Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 22 March 2023
116. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the additional staff sought by Cork City Council for its housing directorate, by division, that is, vacancy, adaptation, maintenance and so on, in the past 12 months, in tabular form. [14108/23]
View answer117. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the additional staff sought by Cork County Council for its housing directorate by division, that is, vacancy, adaptation, maintenance, etc. in the past 12 months, in tabular form. [14109/23]
View answer118. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the number of additional staff sought by each local authority, by directorate, in tabular form, in the past 12 months. [14110/23]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 116 to 118, inclusive, together.
Under Section 159 of the Local Government Act 2001, each Chief Executive is responsible for the staffing and organisational arrangements necessary for carrying out the functions of the local authority for which he/she is responsible. My Department oversees workforce planning for the local government sector, including the monitoring of overall local government sector employment levels. To this end, my Department gathers aggregate quarterly data on staff numbers in each local authority on a whole time equivalent basis.
Granular data, in terms of the detailed breakdown of the numbers and grades of the overall number of staff allocated to specific work areas or directorates within local authorities, is not collected and consequently is not available in my Department. While local authorities will seek sanction from my Department for certain posts, 1093 staffing sanction requests for new posts were submitted to my Department in the period 1 January to 31 December 2022, such requests are not on a directorate basis. The relevant information would be available from each local authority.
That said and in the context of housing delivery specifically, Housing for All commits to strengthen the capacity of local authorities to initiate, design, plan, develop and manage housing projects and recognises that it requires the resourcing of housing services of local authorities. In this context, I approved funding for 250 posts for local authority housing teams to support the delivery of social housing. I believe there have been delays in some areas but recruitment is well underway and that over 180 posts have been filled to date. Funding has been approved for a five-year period from 2022 to 2026 with a potential to extend the funding to 2030, subject to the availability of the capital funding as well as the delivery of targets in each local authority area. In total, 11 additional posts have been approved for social housing delivery in Cork City and 9 additional posts for Cork County.
Furthermore, an initial tranche of 69 affordable housing staff posts were approved in October 2022 and communicated to each of the respective local authorities with an affordability constraint. This is a key requirement to underpin affordable housing delivery and ensuring the required structures are in place to enable affordable housing delivery as a matter of priority. My Department and the Housing Delivery Coordination Office in the Local Government Management Agency will be monitoring this programme further to a review of any additional supports being examined in 2023. In total, 4 additional posts for affordable housing delivery have been approved for Cork City and 5 additional posts for Cork County.
