NEWS

No civil servants? perks until 2014

Administrative Reform Minister Dimitris Reppas on Wednesday outlined an ambitious plan to evaluate the country?s civil servants, noting that any bonuses or promotions would be inextricably linked to their meeting strict performance-linked criteria.

Public servants will no longer receive bonuses that are not linked to their performance and all bonuses and promotions will be frozen until 2014, when the first assessments are to take place, Reppas said during a joint press conference given with his deputy Dinos Rovlias and Michalis Vilaras, a senior official of the Council of State, the country?s top administrative court. Vilaras heads the committee drafting the legislation governing the evaluation scheme.

The first step will be taken in November of this year when all civil servants will be asked to sign individual contracts setting out goals linked to their own performance as well as revenue targets for their department. Achieving these goals will be the only way to clinch a bonus or secure a promotion in the future, Reppas said, adding that civil servants will not be able to pocket both of these bonuses.

To ensure to as great a degree as possible that the evaluation of civil servants is done fairly and objectively, the task will not be assumed by the employees? superior but by a higher-ranking manager.

In a bid to make the system as watertight as possible, two committees will be set up in each ministry and state body — one to evaluate civil servants and the second to monitor the evaluation committees themselves.

Reppas did not give details about how these committees would be staffed but sources told Kathimerini earlier this month that it would be a mix of senior state officials in association with French experts who have been brought to Greece by the European Commission Task Force.

Reppas stressed that efforts will be made to introduce the concept of competitiveness to civil servants, widely maligned for being lazy and incompetent.

?It is not enough for an employee to be good, he will have to be better than his colleagues to secure his progress as there will be comparative assessment too,? Reppas said.

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