All government job vacancies, especially desk-based and management roles, are now subject to a full review before being re-advertised.
Speaking to Manx.News, Cabinet Office Minister David Ashford said: “Everything that is going through the system now is being reviewed.”
“So if a vacancy comes up it now has to go through a full review process before it can be re advertised in terms of what I would call desk based roles and management roles.”
Enormous Price Tag
Mr Ashford said: “We do have to recognise that we are now in a globally competitive marketplace. So people are much more mobile, they’ve got much more the ability to choose where they live and where they work and what companies in the private sector, not just here or in the UK, but elsewhere, are offering is substantially more.
“We have heard complaints in the past about people saying we need the best people here in the island. We need the people who are best for the job. And I’m afraid we do have to recognize with some roles. That does mean it comes with an enormous price tag.”
Although, Ashford also explained that the growth in government staffing has mainly been in frontline roles like nurses, doctors, and police officers.
Value of Roles
David Ashford MHK has explained why the focus should be on the value and impact of roles, not just the numbers.
Mr Ashford said: “If you drill down into the numbers, those are the areas that are expanded, which is the health service, for instance, where more full time nurses are being brought in, doctors, the increase in police officers we’ve seen as well.
“So it is actually the front line roles that are actually the majority of that increase. What matters for me isn’t so much necessarily the number I’m more interested in what is the job doing and what is it actually delivering.”
Head Count
Speaking at the government conference on Wednesday (September 24), Mr Ashford said: “One of the things I’ve asked for as Cabinet Office Minister, is an organogram across government, and I would hope as part of the reviews around our head count, that’s exactly what we will be doing as vacancies are coming up.
“Now we are looking at vacancies, and actually saying is that vacancy required. Mark Lewin, the chief executive government, has announced this afternoon that, you know, as a result of that, about a third of the vacancies across government so far, we’ve only just started, have actually now disappeared off the head count.
“And I think that will, we will see that going further over the next 12 months.”
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