Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

An Executive

A Local Authority

Representatives

Maria Geraghty SIPTU

Keith Irvine Local Government Management Agency (LGMA)

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969

CA-00031423-001

08/10/2019

The complainant is seeking the appointment of an independent third party to undertake a review and evaluation of her job description, roles and responsibilities given her belief that she is fulfilling the duties of a higher level role.

The complainant was appointed to an executive grade in February 2003 and remains at this grade despite having acted up at a higher grade, moving to a different department, increasing her work load and assuming extra duties, including staff management responsibilities.

In February 2019, she applied for an upgrade of her current executive role to that of a senior executive position but her application was refused on the basis that such a position did not exist. This decision was upheld on appeal by the local authority.

It was also noted that the complaint applied for a senior executive role via the Public Appointments Service and was placed number 1 on the panel.

Given the refusal by the respondent to promote her, the complainant is seeking the appointment of an independent third party to undertake a review and evaluation of her job description, roles and responsibilities.

It is the local authority’s position that this claim is a cost-increasing claim and must in current circumstances be viewed in terms of the prevailing Public Service Agreements.

The respondent also asserts that when the claimant was successful in her application for a senior executive role, she was aware that if she was to be offered a post it would be with another local authority. The respondent added that it does not have a post at this level nor do they need to create such a post and that at the time that the claimant applied to the Public Appointments Service (PAS), she was aware of this.

In addition, the respondent alleged that this regrading claim is no different from the generality of other regrading claims where the Local Authority employee believes they are carrying out their duties at a higher level than that which they are being paid at.

The respondent also claimed that there are currently no Job Evaluation schemes in the Local Authority and indeed in the Local Authority Sector.

Where the post of Executive Planner is upgraded to that of Senior Executive Planner, normal recruitment practice in the sector must prevail whereby appointment to that post can only be made by PAS Competition

No evidence was presented to suggest either that any agreement exists for a job evaluation scheme for employees at the complainant’s grade or that such positions are filled other than via a recruitment process organised by the Public Appointments Service. Accordingly, I cannot concede the within claim.

I cannot make a recommendation in favour of the complainant for the reasons set out above.

Re-grading; Job evaluation