Lhe President of the Republic, the Prime Minister and the minister concerned, Stanislas Guerini, announced a reform of the civil service. What concerns the public service often arouses interest among our fellow citizens, but also has a forbidding character, given the technical complexity and opacity of the subject. Let’s try to shed light on the issues!
Essentially, three structuring questions arise:
– Should we modify the legal regime applicable to public officials (what is called the general status)?
– Should we review the terms of their remuneration?
– How can we develop human resources management in public services, particularly to make them more attractive and more efficient?
Concerning the legal regime of public officials, the evolution of points of view is edifying. Until the Second World War, the left, notably the CGT, was hostile to a status which seemed to favor the employer. She prefers the contract, supposedly more egalitarian.
It was also under the Vichy regime, in 1941, that the first civil service statute was put in place. The situation reversed after the Liberation: a new statute was promulgated in 1946, of which the left became the most fervent supporter.
25% of agent remuneration
But, since then, the exceptions allowing the recruitment of contract workers – who do not fall under the statute – have continued to multiply, for reasons of management flexibility, but also because more and more people, after their secondary or higher education, wish to participate in the operation of public services without wanting to make a career there. Thus, of the 5.7 million public agents working for the State, local authorities and hospitals, around one million are on contract today. This reflects a “dual” public service, which responds to a diversity of needs.
Then regarding the terms of remuneration, Maurice Thorez (1900-1964), communist minister of the civil service in 1945, ensured that performance bonuses supplemented the salaries of civil servants. Since then, more than a thousand compensation and bonus plans have been created, constituting an impenetrable maquis. In total, these bonuses and allowances represent on average 25% of the remuneration of agents in the three public services. This remuneration includes, primarily, the salary which is fixed according to the body (or the employment framework in the territorial civil service) to which each public agent belongs.
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