ARLENE Foster and Michelle O'Neill are creating a new senior post to oversee the Executive Office, removing responsibility for the joint leaders' department from the head of the civil service.
The role of second permanent secretary comes after the first and deputy first ministers were unable to agree on a successor to David Sterling, who stepped down as head of the regional civil service last August.
A fresh recruitment drive was launched earlier this month to fill the £188,000-a-year post vacated by Mr Sterling after a previous process ended inconclusively last September.
The first and deputy first ministers were reported to be unable to agree a candidate from a shortlist that included Department of Finance permanent secretary Sue Gray, her Department of Health counterpart Richard Pengelly, and Department of Justice permanent secretary Peter May.
The role has been filled since December on an interim basis by Jenny Pyper, former head of the Utility Regulator, who like her predecessors currently acts as head of the Stormont leaders' office and secretary to the executive.
The candidate information booklet accompanying the head of civil service job application says the new second permanent secretary role is designed to improve policy support to the executive and the first and deputy first ministers.
It is understood the new post, which will be a grade below the head of civil service on a salary of up to £139,000, will be more strategic, with a focus on pulling together cross-cutting policy and driving expected reform of the civil service.
Recruitment for the role of second permanent secretary, revealed yesterday by the News Letter, will be separate to that for the head of civil service, applications for which close on April 15.
SDLP MLA Colin McGrath, chair of Stormont’s Executive Office scrutiny committee, said taxpayers were set to "foot a significant bill for the chaos and division at the heart of the joint first ministers’ department".
“The failure of the joint first ministers to appoint a permanent head of the civil service during the most significant public health crisis of our lifetimes is an embarrassment," he said.
"Worse than that, however, it now appears that because they can’t agree on anything, they’ve decided to split the post in two - creating a pseudo head of the civil Service and deputy head of the civil service - with taxpayers left to foot the bill for the incompetence."
