Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy may be aware, under the Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) Act 2004, the responsibility for recruitment in each sector of the Public Service is a matter for the relevant Minister. As Minister of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform I am directly responsible for the Civil Service.

Section 33 of the 2004 Act established the Public Appointments Service (PAS) to act as the centralised recruitment, assessment and selection body for the Civil Service and to provide a similar service, where requested, to the local authorities and health boards, the Garda Síochána and any other public service body. As such, in the first place and where appropriate, the Public Service bodies covered by the 2004 Act should avail of PAS' services to meet their recruitment requirements.

The 2004 Act also established in section 11 the Commission for Public Service Appointments (CPSA), giving it a wider oversight role over appointments to publicly funded positions of bodies under their remit to ensure that recruitment processes are fair, transparent and merit-based.

Their key responsibilities include, among others, setting out and promoting good recruitment practices, issuing recruitment licences, auditing recruitment and selection at public bodies under their remit and helping and guiding public bodies in their recruitment practices.

I am informed by the CPSA that one of these functions consist of assessing applications from recruitment service providers that wish to be designated as Approved Agencies with whom public bodies can engage when they undertake recruitment directly under their own recruitment licences, as approved by the Commission. While it assesses such applications, the CPSA does not provide guidance to public bodies on how or how often such Approved Agencies should be used, as such use is a matter for each recruiting public body. For this reason, the CPSA also does not collect data on the number of people recruited into the public service via Approved Agencies.