scale of the grade and so increases every year) and a lump sum of €225,000 on retirement.

An so on for all other grades. The maximum increase experienced by a grade over this interval is an immensely unjustifiable 72% or 14.47% every year for four years.

Does this represent value for money? Does it my arse. This is significantly more than the rate of inflation in the same interval.

These people have been allowed to award themselves substantial increases that are in no way linked to improvements in performance and productivity or the service they are supposed to provide.

So, unless you a complete muppet that cannot get a promotion, the average effective annual pay increase achieved by civil servants is of the order of 10%. Even for those that are muppets the annual effective increases is of the order of 8%. An eminent group called the Civil Service Performance Verification Group has determined these increases are deserved.

The objective of benchmarking is to find examples of equivalent roles (responsibility, package, security) and to award comparable salaries. Did employees of other industries receive a consistent 10% annual increase over the last four years while working in roles where they received longer holidays, pay very low PRSI, no pension, work an average of 6.95 hours per day (139 hours per 4 weeks), are unsackable and totally immune to any economic problems? Did they like fuck.

Apparently all these advantages have no value according to those who invented the Irish version of benchmarking while their real value represents at least an extra 40% on top of the base salary.

This is simply a great big fucking joke. And the joke is on the rest of us who have to pay for a bloated, inefficient, overpaid, unproductive, whinging civil service. Fianna Fail have been in power and tolerated these increases being awarded without subjecting them to any scrutiny, analysis or objective investigation.

This is what I mean engaging with detail.

The civil service in Ireland needs to be called to account for this consistent rate of excessive increase for no return. Fianna Fail need to thrown out for this, among the many, many other failures. Unfortunately the incompetence of Fianna Fail is exceeded by the complete uselessness of Fine Gael and Labour who cannot ask a hard question and pursue it until it is answered.