State services in the territories are at “a turning point in their history”, warns the Court of Auditors in a report published on May 31. And the government must, this time, adopt a more “realistic” of its staff in the field. A polite way of underlining the fact that, between 2010 and 2021, the state has done just about anything. By bleeding the prefectures, it shot itself in the foot, weakening its means of action in the territories. And the challenge now is to prevent the positions preserved in aging services from remaining vacant for lack of candidates, sighs the financial institution.
The judgment of the Court of Auditors is severe. And remarkable, because it’s not common for this one to complain about savings. That said, it is not the drop in spending as such that worries the judges, but the way in which it was conducted. ” Todaywrite the magistrates of the rue Cambon, the prefectures operate only through short contracts which make their holders precarious and disrupt services. »
The agents in question are those who belong to the State civil service placed under the authority of the regional or departmental prefect. These are therefore the personnel of the prefectures and the local services of the ministries, such as those of agriculture, labor or employment, for example. They represent only 5% of the 1.9 million state agents, most of whom are teachers or police officers. But the decline is no less significant: between 2012 and 2020, their numbers fell from 82,400 to 70,700, or −14%. The Court acknowledges, however, that the data provided by the Ministry of the Interior, responsible for these personnel, “are not reliable”.
“A vector of precariousness”
The C categories of the civil service and the sub-prefectures were particularly affected. These have lost a quarter of their workforce, and some have only“between three and five agents, which makes these structures very fragile in the event of a prolonged vacancy”notes the court.
To compensate, the State resorts massively to short contracts which “precarious their holders”. These vacationers are “intended not only to cope with peaks in activity, but also to compensate for job cuts, particularly in the centers for issuing permits and at the foreigners’ service”. They now represent 10% of the workforce in the prefectures and their remuneration (for contracts of less than one year) has increased from 11.3 million euros in 2010 to 67.2 million euros in 2021. This should stop, the court said: “We cannot be satisfied with public employment becoming a vector of precariousness for the holders of these short contracts. »
You have 30.25% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.