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 they are responsible. Local authorities are entirely independent corporate entities having full responsibility under law for the performance of their functions.
The Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (DPENDR) has overall responsibility for public pay policy. Public service pay has been governed by a system of collective agreements which have helped to ensure that public pay is managed in a sustainable, affordable and orderly manner. The current pay agreement is the Public Service Agreement 2024 – 2026, under which, the pay adjustments from 1 October 2024, were recently notified to local authorities.