The highest officials of the State, known for their classification in the A1 subgroup, have been on the warpath for weeks against the new promotion process from the immediately previous group in the hierarchical scale (A2) to the highest ceiling of the General Administration (AGE). ). The controversy arises with the change in the internal promotion system for these senior officials – agreed between the Government and the unions on November 3 – because the new promotion path (from subgroup A2 to A1) is less demanding in academic matters and rote, but gives more weight to experience and job performance.
In essence, the agenda has been reduced from 83 to 16 topics; The test test has gone from 50 questions with four options to answer and penalized failures to 80 questions with three three answers to choose from and no penalty for failures. The oral presentation, the carrying out of a practical course and the language exam have been eliminated from the process. However, the merits contest and a selective course carried out by the Administration itself that will be eliminatory and, therefore, decisive when it comes to promoting the A1 subgroup (formed, among others, by senior technicians from Social Security, Treasury and Labor and Social Security inspectors).
For their part, the groups of A2 civil servants who are accused of being able to gain access with less qualifications are made up, for example, of State business graduates; Treasury technicians; the technical architects of the Treasury; technical engineers or labor sub-inspectors of Employment and Social Security. It is all these last professionals who have now organized to refute the accusations of the A1.
- Motivation and professional career. The A2s respond to the accusations of the A1s that the new promotion model will deteriorate the public function and harm the citizen, arguing the opposite. A more effective internal promotion than the current one – they indicate – “promotes the motivation, effort and excellence of the workers”, and will allow “taking advantage of and retaining talent in the Public Administration for the benefit of excellence and, consequently, of the better attention to the citizen”, explain the A2 technicians. And remember that a professional career is an individual right included in the Basic Statute Law for Public Employees.
- Access to the group. Likewise, the members of A2 respond to the reproach of lowering the requirement in the tests, recalling that “access to group A already requires passing an arduous selection process that is not limited exclusively to the A1 subgroup”.
- Vacancies are not filled. Another of the defenses of the new model of promotions made by the A2 is that with the system in force until now “the summoned places were left deserted in a general way, for which reason it failed in its basic objective of recruiting personnel.” Moreover, these difficulties of the previous model were aggravated by the context of aging workforces, which have been cut in net terms by 22% in the AGE between 2021 and 2020 and 56% of the current workforce is expected to retire until 2030.
- Discriminatory and against excellence. According to the thesis of the A2, the complicated system of promotions that existed until now “forced this group to neglect their work activity to prepare, for years, the memory tests”. And for this very reason, the previous system was discriminatory with the most excellent and with more responsibilities, who could not spend so much time preparing for promotion.
- Economic causes. In this battle, one of the most active have been the Treasury inspectors (A1) who blame the new promotion system for “lowering the level of preparation” of officials, something that, according to the association that represents the body, will impair of his labors. However, from Gestha, the union of technicians (A2), they believe that part of this position of rejection of the inspectors is due to purely economic reasons. In this union they calculate that the Treasury inspectors receive an average salary of 103,156 euros per year. In addition, 21 inspectors have salaries that exceed 140,000 euros per year, always including salary, trienniums and bonuses, as well as an estimate of productivity. These high figures are due, according to the technicians, to two factors: that it is a small body made up of just over 2,000 troops and that it reserves the right to sign the documents that have been prepared by the technicians, thus “stealing” their authorship, according to explains the general secretary of Gestha, José María Mollinedo. These compensations, he continues, are what explain the opposition of the inspectors to the new internal promotion within the Tax Agency, since this body needs to “devalue” the work of the technicians to “justify” the great disparity in salaries.
For this reason, the Association of State Treasury Inspectors has announced that it will appeal to the courts the changes agreed between the Ministry of Treasury and Public Function and the CC OO, UGT and CSIF unions.
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