NORTHERN IRELAND
Government Departments in Northern Ireland are spending more than £40,000 (A$72,700) a day on overtime payments.
In the latest figures released by the Department of Finance, PS employees worked about 804,000 extra hours in the past year at a cost of more than £16 million (A$29 million) — a 9 per cent increase on the previous year’s expenditure and 53 per cent more than in 2010.
Four out of the nine Departments had costs running above £1 million (A$1.8 million), with the highest bill at the Department for Communities (DfC), which spent £5.9 million (A$10.7 million) on overtime — up 34 per cent in a single year.
Defending the expenditure, the DfC said it was the largest of the Departments, employing more than 8,000 staff.
“The majority of overtime in DfC is carried out in the operational delivery of social security benefits, and overtime is approved to meet business need in providing an effective service to our customers,” the DfC said.
The Department of Finance said it was satisfied the expenditure was the result of staff undertaking essential work.
However, John Dallat, a long-serving member of the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee, voiced concern.
“Overtime should be the exception, but these figures suggest differently,” Mr Dallat said.
He said there was a danger that overtime was becoming part of the norm.
“It is very poor management of the most valuable resource — the staff,” Mr Dallat said.
“Overtime can lead to people being overworked and overstretched.”
He called on the Audit Office to investigate the rapidly rising overtime expenditure.
Lobby group Tax Payers’ Alliance said taxpayers would wonder why this bill had risen so high in such a short time.
“Staff should be paid for the hours that they work, but if there’s so much overtime being claimed, then perhaps there may be some issues around their workload,” the Alliance said.
Belfast, 18 June 2019
