As well as helping to deliver significant pay bill savings, the Agreement is also allowing the public service to change the way it does its business and reduce operating costs, resulting in greater internal efficiencies and a whole range of non-pay related cost savings.
Examples of such savings which have been reported to the Implementation Body are set out below.
- The OPW achieved rental savings of €8.75m and sold property assets for in excess of €5m in 2010.
- The Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine will achieve non-pay savings of approx. €3m in 2011, increasing to €4.5m per annum when its programme of office rationalisation is completed.
- The OPW secured savings of €8.8m in procurement and assisted a further €39m savings across Departments and Offices.
- Local Authorities reported total non-pay savings of €81.1m.
- The HSE succeeded in delivering savings of €126m across a wide range of overheads.
- The Department of Justice & Equality achieved a reduction of over €2.5m in respect of the Direct Provision System in the first two months of 2011.
Costs avoided through increased productivity
The Agreement provides opportunities for changes in work practices and methods of service delivery which avoid costs that would be incurred without the flexibilities provided for in the Agreement.
Examples include:
- Redeployment of teachers in resource, support and co-ordination roles to regular teaching positions which will mean 1,100 fewer teachers will be recruited from September 2011 and a further 270 less from September 2012, resulting in avoided costs of €15m in 2011 or €50m in a full year.
- Changed work practices and increased productivity in the Prison Service have led to annual staff costs of €9.56m being avoided.