New stage in the reform of the senior civil service: the Minister of the Civil Service, Stanislas Guerini, presented this Wednesday in the Council of Ministers a draft decree to clarify the remuneration of nearly 6,000 senior civil servants.
After having recorded the gradual disappearance of most of the major bodies of the senior civil service, including the prefectural or diplomatic corps, the government is preparing to create a single salary scale for all the former members of these bodies, who will join a single body of “state administrators”.
“Before, you had 15 bodies, 15 similar but different (pay) grids”, which could reduce the salary of certain senior civil servants during a change of position, we explain to the Ministry of the Civil Service. “From now on, there will be a single grid” common to all state administrators, to guarantee a more linear salary progression within the career, we add from the same source.
The government also intends to simplify the current “maquis” of bonuses intended for senior civil servants, which vary greatly from one body and one profession to another. “We are moving to a single system, a single compensation system for the thousands of (senior) civil servants who will fall under this benchmark”, explains the ministry.
In 2023, a project on the remuneration of 5.7 million civil servants
The bonuses will be made up of a fixed part and a variable part, the latter representing a maximum of 30% of the total bonuses allocated to the agent. The amount of the fixed bonuses will depend on the functions occupied by the senior civil servants, while the variable part will be modeled on its “results”.
“The evolution of the index remuneration will be largely determined by the assumption of responsibilities or the risk of exposure in higher positions”, is it detailed in a press kit consulted Wednesday by AFP. “The occupation of higher jobs will thus make it possible to benefit from accelerators which will give faster access to higher levels of remuneration”, it is further specified.
Once they come into force at the start of 2023, these new remuneration rules will apply to “a little less than 6,000 civil servants”, explains the ministry, which plans to publish a decree on Thursday in the Official Journal. The president of the Association of Territorial Administrators (AATF), Fabien Tastet, welcomed the continuation of the reform of the senior civil service.
The reform of the senior civil service also has its detractors, in particular among the students of the former ENA or among diplomats, who organized a – extremely rare – strike in June to denounce the disappearance of the two historic bodies of the profession. Still on the subject of careers and remuneration, the government intends to open a project at the start of 2023 which this time will concern all of the 5.7 million public officials and not only senior civil servants.