The oppositions to stabilize the interims of the Generalitat, which had to be canceled in April due to a cluster of nonsense, will cost a total of 900,000 euros to the public treasury, an expense that the Government will impute to the company that subcontracted in April, Cegos, to which it will also claim 1.2 million to compensate the opponents. Cegos will have to pay, if the justice considers it, 2.1 million plus another amount, still to be determined, for damage to the reputation of the Generalitat.
After the fiasco, the Secretary of Administration and Public Function of the Generalitat, Alícia Corral, set out yesterday the measures that will be taken to avoid the slightest error in the organization of the competitions on July 1 and 8 in which 13,534 people present for 1,825 places offered. “Let the aspirants be calm, everything will be fine”, he assured, “all the resources have been put into it to make it successful”, he reaffirmed.
For this reason, security criteria have been set in the style of the selection exams. The prior surveillance of the exams by the Mossos d’Esquadra, the occupation of 50% of the classrooms, the ban on mobile devices and the mobilization of around 1,700 people, mostly civil servants, who have voluntarily (337 are members of the courts). In addition, around 63 people from the Public Service department have been involved in the organization.
The cost of 900,000 euros will be used to pay the invigilators’ allowances, rent the classrooms at the universities and print the exams. Of this amount, around 434,000 euros have already been covered by the fees that the opponents have paid. The rest is waiting to be reimbursed by the company it trusted to organize oppositions that were chaotic. The company has not paid.
The legal report commissioned by the Generalitat on May 11 determined the seriousness of these irregularities, which rendered the results void, and the opponents have been summoned again for a new contest.
As a result of these incidents, the Government initiated proceedings to declare the Administration’s patrimonial responsibility and to compensate with 90 euros per person for moral damages. Opponents will start receiving them in September.
Of the two days of competitions, the most complex is the one on the 8th, in which almost 10,000 applicants will appear for 1,344 places: general technicians, specialists and administrative. On the first day of the tests, next Saturday, 3,648 people are invited for 477 places of rural agents, criminal enforcement personnel and transversal labor.
However, the greatest tension does not occur in the Catalan civil service tests. The Department of Education is also in the process of stabilizing the positions of teaching officials, which are of a state nature, and which require greater complexity. Corral explained that the fact that the two trials took place in July had been a simple coincidence.
More than 36,300 teachers apply for 14,238 places from July 1 and throughout the month in which oral tests are held. In September they will get the grade (which will already have the merits scaled) and, a year later, in 2024, they will do the practical part. “Unfortunately, this calendar is marked by state regulations”, justified the secretary.
This is another part of the process of stabilizing places in education, which must go from 38% temporary to 8% in 2024, which represents the stabilization of 27,000 official teachers.
At the same time, and to increase its complexity, the exceptional merit competition is taking place, for which there are 12,859 places called and 37,300 people have participated. It is a live process, until the month of September, which allows the list to run as resignations occur. So far, there have been a total of 1,300 resignations.
