North Atlantic Skyline - - Photographs from the west of Ireland (Galway, Mayo, Clare, Limerick, Roscommon and even Leitrim)

You've got to go there to get back

Arthur Beesley has an opinion piece in Saturday's Irish Times on the government's Civil Service decentralisation plan.

The Minister of Finance is also insisting that the programme [of decentralisation to outside of Dublin] will be voluntary. But Mr. McCreevy has already turned his back on [this] commitment. Until this September at least, offers for all posts be conditional in the bodies to move from Dublin will be conditional on agreement by the appointee to relocate. You won't get the job if you don't want to move.

Now, there are plenty of grounds on which you could criticize the impending decentralization plan, not least the way the government are using it as a blatant election ploy. But McCreevy has not done a U-turn on the voluntary aspect of the move. No-one will be forced to move in order to remain in their current role, which is not always an option when companies in the private sector move location. What Beesley doesn't seem to realize is that relocation has always been part of the life of a civil servant, at least the ones who want to be promoted.

Say you join the Civil Service in Westport at the lowest grade. Periodically, there are competitions for promotion to the next grade, consisting of either an exam, interview or both. Everyone's score is listed in ascending orders and offers are made to the highest scorers. However, like most of the competitions, the vacancies are filled on a national basis. That means that you might get offered a promotion in Letterkenny or Cork. If you're working in a small office, chances are that very few vacancies will arise in your own office. Now, you do have an opportunity to refuse the first couple of offers, in the hope that you'll get an offer of a promotion in your own county or even the same province, but usually, the choice is to move, or stay at the same grade.

Since all the government departments are based in Dublin, it's difficult to progress more than a few steps up the promotional ladder without facing a move to Dublin. If you're living on a civil service salary, the only way you can afford a house is if you bought it a very long time ago - this is not an option open to anyone offered a promotion in Dublin in the last few years.

True, there are some Dublin-based civil servants unhappy at the prospect of having to move. But there are also many civil servants living in Dublin that have moved from other offices, and can't wait to move out of Dublin again. For the first time, civil servants working outside of Dublin can advance through the ranks and have some chance of living in a location that they want to live in, rather than where they have to (i.e. an overpriced starter home in Meath or Kildare, followed by a soul-sapping commute). Happier civil servants ? Got to be worth something.

Posted by Monasette at April 18, 2004 09:24 PM