The public sector. Someone has a cunning plan…

And who would that be? Why it’s Ronan Lyons, writing in the weekend before last’s Sunday Business Post, who has decided that there’s ways to ‘transform’ the Public Sector.

Take it away Ronan.

If we think of our public service as a conglomerate employing about 350,000 people, we can compare how it operates with some of the worlds biggest private companies.

Hold on a moment. Let’s stop right there. That sounds right, except, except.

The public service isn’t easily comparable to one of the world’s biggest private companies. For a start it isn’t a company. It doesn’t have a commercial function [except in the semi-state sector] and it has a broadly variegated range of functions and outputs which are societal in scope. And I’m hard pressed to think of any company that has the range and scope of the Irish (or any) public service.

Anyhow, on we go.

…like those large companies, our public service needs a huge variety of skills to perform a huge variety of tasks.

But whereas large private companies will use, for example, tools like in-house online networks so that people can share connections and link up easier, in Ireland’s public service, no similar tool exists.

The reason for this is the same reason some public service organisations, in response to an email query, will type, print, sign and scan in a letter, rather than hit reply. There is no incentive or reward for the individual worker to improve the way the public service works.

Now this I find interesting. Because I’ve also dealt with public services of a wide variety of types, and so far all have – without exception – used a fantastic innovation that embraces both internal and external communication in an online network known as…er…email. And what’s more I’ve found people in the public service do respond.

As to the second point, I’m not really sure what he’s trying to get across. And given that it’s entirely anecdotal since he doesn’t give any references, let me counter that with further anecdotal experience.

I’ve had reason over the last decade to deal with a fairly specific area of the public sector until the last two years. Dublin City Council’s Shared Ownership scheme and me got to know each other fairly well over that decade. In ten years I had nothing but good experiences bar on one occasion where a document went missing for a week or two. Every time there was an interest rate rise I was informed by letter with advance warning. The same with interest rate cuts. Each year I received a statement outlining the position. If money was paid in there was immediate notification of how this affected the mortgage/rent. A couple of years back I unwillingly had to transfer to a commercial mortgage provider. The change in the relationship has been marked. The level of communication is perceptably worse and in some instances what I would consider close to deliberately obstructive in order that they retain a financial advantage. Needless to say it’s less beneficial overall in financial terms.

Furthermore having a fair range of interactions with the public sector in various forms generally I’ve found them to be much much better than they were even a decade ago with engaged staff etc. There’s a few areas I’d still have reservations. My last experience of social welfare some years back was almost uniformly depressing, with some good staff but a lot who seemed amazingly contemptuous of those they dealt with. Maybe that goes with the job, but you’d wonder why.

So what am I to take from this? Public sector good, private sector bad? No, but rather that the idea of a public sector, in all its glory that is somehow strikingly dysfunctional is a crock and that this trope is a deliberate exaggeration for a political purpose.

And then let’s consider something blindingly obvious in while that he seems to elide a response as regards ‘individual workers’ and a purported lack of some undefined ‘in-house on-line network’, the truth is that the latter is an essentially logistical issue which would be relatively easy to introduce (if he’s talking about something supplementing email). Though it’s difficult to know precisely why unless its simply the usual technocratic love of the new, whether its functional or not.

But there’s more, and it’s most telling. Because it depicts a view of worker employer relationships which is almost unbelievably grim with power gifted almost entirely to the latter.

On what principles might a transformation of Ireland’s public service be based? I would suggest that three broad principles be adopted. The first is that the state needs to be transformed into a 21st century employer. This will inevitably involve conflict with trade unions, but it is needed in order to enable public service organisations to hire the best people for as long as it needs them at a fair price just like other organisations do.

Is that really a reflection of the private sector? It seems to be one positioned within a short term contract view of employment that many many, perhaps most, workers in this state simply would not recognise. Most workers may well skip through a number of jobs in their working lifetime, but most would hope for extended periods in various employments rather than being subject to the whim of a company ‘hiring the best people for as long as it needs them’. Fair price or not.

And anyone, as I have, who has been on both sides of the equation, as employee and employer (at one stage), will know that far from his ‘easy come easy go’ approach to employment the reality is beyond the world of short term contracts, for those in permanent employment, public sector or private, the reality is that it is extremely difficult to fire someone, or to be fired, for anything other than the most egregious (not to say criminal) reasons.

Moreover, it’s hard to dovetail his supposed outcome with the new structures he suggests. How precisely do you attract the ‘best people’ to an organisation which in many many of its areas is frankly pretty mundane in terms of the work that has to be done. Particularly if you’re removing the very things that have made working in that sector worth it.

And what he describes as the optimal may well be a dream situation for employers but it is far from utopian for workers.

He continues:

It means an end to permanent posts, as these restrict the ability of the public service to employ the skills it needs when they are needed. It would mean the introduction of meaningful performance reviews, where outstanding work is recognised and rewarded, enhancing the performance of the public service and its ability to attract the best workers. And it would mean an end to open-liability pensions that rely on demographics that Ireland no longer has.

This is an interesting point as regards the ‘end to permanent posts’. An OECD report from 2008 “The Public Service of 2025 – Themes, Challenges and Trends” on precisely this issue noted that while the differences between public sector and private sector employment across the OECD are ‘lessening’ this hasn’t led to a shift to fixed or short term contracts. Indeed what one sees is that while absolute security of tenure may have gone in some of the OECD states under review – though not all – ‘open-term’ or ‘permanent contracts’ remain the predominant model used. In no state under review were there more public sector workers on fixed term contracts than those on open-term and permanent contracts.

Nor is this shift to ‘permanent’ or ‘open-term’ contracts uncontroversial. As the same OECD report notes:

Several concerns have emerged from changes in the employment status of public servants. Firstly, there is the issue of whether or not civil servants may become more vulnerable to political pressures. Secondly, there are fundamental cultural values embedded in a national civil service which need to be safeguarded. Thirdly, the loss of traditional job guarantees in the public sector may make it even more difficult for governments to compete with the private sector for a shrinking pool of talented people.

Lyons attempts to further set out his stall:

What will the public service be based on, if not permanent posts? The second principle for transformation is adapting the public service away from its current pyramid system so that it is ready for the project economy.

This will only be done when the default unit in the public service is no, as it currently stands, the permanent department, but rather the finite team.

The obvious response is, where can we find an existing model for this new public sector where the ‘finite team’? I’ve searched in vain for evidence that any developed state has followed such an approach in its public services. Indeed the very term ‘finite team’ appears to be rather obscure, and notably he doesn’t expand upon it, with some mention in HR research in regard to small and medium sized enterprises, and with no usage, again with the caveat that so far as I can find, in reference to public or civil services and the structure of same.

This somewhat esoteric provenance and limited usage doesn’t bode well for its applicability in this context.

It’s also hard to take the idea entirely seriously to be honest. The model he is talking of isn’t one that seems either appropriate to or particularly evident in many commercial enterprises, so its difficult to see why it would map easily onto a state.

There’s no large scale, or medium scale, private enterprise I can think of in my own experience of working for multinationals and indigenous companies which organised themselves primarily on a project to project basis in a structural way. In other words while projects are developed and teams coalesce within an individual company, naturally enough, dependent upon task, the overall structures of the commercial entities remained pretty rigid with most employees, whether ordinary workers, managers or directors, having little or no shakeup to their daily, weekly, monthly or yearly routine. That’s not that strange either. Accounts will continue to do accounts. Sales sales. Promotion promotion. And so on.

But look, Lyon’s approach is one which is rooted in a specifically capitalist approach…consider this overview:

At the heart of this change are individuals with non-traditional work engagements. Call them freelancers, independent consultants, self-employed, temps, contract workers or even non-employee resources – they all define what are known as independent contractors (ICs). Littler Mendelson, a large employment law firm, predicted in 2009 that 50% of jobs created in the recession’s recovery would be contract-based. This stunning prediction, as it turns out, was wrong – but not in the direction you might expect. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, an astounding 68% of hiring in the last year has been contract-based. To nobody’s surprise, the largest growth segment of the contingent workforce is ICs. Demand for temporary and contract help is expected to remain strong as businesses expand their commitment to a flexible workforce to improve efficiency and productivity. The result is new terminology and a new business paradigm: “The Project Economy.” Instead of building a large and expensive management infrastructure that previously comprised most growing corporations, work is now sliced and diced into bits of work called “projects.” Projects can be outsourced, traded, and performed anywhere, by any number of resources, many of whom may not be employees. Technology enables endless configurations of contributors to collaborate and produce work output.

This is all very well, though whether it’s entirely applicable even to the Irish private sector is very much open to question. Whether indeed it’s entirely applicable to the US private sector is even more open to question. Indeed it might be interesting to break down those stats a lot more, what levels are people at, how many are lower, median and higher paid – with the corresponding differences of experience for those in each cohort and corresponding differences of leverage available to them. There’s no doubt that independent contractors are, as they have always been, a part of the mix, and if we are to take the stats presented there at face value an increasing one, but the dominant one? Seems unlikely.

And there are further questions. There are many companies who will be averse to this sort of permanent revolution approach of the ‘project economy’. It doesn’t make sense when most are all too cogniscent of the importance of retaining human capital and using it [fairly] wisely.

Moreover, what’s in it for the IC?

Independent workers also face challenges. While key employment laws generally protect contingent workers who are employees, certain categories of contingent workers—such as ICs—may be excluded from coverage under these laws. ICs are considered businesses; as such, they are not entitled to worker’s compensation insurance, unemployment, overtime, family leave, or protection from discrimination. It is also often difficult for ICs to carry their own insurances and benefits and accept extended payment terms like their large vendor counterparts. All of this may make it difficult for ICs to work with large corporate clients –the very companies that can benefit most from their services.

In what way does this represent a step forward for workers either collectively or as individuals? If anything it seems like a neat way for those formerly responsible, whether private or [as Lyons proposes] public to shed all responsibilities.

And note how this, frankly fairly peripheral model even still, is one which doesn’t have a clear applicability to the public sector. That peripherality doesn’t seem to me to be a solid basis upon which to build public sector ‘reform’.

This is not to say that that model doesn’t exist anywhere, nor is it to say it’s inappropriate in all areas of the public sector – or, and here I would see value in it, as an adjunct to the public sector in a range of activities, but simply to suggest it hasn’t been adopted widely if at all as a structure for the public sector.

Why not? Well the answers are obvious.

Consider how much of how the state operates is through provision of services that change relatively little across time. Education, health, welfare provision don’t need ‘finite teams’ that align with the ‘project economy’. Quite the opposite. Talk to anyone in any of those areas and they’ll tell you how stability and experience is all – and that, by the way, is entirely true of the private sector as well.

There are other reasons. In a thoughtful study issued in 2005 by Danielle Bossaert for the Directors General responsible for Public Administration in EU member states, the following point was made as to why tenure might well be of particular value in the public sector.

Demmke characterised the special nature of the task of civil servants (which justifies the special legal status) as follows:
• they spend public money for important governmental projects;
• they may influence the basic rights of the citizens, e.g. police;
• they are financed and paid by the public in order to carry out work for the public;
• they raise taxes;
• they are given considerable power and responsibilities.

In this sense, the specific legal status, including the principle of life-long employment, is meant to protect civil servants against political, economic, religious and other kinds of pressure and to allow them to fulfil their tasks “in the best general interest”. Very often, the high level of job security is also looked upon as a compensation for the fact that remuneration in the public sector is very often lower than that of the private sector, while it ensures the loyalty, responsibility and accountability of state employees. As we will see later, job security is also one of the main factors attracting young employees to the civil service.

Lyons may find the dizzy heights of certain forms of entrepreneurial endeavour to be intoxicating, and as someone who has watched and admired certain examples of same from a range of areas I can somewhat share that view. Yet for every operation headed up by a Burt Rutan or a Steve Jobs [kind of, sort of] there’s the reality that most enterprises are rather less exciting workaday prospects. And for the provision of what are – after all – fairly mundane public services the idea that such endeavours are feasible, let alone appropriate, is hugely open to question.

But underlying this, and Lyons isn’t really specific on the fundamentals even if he fairly clearly points the way, is an approach that at heart destroys the situation within which workers work. His call for the ‘finite team’ is so that ‘the public service will free the skills of its workers so they can be used where they are needed most, whether tackling swine flu, climate change or a faulty server. This requires the abolition of all barriers to worker mobility in the public service and between it and the rest of the economy’.

There’s a basic flawed assumption in the above, one where the workers are near enough interchangeable despite his protestations at the start of the piece about the ‘huge variety of skills’. But I don’t think that notion of interchangeability is true of the public sector any more than it’s true inside most companies. The skill sets necessary to tackle swine flu, climate change and faulty servers, are all significantly different. Radically so in some instances. And no more than I would expect in a large multinational – and this is drawn again from my own experience – that someone who, for instance is in charge of making electrical consumer units on a production line being ideally suited to run a warehouse next week or work in accounts the week after [not that with specific training it couldn't be done, but that training is labour intensive, and requires time], nor do I expect the same in the public sector where strictly speaking the variation in job types is actually much much broader because the specific goals are so different and widespread within it.

Now, obviously there are some functions where there can be a degree of mobility, but there’s already mobility for those as want it within and between Departments. And the state already employs those on contracts from the private sector.

I know this because as it happens I’m one of those ICs mentioned above working with the state. I have no pension provision, and no fixed tenure. I work contract to contract. I’m a fairly laid back person and I’ve managed to largely ignore the psychological effects of a lack of long term security, but it’s not something that I believe is optimal either for me or my employer. And I wouldn’t wish it involuntarily upon anyone.

And this comes back to the deliberate exaggeration I mentioned earlier. This is motivated by a political view of the world. We see it in the US in Wisconsin, a shift towards undermining and breaking organised labour in the public sector. And why not? In the US there are so many upsides for doing so, it pushes organised labour back in a box in one area where it still exercises a toe-hold, it diminishes a funding stream to the Democratic Party and most usefully of all it atomises workers in all sectors of the economy who ultimately see the few formations they can turn to in extremis being emasculated.

There’s an Socialist Party of Ireland [the one linked fraternally to the SPGB] document that went into the Archive on Monday, the document being from the 1940s that makes the very sensible point that ‘the very existence of Trade Unions – combinations of the workers on the industrial field – and their counterpart Employers’ Federations, presupposes the existence of a cleavage of interests between the workers and employers, and thus the existence of that which is so often denied by the apologists for capitalism, namely, the class-struggle.’

It’s a simple, and obvious, analysis, but no less powerful for all that – it’s one most of us on the left understand instinctively, one that is vastly more difficult for those who are disinterested or even antagonistic to our politics. Those who employ have one set of interests, those who are employed have another. And given that this is a struggle between different power centres with different weights it is absolutely necessary that those of us on one side of that struggle have as many resources as we can bring to bear.

You know, I hold no torch for the Public Sector in particular. There’s good and bad in it, as with every sector and more importantly workers are workers whether public or private. From the start I had no real problem with workers there paying more for their pensions. That seemed not unreasonable. But what is a problem for me is when we see provision stripped away in the name of ‘reform’ and some sort of spurious equity of ‘pain’, and nothing is put in place to shore up the situation of all workers.

Indeed one of the most irritating aspects of the discourse in recent times has been the interjection of those who have never manifested any interest in, or championed, the cause of workers, whether public – or as importantly private – or their wages, pensions or conditions, and instead have used this as an opportunity, largely albeit not entirely successfully, to attempt to pitch one sector against the other to the detriment of all.

If one is arguing that public service pensions should be lower but one is not simultaneously arguing that all workers conditions should be improved through universal provision of pensions and other benefits and that the first can only take place in the context of the second then one isn’t arguing from a love of equity.

Lyons is putting forward the idea that they strip away not merely tenure but reshape the public sector – and I paraphrase – ‘not to reform, but transform’. Arguing this is to argue for an approach that has been tested nowhere in the world, goes further than any even slightly similar approaches elsewhere and potentially removes all protections from a significant cohort of workers and locks into a dynamic that aligns or emulates something that even by US standards is excessive. And this is floated in a serious newspaper as a serious contribution to the debate on public sector reform?

Who then is better off after all this?

A public sector that undergoes a sort of sub-Maoist cultural [commercial] revolution to conform with models drawn in an undigested and unrefined fashion from rather particular areas of the private sector?

The workers in either sector?

And us, the broader society of citizens?

That too seems unlikely.