MORE THAN 9,000 staff will have left the public service before changes to pension and retirement arrangements come into effect on Thursday.
A new contingency plan for the Civil Service, published last night, shows widespread redeployment of staff and new business processes have been put in place to prevent gaps in services emerging.
However, many Government departments and offices such as the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Department of Justice, the Department of the Environment and the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General are to seek permission to replace key personnel.
The Courts Service has warned it may have to restrict opening hours of its public offices and telephone services and reduce its non-core activities as a result of staff leaving.
The Courts Service, which is to lose more than 50 personnel, will give priority to ensuring that it has sufficient registrars and clerks to allow court sittings and frontline services to be maintained.
Separately, management in the health service last night indicated it is to seek widespread work practice changes for thousands of nurses, doctors, health professionals and clerical and support staff in a bid to deal with the loss of more than 4,300 personnel and budget cuts of more than €700 million.
The Department of Health and the HSE want to use the Croke Park agreement to cut the number of nurses, both at management and staff nurse level, in public hospitals to the level in place in the private sector.
Management also wants to put in place an extended working day for all therapy grade staff and it wants them to see 30 per cent more patients every day in primary care.
It is also seeking to replace non-consultant hospital doctor posts in some areas with advance nurse practitioners.
The document says there will be a reduction in management layers and that flexitime working arrangements will be reviewed “to ensure that it meets the needs of the service”.
Management also wants to replace the existing 12-hour shift arrangement for nurses – which effectively allows many nurses and midwives to fulfil their weekly hours by working three days per week and a fourth day one week every month. Instead rosters would be based on a new six-hour shift pattern.
The document says these reforms would “bring greater flexibility to reduce premium [payments], overtime hours and ensure that we pay only for hours that are actually worked”.
The new reform proposals also seek the introduction of arrangements to roster some hospital consultants on five out of any seven days to include weekend working. At present there is a contractual provision for special payments to apply for weekend work.
The proposals would also make mandatory the full co-operation of hospital consultants with the reduction in the level of historical rest days “in order that no liability exists by the end of 2012 for an additional year off when a consultant retires”.
Hospital consultants will also have to co-operate fully with limits on private practice under current disputed measurement systems and support the introduction of advance nurse practitioners.
Overall more than 4,300 staff are to leave the health service before the pension changes take effect, although the HSE started counting these numbers in September while other parts of the public service did not begin counting until January.
When calculated from January, 2,567 are to go from the health service, 2,000 from education, 1,236 from the Civil Service, 931 from local authorities, 362 from the Defence Forces and 310 from An Garda Síochána.
More than 500 staff leaving the health service will be replaced. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform was unable to say how many staff in the Civil Service in total will be replaced.
However, the contingency report states that school inspector and psychologist positions in the education sector have already been filled as have key positions in the Revenue Commissioners.
The largest number of departures from the public service is in the Department of Social Protection, which is to lose 246 staff.
Asked last night whether there would be any restriction on services for the public, the Department of Social Protection said it was “working with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Civil Service Transition Team to ensure that customer services are maintained”.
