Dismissal, merit-based pay, overhaul of categories… The government’s avenues for reforming the civil service

The Minister of the Civil Service launched a consultation on Tuesday with civil servant unions around this reform. Stanislas Guerini intends to present his bill at the start of the 2024 school year.

The thorny issue of civil service reform is now being tested by consultations with the unions. The Minister of Transformation and Public Service, Stanislas Guerini, launched negotiations on his bill on Tuesday April 9 in Paris. Two more meetings are planned for May 14 and June 20. Announced in September 2023, the reform arouses concern among social partners and the 5.7 million public employees, particularly after the shock declarations of the minister at Parisian, Tuesday. Franceinfo lists the avenues considered at this stage.

Reform the three categories of civil servants

Within the civil service, civil servant jobs are classified into three hierarchical categories (A, B and C), depending on qualification levels. These distinctions are present in the three sectors of the public service: state, territorial and hospital. Teachers, hospital doctors, tax inspectors or department heads belong to category A. Specialized educators and customs inspectors to category B, caregivers or nursery school agents to category C, for example.

But these categories are considered too rigid by Stanislas Guerini. Guest of France Inter on Wednesday, the minister expressed regret for a system which “blocks a lot of things and puts glass ceilings over the heads of agents”, blockages linked according to him to their diplomas and their training. The objective of the reform is, according to him, to allow agents to “get home more easily”of “move more easily” and of “sometimes being able to leave the civil service more quickly”.

Facilitate dismissals for professional inadequacy

“I want us to lift the taboo of dismissal in the public service”said Stanislas Guerini in The Parisianpointing a “culture of avoidance on these subjects” and immediately arousing the anger of the unions. As the site Vie-publique.fr reminds us, the professional status of permanent civil servant guarantees a job and obliges the administration to find “the civil servant is given a job corresponding to his grade in the event of job abolition”contrary to what is planned for contract agents or trainees.

The minister intends to attack this principle of lifelong employment by broadening the sanctions in the event of professional inadequacy. Dismissal for professional inadequacy in the public service is a “very poorly defined tool and extremely little applied”lamented Stanislas Guerini on France Inter.

The status of civil servants “never explained that you can’t fire someone who doesn’t do their job well”, argued the minister. Three grounds for dismissal exist today in the General Civil Service Code. Administrations can separate their agents in the event of job abandonment, professional inadequacy or refusal of three different jobs.

But these provisions would be applied too little, according to Stanislas Guerini. Of the 2.5 million agents belonging to the state civil service, “there were 13 dismissals for professional inadequacy” in 2023. As for “revocation for misconduct”another type of sanction, “there were 222”During the same period, the minister estimated.

Stanislas Guerini specifies that his bill would not introduce a reason for dismissal of civil servants for economic reasons. “There are no economic redundancies in the public service and I do not wish to change thathe assured. I think that statutorily, it is something very important which distinguishes public from private.”

Promote merit-based pay for agents

Another avenue explored by Stanislas Guerini: “better remunerated and better rewarded” civil servants. The government wishes to expand the possibilities of financially rewarding the most deserving agents, in other words an individualization of remuneration. Today, salaries are set on salary scales common to the entire civil service (State, hospitals and communities) and depend largely on seniority and position. This proposal is not new. In November 2015, Emmanuel Macron, then Minister of the Economy, declared himself in favor of this measure.

To defend his proposal, Stanislas Guerini can rely on the results of a survey published at the end of March by the General Directorate of Administration and Civil Service (DGAFP): “In the public service, in 2021-2022, 20% of agents want to work more hours with an increase in pay, compared to 23% of private sector employees.” “Work must pay better, we must be able to reward the individual and collective commitment of agents and we must have more tools to promote professions and skills”explained the minister on France Inter.

This principle of merit-based pay already exists but it is not generalized to all public functions. In the state civil service, “professional value” agents “is taken into account, where applicable, for the compensation modulation”, professional advancement or in terms of mobility, specifies the Ministry of Civil Service. There is also an optional bonus which pays state agents. This annual compensation supplement is paid for “specifically recognize professional commitment and manner of service”.