EPSO CAST vs. CAST PERMANENT
One of the reasons for frustration of Contract Agents (CA) happens even before they are hired (i.e., during the recruitment phase).
The CAST PERMANENT is a selection tool that was introduced in 2017. Permanent means that there is no deadline, so candidates can submit applications at any time.
All candidates with the eligibility requirements can register to CAST PERMANENT FG II, III, and IV. However, being registered in the database does not mean that they will have the chance of being invited to sit the MCQ test. In fact, the majority of those who are registered will either never be invited or will only be invited long after registering. As for those who are invited, they must sit the test on a short deadline, without having the chance to prepare conveniently and, if they do not reply to the invitation, they might lose the chance of working in the EU institutions, at least in a near future.
So, if in theory the more recent CAST PERMANENT can offer an acceleration of the hiring procedure of CAs, in practice this implies that candidates must first be noticed by a Head of Unit, when before they could just register for the test. This is a huge difference, with a huge decrease in transparency and increase in frustration of CAs.
Another negative side effect is that it became very difficult to go up in the function groups’ ladder (e.g., switching from FGII to FGIII).
Should we partially return to the pre-2017 situation, where every candidate was able to register and after a month or less, was sitting a test?
Contract Agents Salary Grid
The second source of frustration for Contract Agents is their salary grid system (see Article 79(2) of the Commission decision C(2017) 6760 [1]).
This Decision changed the possible entry grades to the lower grades in each FG, which in turn lowered the salary of some new hires who before could be hired at a higher grade.
Furthermore, the new range of entry grades disregards contractual agents’ professional experience. For example, in function group II (see table Article 5 of the decision), based on qualifications and professional experience, the same entry grade is offered to someone with 6 and 26 years of experience alike.
Internal Competitions for Contract Agents only
Whenever the Staff Regulation are open, legislation should be passed to allow for a higher number of nomination of CAs into Officials through internal competitions, that should be based on qualifications and professional experience, and not just based on FG and grade.
Meanwhile, under the current rules, yearly internal competitions should be organized for CAs, to fully use the 5% quota of nominations allowed by the staff regulations. This would help retain much needed already existing in-house talent. This possibility should be offered to CAs who have already worked for, for example three years as a contract agent and are still employed by the institutions.
Conclusion
While these issues are not resolved, many Contract Agents will remain frustrated. If on one side we understand – but not agree – that the Administration does not care about its employees frustrations, it should at least care that a large part of its workforce is not shinning as much as it could. After all, who can be a bright star when frustration is running as high?
toolTips('.classtoolTips19','Staff Regulations of Officials and the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Union (\'Staff Regulations [2] (SR)\') are rules stating:
• fundamental conditions of service
• basic rights, duties and obligations of staff.
The SR have been reformed x 2 (so far):
• 2004 (Kinnock White paper)
• 2014 (Regulation 1023/2013 [3])
For a summary of stated intentions and real outcomes of those two reforms check out: European Court of Auditors, 2019, Special report no 15/2019 [4]: Implementation of the 2014 staff reform package at the Commission – Big savings but not without consequences for staff
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Contract Agents (CAs) were created by the 2004 Staff Regulations Reform. There are two types of CA: those with unlimited contracts, 3A [5] (‘indefinite’) and those with time-limited contracts [6], 3B [7]. CAs can belong to 4 different function groups (\'GF\') with different responsibilities and salaries [8].
As the use of contract staff becomes increasingly common, there has been a corresponding increase in the diversity of status and pay of the Commission’s workforce. For example, GFIV contract staff meeting the same minimum recruitment requirements (education and experience) as junior administrators may earn 28 % less. (European Court of Auditors, 2019, Special report no 15/2019 [4]: Implementation of the 2014 staff reform package at the Commission – Big savings but not without consequences for staff, point 61, page 34)
We have a working group dedicated to the dossier, and in December 2012 we addressed the first of many letters (\'notes\') about Contract Agents to Human Resources of all Institutions and agencies [9] (here is the cover e-mail [10]).
As a background you can see the report of the Commission to the Council regarding the recruitment of the contract agents in 2010 [11] (in French, COM(2011)802 final 23.11.2011).
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