Administrative reform minister provides assurances over civil service evaluation
Tweaks to rules on evaluation in the civil service, made by Administrative Reform Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday, managed to appease coalition partner PASOK but not opposition parties.
Mitsotakis and PASOK have been at odds since the New Democracy politician insisted that 15 percent of civil servants evaluated would have to be deemed below standard. He attempted to heal this rift by adding a paragraph to the multi-bill that was approved by MPs on Wednesday evening. The text stipulates public sector workers are not in danger of losing their job or suffering a wage cut if they are found to be underperforming.
Mitsotakis said civil servants with poor results would be offered extra training or could be moved to different positions.
“Someone deemed inadequate will not be stigmatized,” Mitsotakis told MPs on Wednesday. “If someone is not doing their job properly they will have to be told and be offered ways to improve.”
The amendment met with the approval of PASOK parliamentary representative Panayiotis Rigas but he asked for a couple more changes to be made. One of these was that if a civil servant performs better in this year’s evaluation than last year, when a transitional scheme was in place, the higher result should count for both years.
SYRIZA, however, remained opposed to Mitsotakis’s proposals. The opposition party argued that the evaluation process was designed to provide candidates that would be suitable for sacking in the future. Greece has to fire another 6,500 public sector workers by the end of the year.
