SDLP Leader of the Opposition Matthew O’Toole has welcomed the adoption of his proposal to recruit graduates to the civil service.

The Civil Service Graduate Management programme will offer 30 graduates an accelerated leadership development path within the civil service.

Mr O’Toole has consistently advocated for the recruitment of high achieving graduates to refresh and replenish the civil service.

South Belfast MLA Matthew O’Toole said:

“Following my proposed Make Change Programme to address the struggle to recruit fresh talent to our civil service, tackle its aging workforce and make efforts to reverse the brain drain that is seeing many of our best and brightest talents leaving the North each and ever year, I’m glad that Finance Minister Conor Murphy and Head of the Civil Service Jayne Brady have established this new graduate programme that will make some progress in addressing these issues.

“When developing the programme I envisioned it as a way to get our high achieving young people and experienced professionals to address our most pressing issues, from the climate crisis, to health service reform and closing the skills gap and this programme should give us a foundation to build on going forwards, with further steps needed to truly address the issues raised.

“If we are going to get to grips with the problems impacting our society then we cannot allow any talent to slip through our fingers. We need to be ambitious and keeping our talented young people here and getting them involved at a high level within our civil service will be an important step towards this.”