The public administration has a personnel problem. This is the diagnosis presented yesterday by the Minister for the Digital Transition and the Public Service, José Luis Escrivá, who announced a reform to internally solve the deficit of human resources that exists in some templates with “extraordinary professionals” but ” tense”.
The efforts made in recent years to call for record public employment offers have not been enough. Escrivá explained, in his parliamentary appearance to explain the general lines of his department for this legislature, that officials need reinforcements. At this moment, the number of workers in the General Administration of the State (AGE) is a little more than 520,000, according to data from the Central Personnel Register, which is 10% less than in the years before financial crisis In 2010, 2011 and 2012 they exceeded 580,000 employed. The civil service also needs a generational change. According to the minister, who has just assumed his new duties, around 60% of the AGE staff will retire in the next decade, which will cause the teams to lose around 300,000 workers.
In view of this situation, Escrivá announced a plan to attract and retain talent in the civil service. The aim is, on the one hand, to speed up selection processes to strengthen the workforce and, on the other hand, to try to attract more senior profiles from the private sector. “Public professionals need a motivating career perspective”, proclaimed the minister. His department has assumed the complication of the task, especially due to the salary difference between public and private employment in the case of specialized profiles.
Deploying a recruitment plan in the public administration does not imply that recruitment must increase exponentially in the coming years to match pre-crisis records. Escrivá explained that, although there is a minimum threshold that must not be reached in order not to harm the provision of services, the State Secretariat for Civil Service is working on a project to identify how many new public employees they need taking into account the impact of digitization and the emergence of artificial intelligence, which the Spanish Government also wants to promote in public administrations. Escrivá said that a “strategic planning” process will be launched to calculate how many workers will be needed in the coming years to cover shortages in the workforce and the retirement of public employees.
The Central Government will also put an end, as Escrivá announced, to the rate of replacement of workers, a recurring claim of the unions, since it is “a model that is based on the vegetative growth of the templates”, defended the minister The UGT positively assessed the decision, since this replacement rate was “a real brake on the adaptation of the templates to the needs of the public service”. The aim of the Central Executive from now on is to start negotiations with the unions to implement a new system of renewal of templates. It won’t be ready until 2025.
With regard to the attention to the public, Escrivá said that he will implement a change in the law to prohibit citizens from having to arrange a prior appointment to be attended to in public administrations. This practice spread during the pandemic, but, according to the ministry, it sometimes ends up making management difficult for some sections of the population. “Face-to-face care in public administrations for a group of citizens has no substitutes”, pointed out the minister, with reference to groups of elderly people or dependents who, according to the new head of the public function, what he wants is to have “a conversation with an official”.
Minister Escrivá reaffirmed the Spanish Government’s commitment to raising the salary of all public employees. In the next Council of Ministers, the revaluation of 0.5% of payrolls with retroactive effects to 2023 will be specified due to the improvement of the GDP and an additional increase of 2% was advanced this year. The Spanish intention is to include this second increase in the Budget bill that is being prepared by the Treasury. But if the public accounts end up shipwrecked, the Spanish Executive will look for other ways to comply with the agreement, the ministry confirmed.
