Public sector reform foresees layoffs being revoked, new evaluation system
Alternate Minister for Administrative Reform Giorgos Katrougalos and his aides are drafting two bills aimed at overhauling the civil service, but in a different way to the previous government’s troika-mandated streamlining, with thousands of rehirings in the cards.
Katrougalos’s first move will be to distribute a circular to all state services in the coming days in a bid to take stock of all vacancies across the public sector, Kathimerini understands.
The data culled will be used to rehire thousands of civil servants who have been inducted into a so-called mobility scheme of forced transfers and layoffs as well as gradually recruiting some 6,000 people who have passed examinations set by the Supreme Council for Civil Personnel Selection (ASEP) but have not been appointed to posts in the civil service.
Within the next six weeks, the minister is to submit the first bill regarding some 3,900 civil servants, 2,103 of whom have been sacked with the remainder in a labor reserve pool. The legislation is expected to include provisions revoking the layoffs of several groups of workers ranging from Finance Ministry cleaners to school guards.
A second bill, which is not expected to be tabled in Parliament until summer, relates to the restructuring of the civil service and the evaluation of staff. The new government’s evaluation scheme will reward “good” workers but will not be linked to layoffs, sources said. As for a crackdown by the previous government on employees who have fraudulently secured their jobs, the ministry said checks would continue for forged certificates but that there would be “no witch hunt.”
