The state’s top officials, known for their A1 sub-rating, have been on a warpath for weeks against the new promotion process from the immediately preceding group in the hierarchy (A2) to the highest ceiling of General Administration (AGE). ). The controversy arises with the change in the internal promotion system for these senior civil servants – agreed between the government and the unions on 3 November – because the new promotion route (from sub-group A2 to A1) is less demanding in academic matters and routine, but gives more Emphasis on experience and job performance.
Essentially, the agenda was reduced from 83 to 16 topics; The test has evolved from 50 questions with four choices and penalized errors to 80 questions with three choice of three answers and no penalty for errors. The oral presentation, the implementation of an internship and the language test are eliminated from the procedure. The merit competition and a selection course run by the administration itself, which will be exclusive and therefore decisive when it comes to promoting the A1 subgroup (formed by, among others, senior technicians from Social Security, Treasury and Labor and Social Security Inspectors).
The groups of A2 civil servants, who are accused of being able to gain access with less qualifications, consist of state clerks, for example; financial engineer; the Technical Architects of the Treasury; technical engineers or sub-inspectors for employment and social security. All these last professionals have now organized to refute the allegations of the A1.
- Motivation and professional career. In response to the allegations by A1 that the new funding model would worsen public functions and harm citizens, A2 countered with the opposite. A more effective internal promotion than the current one – it is said – “encourages the motivation, commitment and excellence of workers” and will allow “talent to be used and retained in public administration for the benefit of excellence and consequently of the better Attention to the citizen,” explain the A2 technicians. And remember that career is an individual right enshrined in the Basic Law for public servants.
- Access to the group. Likewise, the members of the A2 counter the accusation of lowering the requirement in the tests, recalling that “access to group A already requires passing a difficult selection process, which is not exclusively limited to subgroup A1”.
- Positions are not filled. Another defense of the A2’s new carriage model is that with the system in place to date, “the places called have generally remained deserted, and as a result it has failed in its basic objective of recruiting staff”. Additionally, these difficulties of the previous model were exacerbated by the context of an aging workforce, which has declined by a net 22% in AGE between 2021 and 2020, and 56% of the current workforce is projected to retire by 2030.
- Discriminatory and against excellence. According to A2’s thesis, the complicated promotion system that has existed so far, “forces this group to neglect their work in preparing for the memory tests for years.” could spend a lot of time preparing for a promotion.
- economic causes. One of the most active in this fight has been the Finance Inspectors (A1), who blame the new promotions system for “lowering the level of preparation” of officials, which the association representing the panel says will hamper his work. However, the Gestha, the technicians’ union (A2), believes that part of the inspectors’ reluctance is due to purely economic reasons. In this union they calculate that the financial controllers receive an average salary of 103,156 euros per year. In addition, 21 inspectors have salaries that exceed 140,000 euros per year, always including salary, triennials and bonuses and an estimate of productivity. According to the technicians, these high numbers are due to two factors: that it is a small force, made up of just over 2,000 soldiers, and that it reserves the right to sign the documents prepared by the technicians and thus to “steal”. their authorship, explains Gestha Secretary General José María Mollinedo. These compensations, he continues, explain the inspectors’ resistance to the new internal promotion within the tax authority, since this body must “devalue” the work of the technicians in order to “justify” the large salary differences.
For this reason, the Association of State Treasury Inspectors has announced that it will challenge the changes agreed between the Department of Finance and Public Functions and the unions CC OO, UGT and CSIF in court.