27 July 2010
As part of the Comprehensive Spending Review, tight recruitment controls have been put in place across the public sector.
States departments can now only fill vacant posts after they have been reviewed and judged to be essential to the organisation. As a result, the number of States jobs advertised locally has fallen from a total of 64 vacancies in April 2009 to just 37 in April this year. That figure has since fallen further, to 30 in June and just 18 in July.
These recruitment controls mean that each post that falls vacant must be rigorously assessed to consider whether or not it is crucial to the organisation and to see if anyone already working in the organisation could fill the post. Any exceptions must be signed off by the Director of Human Resources. Vacant positions are also being evaluated to see if they could be filled on a temporary or fixed term basis.
The Treasury Minister, Senator Philip Ozouf, said "These measures take us as close as possible to a recruitment freeze. We have to accept that in the public sector there are certain posts that must remained filled if we are to provide essential services for islanders. But as we are working to construct a flexible, efficient public sector that provides value for money for taxpayers, we must take every opportunity to modernise the way we work. It is only in this way that we will secure a successful future for the island.
“The decision to assess every post as it becomes vacant will help provide the flexibility to ensure we have the necessary skills for a modern public sector. Any reduction in posts will be managed through retirement, retraining, vacancy control, people leaving voluntarily, redeployment and voluntary redundancy. A voluntary redundancy scheme is due to be launched next month.”
Chairman of the States Employment Board, Senator Terry Le Sueur added "Our priority is the welfare of our current staff and we must ensure that the best use is made of existing staff before recruiting new staff. We are also talking to Trade Union representatives and making sure that they are kept fully informed."
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