Applicant for civil service who took 371 sick days lost appeal
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A candidate failing a pre-employment check relating to 371 sick days since 2019 and another being asked “inappropriate” questions about previous maternity and carer’s leave were just two cases decided upon by the public appointments watchdog last year.
According to two separate bulletins issued by the Commission for Public Service Appointments (CPSA) outlining its case decisions approved in 2022, the code of practice governing public service appointments was at least partially breached in 40% of the recruitment cases outlined.
Within the civil and public service, this code of practice sets out standards that should be adhered to during the selection process to fill a job. If a candidate is unhappy with this process and feels the code has been breached, they can appeal to the CPSA.
In one of the cases listed, the candidate for an executive officer job requiring Irish fluency in the civil service said she was considered for selection but failed the pre-employment check on the basis of her sick leave.
She said this sick leave had resulted from bullying at work so should be discounted.
The civil service recruiter was told by the woman’s employer that her performance “had been rated as satisfactory in 2019 but had since then taken 371 sick days and her six-month performance for 2021 was rated as unsatisfactory”.
A group of senior recruitment managers in the civil service agreed that the sick leave should not be discounted, and she was not considered for further appointment.
The recruiter also told the CPSA that the applicant was given the opportunity to go back to her employer on the matter based on her statement that the sick leave was due to bullying but the “candidate did not do this”.
The appeals board said it had no role regarding the reasons why the woman had taken sick leave, but it was satisfied the civil service recruiter acted reasonably in offering her the opportunity to revert back to her employer on the reasons for her sick leave. No breach of the code of practice was found, it said.
In another case, a candidate for a specialist competition in the health sector raised a number of issues including that her marking had been too low based on her experience and qualifications, that she was “inappropriately” asked about maternity, carer’s and sick leave absences, and that she was questioned about her motivation for applying.
The CPSA found there were breaches of the code of practice in some areas, such as the questions related to leave, but not in others such as how she was marked by the recruiter.
Other topics that featured in the cases included panels for jobs being declared closed but then re-opened and another person hired, a lack of feedback given to candidates, and an absence of scoring sheets used in interviews, along with “shortcomings” in communication with people who’d applied for jobs.