As the years go by, the public service is getting more and more privatized. You might have witnessed in your respective countries that we should trust the private sector to deliver a better value-for-money service. Reagan and Maggy Thatcher started it all in the 80's, and it has lead to some extreme with the financial sector or the underdogs in the Iraq war. But I am not there to argue if it is a good or a bad thing. I have my own opinion on it, but I just want to show you how it is affecting us at the EC.
When it was created in the 1950's, with Germany, France, Italy and Benelux, the Commission was seen as the ultimate public sector agent. Those guys were offered a well paid lifetime employment in exchange for their technical, managerial, political expertises. Nowadays, ADMINISTRATORS are wanted...
The critical point was the 2004, with the Kinnock reform of the Status. No more cooks fonctionnaire, no more guard fonctionnaire... all outsourced to major contractors. In a sense, was it legitimate to give the same status to all the categories. The underlying rationale was that you should give a compensation package good enough to protect the Commission's independence. So it makes some sense to provide the cooking or cleaning services through the private sector, as I remind you incentives to perform well are rarely in our organisation.
Nowadays, on the higher level, the vision of the EC is to be a public government only to administer and use technical expertise from the private sector.
So the technical expertise is outsourced to Contractual Agents and consultants. It is starting to create a quality problem. One, CA are paid correctly, but their lack of long term perspective prevents from attratcting top talents. Don't get me wrong, CA are in vast majority bright and motivated individuals, but how much people don't join the EC because of the 3 year rule. With respect to consultants, the sacred consultants, it is not that we are paying them well, it is just that our procedures are very cumbersome and rarely focused on quality. Let me give you an example, or to say our dilema. You want some expertise on a domain that you don't have in-house. So if you have a lot of budget and a lot of time, than you just tender a call for proposal, get a panel of evaluators, wait 6 months before the guys deliver the product. If it is a quick need, then you use Framework contracts: in a week you get 3 proposals from selected contractors... contractors, not really, just recruiters who post the jobs on the Internet. And don't think you get the best consultants in a week of time!
Eventually, the critical question is: how do you evaluate the work of the consultants, when they have the expertise and you are just an administrator??? Do you hire other consultants to evaluate your first consultants?
It is all about finding the right balance between technical and administrative expertises... the original status was maybe to focus on the technical one, but the reform is rushing to the other extreme. But it is how reforms go, right?
Showing posts with label Contract agent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Contract agent. Show all posts
Contract Agent
STAFF REGULATION Title IV: Contract staff - Chapter 1 - General provisions - Article 79 (96): Contract staff shall be paid from the total appropriations for the purpose under the section of the budget relating to the institution.
Definition of Contract Agent: It is an official who does exactly the same task as a Fonctionnaire but for only half of the price. Not a coincidence that Contract staff is introduced in the staff regulation by article about money.
Introduced by the Kinnock Reform of 2004, Contract Agents are now an essential part of the European Institutions. It regularized quite a mess based on the status of parliamentary assistants. Without a standard format, non permanent officials used to be hired on very diverse and/or dubious conditions. Nowadays, to be hired as a Contract Agent, you need to pass a test EPSO and then your CV is put in a database for recruitment.
There are two types of Contract Agents. First, the lucky one, who works in agencies or in the External Services, is offered long-term employment. Their contracts can be renewed, and at the second renewal, they become permanent although not Fonctionnaires. The unlucky one gets a contract for a maximum of 3 years and then is kicked out. All contract agents working for the EC are on this status.
On one side you get officials who can't get fired, however bad they are and on the other side you got people that are offered limited job security.
The argument given by the EC is that Contract Agents are recruited for very specific tasks or tasks that are limited in time.
Let me tell you the truth: this is just a pack of lies! The main reason why Contract Agents are there is because the EC can't withdraw rights to officials. So they just created a second class of officials that cost half the price and don't get stuck forever in the job. I can give you hundreds of examples of posts that are permanent and that every three years you got some new Contract Agent hired to do the same tasks. Another hundreds of examples of a Contract Agent is doing the same tasks as a Fonctionnaire, some of the times much better, with the same qualification but with half of the salary.
The Unions are pretty angry on those subjects. Some says it violates sothis is just a pack of liesme of the European labor laws (on the use of successive temporary contracts and on equal qualifications+equals tasks=equal salaries). One of the unions has even hired a Jurist to write a report on the question and start a judicial action on the matter. As usual I don't knothis is just a pack of liesw if they are only barking or they will eventually bite on this one.
I really doubt that this issue will be resolved anytime soon, it is a really pity because you loose a large pool of talent every three years. Every three years, you need to hire somebody new (if you are in the specialized field, it can be quite a challenge), train him and not so long after let him go because he got a better opportunity in an Agency or outside the Commission.
My opinion is that the EC has implemented a very dubious strategy in trying to reduce costs. It is a shame that a group of colleagues are not entitled to their full rights, moreover it also has created an unpleasant atmosphere in the service. Some Fonctionnaires tends to forget that someone's administrative status is not a measure of his competencies.
Definition of Contract Agent: It is an official who does exactly the same task as a Fonctionnaire but for only half of the price. Not a coincidence that Contract staff is introduced in the staff regulation by article about money.
Introduced by the Kinnock Reform of 2004, Contract Agents are now an essential part of the European Institutions. It regularized quite a mess based on the status of parliamentary assistants. Without a standard format, non permanent officials used to be hired on very diverse and/or dubious conditions. Nowadays, to be hired as a Contract Agent, you need to pass a test EPSO and then your CV is put in a database for recruitment.
There are two types of Contract Agents. First, the lucky one, who works in agencies or in the External Services, is offered long-term employment. Their contracts can be renewed, and at the second renewal, they become permanent although not Fonctionnaires. The unlucky one gets a contract for a maximum of 3 years and then is kicked out. All contract agents working for the EC are on this status.
On one side you get officials who can't get fired, however bad they are and on the other side you got people that are offered limited job security.
The argument given by the EC is that Contract Agents are recruited for very specific tasks or tasks that are limited in time.
Let me tell you the truth: this is just a pack of lies! The main reason why Contract Agents are there is because the EC can't withdraw rights to officials. So they just created a second class of officials that cost half the price and don't get stuck forever in the job. I can give you hundreds of examples of posts that are permanent and that every three years you got some new Contract Agent hired to do the same tasks. Another hundreds of examples of a Contract Agent is doing the same tasks as a Fonctionnaire, some of the times much better, with the same qualification but with half of the salary.
The Unions are pretty angry on those subjects. Some says it violates sothis is just a pack of liesme of the European labor laws (on the use of successive temporary contracts and on equal qualifications+equals tasks=equal salaries). One of the unions has even hired a Jurist to write a report on the question and start a judicial action on the matter. As usual I don't knothis is just a pack of liesw if they are only barking or they will eventually bite on this one.
I really doubt that this issue will be resolved anytime soon, it is a really pity because you loose a large pool of talent every three years. Every three years, you need to hire somebody new (if you are in the specialized field, it can be quite a challenge), train him and not so long after let him go because he got a better opportunity in an Agency or outside the Commission.
My opinion is that the EC has implemented a very dubious strategy in trying to reduce costs. It is a shame that a group of colleagues are not entitled to their full rights, moreover it also has created an unpleasant atmosphere in the service. Some Fonctionnaires tends to forget that someone's administrative status is not a measure of his competencies.
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