Monitoring of HR Policy Developments in the N Ireland Civil Service.

Waiting for an internal review by Department of Finance (Northern Ireland) of their handling of this request.

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),

Despite literally generations of enquiry at all sorts of levels, little is yet known about the criteria for both the initial issue and the ongoing use of life-long Note and File Only Orders and /or Communication Bans by NICS

Little is yet known about how often the operation of such Bans is reviewed in light of, say, adverse affects on the mental health of staff targeted for such official ostracism.

Little is yet known about why some NICS staff are allowed to use normal office hours to deal with Performance Appraisal and Career Development while others are still ( 20 years after the signing of the GFA) required to use their private, and family, even retirement time, (years and years of it) for such entirely work related purposes.

I have no wish to seem pernickety nor to again be labelled as vexatious but I still do respectfully wonder please if it would be possible please to have a note of the legal powers being exercised and of the relevant sections of the HR Manual? Has any research been undertaken into, say , the medical or the Equality effects of such long term ostracism?

No one wants to judge, but with responsibility for the HR function in NICS long outsourced to listed Companies like Capita, a proper understanding of the protocols involved in this kind of thing is of huge importance to regulators and advisers, to politicians, to analysts, and to Ethics Committees. One can never have too much understanding.

Rest assured, the role purpose and function of FOI legislation is to make this kind of understanding possible. With understanding, we can all be winners, there are no losers.

Good Luck. I wish you well.

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

Time is passing.

I am writing to request an internal review of Department of Finance (Northern Ireland)'s handling of my FOI request 'Monitoring of HR Policy Developments in the N Ireland Civil Service.'.

The thing is that HR Outsourcers are failing, their valuations dropping by the day. Regulators and advisers, politicians, analysts, Ethics Committees too, need to be told what is going on. One can never have too much understanding.

Good Luck. I wish you well.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/m...

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),
I have noticed, some organisations are advising, that their staff somehow feel uncomfortable even threated, fearful or harassed at being asked to deal with, Queries from someone like myself. As an officially designated, officially silenced, lesser person, a lower caste, formally ostracised, blackballed individual, someone officially labelled as fit only for Noting and Filing, and with whom all Communication is officially banned, I understand. Those familiar with the history of the province do to.

Maybe the staff involved fear for their own jobs if they are detected communicating in any way with someone beneath them, someone that they are formally ordered to ignore. Maybe, given current sacking levels, they have such fears with good reason too.

I see their point. It is not my wish to make anyone feel in any way uncomfortable or threatened with adverse markings for insubordination , with defenestration, or even with the loss of their own job.

Rest assured if you or your staff feel this way, or if you would prefer, no reason given, that communications from such as me are discontinued, just let me know. I will of course be happy to oblige.

Equally, immediately you feel able to resume communication, again just say.

Good Luck. I wish you well.

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),

Hey, we're a bit over due. It may be time for a follow-up.

The thing is that 25years is a long time in most organisations.

During this time attitudes to the importance of Equality, of Diversity, of Communication, of peaceful and respectful co-existence and of Listening have evolved enormously in Ulster society generally. The passage of huge amounts of associated legislation would reflect this and is greatly to be welcomed.

We now need to establish if any surveys have recently been taken amongst the current NICS Directorate , Board Members , Senior Civil Servants, Establishment Officers etc to establish if any , any at all of these Senior people , have ever at any time expressed any concerns about the health effects, Equality effects or Liability implications of traditional Noting and Filing, or if SCS support for Not an Inch thinking is still as unanimous, resolute and determined as ever?

Do please as FOI Query let us know. This is what FOI Legislation is about, digging down through rumour supposition and speculation to the actual recorded facts.

Rest assured it is on recorded facts that Investment Decisions are made, and facts have to be widely spread, keeping everyone in the picture, Openly and Equally.

Good Luck. I wish you well.

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),
Hey this Query is not really getting very far and volumes of paperwork, as invariably happens in Note and File Only cases are becoming unmanageable. The thing is that, however traditional or culturally important the NICS Note and File, Not an Inch Culture may be, no system, no Government, no country, no Government scheme for instance, can survive if nothing is ever officially done, no evidence ever considered, all Whistleblowing just eternally Noted and Filed. Only. Nothing more. For ever.
In these conditions, people literally go mad, it’s a proven fact, Ulster psychiatric wards are full. American positive thinking companies, never previously known to be beaten, get beaten by Note and File , Not an Inch cultures.
Maybe it’s best if we both just jointly accept that the FOI system is not really compatible with Ulster Note and File Only requirements and I just, on Health and Safety grounds, quietly withdraw, at least on a temporary basis, both the original Query and the Request for internal Review? It really won’t be a problem.
Please let me know what you think? Should matters ease, the Query and Request for Review can always be reinstated, no problem, and matters regularised.
Good Luck. As ever I wish you well. Keep safe, your staff too. Staff are not Junk. They matter. They are in fact owed a fundamental and legally enforceable Duty of Care.

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),
As follow up, I wondered if a record was perhaps kept of;

A
The number of career-critical staff Performance Appraisals still locked, blocked and log jammed, still unable to be signed off as accurate after say 25 years of unremitting effort, , by reason of Note and File Only Orders regarding suspected fraud, and waits for necessary forensic testing?

B
The number of man/woman hours of expensive professional time, and the number of pages of documentation so far needed in an attempt to make progress and, since reporting cycles have for equality reasons to be kept strictly in sync, prevent the complete collapse of the promotion and recruitment systems? As things stand, it has long been known that no Board for a generation could possibly withstand legal challenge, and frankly the quality of the SCS is widely thought to reflect this.

C
The number of Officers sacked for alleged benevolence to staff?

D
The number of Senior Civil Servants sacked for alleged fraud, misrepresentation, bullying , child exploitation, hatecrime, lack of integrity or for bringing the reputation of the province into disrepute?

No one of course likes to have to ask questions of this nature, of course they don’t.

No one ever pretended that either Due Diligence Processes or leadership were easy.

However, we all know that if the province is ever to gain Investment, there are inevitably hard questions that cannot forever be ducked. If the likes of Multi Discipline Chartered Engineers will not ask the hard questions then who will? If not now, then when?

Good Luck. I wish you well.

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),

Hey we all know that it has long, 20 years, been fully admitted, defended, NICS policy to use the deliberate creation of stress and the deliberate exploitation of children by inviting them to surprise children’s Christmas Sacking Parties as , in the view of NICS, legitimate management tool. Nothing could be clearer.
I wonder if there is perhaps any record of DoF or of Capita approaching TEO, explaining the appalling effects these policies are having, and asking them please to desist, at least temporarily, at least this Christmas?

Immediately this has been done do please be sure to let us all know. Via WhatDoTheyKnow is fine.

Good Luck. I wish you well. Our children, all our children, including children of OOPs are worth it. Equally.

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),

Hi, we all know and hugely welcome the enormous work about to start under its new management by DoF on identifying and rooting out both unconscious and subconscious bias, in all their forms. Well done.Sounds good.

There are undoubtedly things, things like misandry for instance that we can all, occasionally, be guilty of, and can all have eternally to look out for and correct in ourselves. Even the best of us. On the purely subliminal level of course.
This is natural, none of us is perfect and we must not be too judgemental of ourselves, or of others, for the occasional subliminal lapse. We are all human. We are all Equal.

I did wonder however, as follow up FOI Query please if there were perhaps any plans or timetables for identifying and rooting out bias of the more traditional, official, longstanding, planned, deliberate, conscious variety? The kind of bias hat certainly at one time used to be endemic, used to be fully and Officially approved and defended.

Ditto for Official Bullying. And Ostracism. And Traducement. And Silencing.

Over the last couple of years say, as FOI Query, how many instances of these have been successfully identified and successfully rooted out? What do the records say?

Finally, can I please have a copy of any plans or timetables for rooting out the remainder?

Rest assured, this is FOI Legislation working as it should, working as Parliament intended, helping keep NICS safe, MacBride compliant, and Investable
Good Luck. I wish you well. Enjoy your Christmas. Your long suffering, ever patient, salt of the earth staff too. You’re all worth it. Equally.

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),

Hey as follow up can I please have a copy of that section of the Code dealing with the ( possibly not that uncommon in the traditional powder keg Ulster context) situation whereby a Reporting or Countersigning Officers for any reason quits ( whether by sacking, or being taken ill or retiring) leaving enormous volumes of unexplained , forensically untested, career critical issues, issues possibly ( no one is judging) involving criminality or lack of MacBride compliance?

You may recall that this is a Question I have been posing for a long long time now and, in view of the continuing implications for Job Interviews which, it has long been accepted, have for scores of years now had necessarily to proceed on a purely interim basis, I respectfully wondered when an answer might be forthcoming?

Things really cannot be allowed to continue on an interim basis for ever. People are going down with stress and uncertainty. As FOI Query Is there a timetable for matters finally being regularised? Is there a record of Capita having expressed an opinion?

As FOI Query, when will Promotion and Job Interviews for all finally be permitted proceed on the proper MacBride Compliant basis so essential and so dear to the hearts of Investors? Where does responsibility for this decision rest? Is it with Capita, and have their Insurers been so advised?

People everywhere need to know. This is what FOI Queries are about, establishing the facts, working exactly as Parliament intended.

Good Luck. I wish you well. No one ever pretended that Civil Service Reform was easy. Decades of delay in answering career criticial Queries really do have enormous implications including , as we have throughout known, automatically rendering the province absolutely untouchable in MacBride terms.

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),

Hey, as Follow Up FOI Query I respectfully wondered if DoF is in possession of any records that could help us accurately establish:

(A) Was NICS ever at any time warned of the inevitable and appalling effects of long term ostracism on the mental health of victims? If so by whom, on what dates and what were the qualifications of those issuing such warnings?
(B) Were such warnings ever discussed, minutes taken, and were Independent Board Members present at such Board meetings?
(C) Were any decisions taken, and recorded, regarding the future of life long Ostracism of targeted people.? Was for instance a decision taken to monitor their health?

The thing of course is that I shall be applying for the post of Permanent Head of Service and I am entitled to this kind of information, on an Equal basis as Unostracised internal candidates, in order that I can develop my own understanding of what has been going on and my own strategies for taking things forward.

I think we all know that American Investors will insist, on MacBride grounds, that the playing field as between Internal and External, Ostracised and non -Ostracised candidates has to be level.

It is true that other systems may have been tried in the past for selecting the best person for the job of Permanent Head of Service but as we have seen at say RHI Inquiry such systems have, let us benevolently say, been of questionable effectiveness .

Good Luck I wish you well and a Happy new year, All of you, Equally.

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN