Temporary Employee Submission - July 2020 (PDF version)

The PSA’s campaign on temporary employment is in full swing. Our request for reform of the workforce planning system to deal with over-reliance on temporary staff was discussed at the meeting of the Legal Aid-PSA Peak Consultative Council

CEO Brendan Thomas acknowledged there were problems with the high number of temporary employees, which the Legal Aid Executive is committed to dealing with.

Detailed analysis of temporary staffing within the agency will be prepared for the meeting of the Executive next Tuesday, 4 August 2020, which will be shared with the PSA following the meeting. The issue has also been referred to the Legal Aid-PSA HR Steering Committee for further work.

At this stage, Legal Aid does not have agency-wide details of how many temporary staff are engaged on temporary, externally funded projects and how many are covering for staff on leave or performing other duties. The measures required to address these two classes of temporary contracts differ.

There is scope to cover some work on externally funded projects with permanent staff, or at least with longer term temporary appointments. The scope for reducing the use of temporary contracts to cover leave and relieving by modifying workforce planning processes will depend on how many temporary contracts are used for this purpose.

Once we receive the information from the Executive we will be in a position to make further submissions to Legal Aid.

We urgently need temporary staff to supply us with information regarding their contracts.

If you are a temporary employee, please click HERE and complete the short survey. If you have any colleagues who are temporary and not part of the PSA, please forward this email to them. The information will be used as part of our representations to Legal Aid.

 

If you have any questions, comments, want to get involved, or to simply find out more information about joining the PSA, please contact your PSA Organiser Glenn Duncan at .