*Update 21.11.2024 check out the European Court of Auditors, 2024, Special report 24/2024: EU Civil service – A flexible employment framework, insufficiently used to improve workforce management: it concludes that ‘…the institutions do not focus on imbalances in the SC and AST function groups in their analysis, and concentrate instead on the AD group, and in particular the starting grades (AD5-AD8).‘ (P. 51) Check out their corresponding chart on p.51. Why on Earth focus efforts on part of a function group?[*] Where’s the global vision? Why tackle the hard stuff?*
Original article: It is high time to end the blockage in careers that staff in function group AST/SC have been facing since its 2014 inception. The European Court of Auditors have published a special report where they agree with many of the issues we’ve raised again and again. To add some context: in spite of its name AST/SC colleagues are more than secretaries and clerks; they are drivers and body guards, they are PhDs and team leaders. In short, the AST/SC function group is nothing but the logical conclusion to the long-standing practice of recruiting people to lower grades and salaries than would have been the case pre-2004 and pre-2014 (‘juniorisation’).
AST/SC staff are in a locked box: they have almost no bright future open to them regardless of the work they do or how exceptional they might be. Look at their average promotion speeds and multiply that by the lack of quota assigned to AST/SCs.
The Commission identified that the skills and competencies now required of SC staff are more varied than when the group was created and sometimes bring them closer to some of the tasks performed by AST staff (for example, providing support for financial management and financial verification tasks). Increased digitalisation also led to some administrative tasks usually performed by AST staff being taken over by AD staff. The blurring of the lines between some of the tasks performed by each function group, along with higher educational achievements, makes the restriction on participation to internal competitions (see paragraph 90) even less justified. (Special report 24/2024: EU Civil service–A flexible employment framework, insufficiently used to improve workforce management, 2024)
While AST colleagues have the (small but existing) chance, following certification, to advance to the AD function group, an analogous possibility for a function-group leap does not exist for AST/SC colleagues, even though many of them are tasked with work which normally is expected from AST – or even AD (!) – staff. AST/SC staff can under no circumstances get the possibility to change function group, unless they
- pass an internal competition
for the very first time at the Commission, in 2024, there are ongoing internal AST1 and AST3 competitions which permit cross-function-group applications. No such restriction exist in the other EU institutions
- do an external EPSO competition
when they restart after the current time-out.
But why is this so? Why is this, the most recently created of function groups, so limited? Why intentionally create an underclass of restricted officials? Why should there be such unequal treatment between staff in different function groups? Oblivion? Purpose? Ignorance? Given the educational level and work experience needed to succeed in competitions the traditional differences between the three function groups and the tasks assigned to them have long since parted. The stated aims and reality cannot be reconciled. We count 8 points of potential exploitation of colleagues in the AST/SC function group.
‘The new AST/SC function group was intended to improve the link between grade and responsibility. However, it will take considerable time to replace all secretarial and clerical staff currently in the AST function group with AST/SC staff.’ (Point 25, p.20, European Court of Auditors, 2019, Special report no 15/2019: Implementation of the 2014 staff reform package at the Commission – Big savings but not without consequences for staff) [bold not present in original]
Now can you guess what the real aim was for these (and other) changes? Yes, correct, saving money was the goal! But the savings impacted staff differently: not all of the changes applied to all of the staff. Some changes e.g. many of those related to pension were for going forward only.
“With a view to adjusting career structures in the current domains of AST staff even further to different levels of responsibility and as an indispensable contribution to limiting administrative expenses, a new function group ‘AST/SC’ for secretarial and clerical staff should be introduced. Salaries and promotion rates should establish a suitable correlation between the level of responsibility and the level of remuneration. In this way it will be possible to preserve a stable and comprehensive European civil service. The Commission should assess and report on the scale and effects of introducing this new function group, taking particular account of the situation of women, so that the preservation of a stable and comprehensive European civil service can be ensured.” Recital 20 of Regulation 1023/2013 of 22 October 2013 amending the staff regulations of Officials of the European Union and the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Union
If you don’t believe it, look into recital 20 of the 2014 Reform, where the creation of a new low-salary function group is declared to be an “indispensable contribution to limiting administrative expenses”. Saving money on the back of others needs to stop, we need to stop fragmenting staff depending on their date of recruitment and their contract type. If savings cannot be avoided, all staff categories and grades need to take their share, protecting the weakest in such processes, i.e. colleagues who cannot object today, because they will only join in future – as happened in the past for example with current AST/SC staff.
Well, the as-yet-unplanned next reform of the Staff Regulations might be lurking around the corner. On this occasion, the many inequities of today’s Staff Regulations should be remediated[1], one of which is the career blockage of AST/SC staff. How can this latter be achieved? By introducing a certification-like procedure for AST/SC staff giving the opportunity to be appointed to an AST post under conditions analogous to those that allow already today AST colleagues to move to the AD function group. Such a procedure can be very similar: selection – compulsory training – final exam – AST appointment. In this way, talent management for AST/SC staff becomes a real undertaking instead of remaining an empty phrase.
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[*] We’d like to see balance at all levels and in all function groups. Why focus on AD8 upwards?
‘by the end of our mandate, we will have gender equality at all levels of management – for the first time. This will change the face of the Commission’. (2019 President von der Leyen, Plenary 27 November 2019).
As we’ve often pointed out, women outnumber men at the Commission in every function group and category EXCEPT Administrator (48% female) and Contract Agents GF I (31% female) we would like to see a much more even distribution. Within the AD function group men disproportionately occupy AD11-16 posts. Women outnumber men in ‘junior’ grades AD5-7 (European Court of Auditors, 2019, Special report no 15/2019: Implementation of the 2014 staff reform package at the Commission – Big savings but not without consequences for staff, Figure 10). We want to see more male AST/SC (78.2% female), AST (67.9% female), GFI I (78% female) staff (October 2024 statistical bulletin and our reworking of those figures).
[1] See European Court of Auditors, 2019, Special report no 15/2019: Implementation of the 2014 staff reform package at the Commission – Big savings but not without consequences for staff
