Abstract
Recent decades have been hard times for civil servants in western countries which systems were under pressure for personnel reforms. The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) brought in an extreme stresses for changes and cutback management in the civil service. These were particularly deep in European Southern countries like Portugal and Spain where governments are introducing budgets cuts and private sector practices in the management of public services to reduce the payroll. As a consequence, many areas of public services have lost their uniqueness and become quite similar to the general employment system. The aim of this chapter is to do a comparative analysis of the changes in Portuguese and Spanish public services in recent years. The research is approached from a qualitative perspective, drawing on the analysis of the legal, historical and political changes.
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Notes
- 1.
If this were not so, one is compelled to ask why there is such controversy concerning the number of public employees in Spain in 2013 (“Are there many public employees in Spain?” Arenilla and Delgado 2014). Moreover, some of the most prominent members of the Academy of Law in Spain have voiced their doubts regarding the performance and outcomes of administrative modernization programs (“We are doing something wrong”, stated the daily El País, 20 February 2014, García and Esteve).
- 2.
In addition to the reforms brought on by the ongoing crisis, Portugal began to significantly modify its civil service management system and enforce extensive public sector cuts as from the year 2005 (Nunes 2008; OECD 2013a, b), with some of these changes occurring a decade before the broad process of administrative modernization (Bouzas and Varela 2005; Rocha and Araújo 2007); which were less austere for civil service management in Spain.
- 3.
In relation to the categories selected for empirical analysis, one must take into account the problem of generalization of concepts observed in the legislation analysed such as austerity, efficiency, rationalization, and optimization, which are not precise because of the political discourse. A good example, of these, which will not be the object of analysis in this study given its general character, is the rationalization of bodies and scales of civil servants as outlined in the public employment legislation introduced by the Spanish Government (Orden PRE/824/2009).
- 4.
Without carrying out an in-depth analysis on this point, it should be noted that from its very inception in the early 70s of the previous century, New Public Management has always included as part of its discourse policies that are currently being implemented. For instance, the elimination of permanent positions, deteriorating conditions of pay which are subject to criteria of measurable efficiency, eliminating trade union opposition, and bringing the working conditions of public employees in line with the private sector have always been “prescriptions” of this current of thought on public management (Hood 1997).
- 5.
The initial unpublished research results obtained from the Observatory of Governance of the University of Vigo arrive at the same conclusion i.e., corroborating this consensus on the need for further in-depth analysis of the results on public management, both on a collective and individual level.
- 6.
Notwithstanding, the current budgetary tightening is objectively distancing Spain from the OECD mean, particularly considering public expenditure fell by 40 % of GNP in the 2013 budget (OECD 2013a, b). The figures for Portugal are somewhat more conservative on this point i.e., maximum public expenditure reached 33.4 % of GNP in the year 2011 under the government of José Socrates (DGAEP 2013: 7).
- 7.
The Spanish President, Mariano Rajoy, recently admitted in a speech on the presentation of the CORA Report (2013) (Commission para la Organization and Rationalization of the Administration), that Spain lags behind the OECD mean in terms of the number of public employees per inhabitants.
- 8.
As the OECD (2008: 20) has pointed out, Spain and Portugal have dramatically increased levels of public employment in the last 25 years in order to compensate for the extraordinarily low number of public employees that left both countries lagging well behind most EU countries (Rocha and Araújo 2007: 587; Gómez et al. 2009: 16; 39). Thus, there has been a strong process of convergence with other neighbouring European countries, and the “accelerated” incorporation of new public functions (França 2003).
- 9.
This type of employment, which is not applied to activities involving the exercise of power or authority or the exercise of sovereign power, ensures staff are hired through a transparent and simplified recruitment and selection process that safeguards the principles of publicity and impartiality has been highlighted in relation to the Resolution of the Council of Ministers 53/2004 that introduced the individual employment contract.
- 10.
This process was accelerated by Portugal entry into the EU (Rocha and Araújo 2007: 594).
- 11.
Notwithstanding, even if one holds the opinion that there is an excessive number of public employees regardless of the data obtained, one must also take into account the factor highlighted by Mauri (2012) concerning the proximity of these employees to the age of retirement. Accordingly, recent data from a survey of the working population for the third quarter of 2011, found more than 600.000 civil servants were aged 55 years or older. A third of these (214.000) were aged between 60 to 64 years, which means that many will retire in the next 3 years. If we further add the 100.000 passive civil servants aged between 50 to 59 years, who are entitled to early-retirement at the age of 60 years so long as they have contributed to social security payments for 35 years or more, the number of employees who might retire from the civil service in the coming years may be around 315.000. Obviously, these figures are estimates based on the condition that there will be strict compliance with the age of retirement at the age of 65 years, and that the number of civil servants remains frozen. In fact, the “Plan for the rationalization and youth employment in the state administration”, designed by the Spanish Ministry of Public Administrations in 2005 has been implemented.
- 12.
For example, we may refer to the public comments of Juan Rosell, President of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations, arguing the case for the need to fire civil servants as there were too many in the Spanish public sector (Expansión newspaper, 16/12/2011). Moreover, they have been concerted campaigns in the Spanish and Portuguese press claiming there are too many public employees e.g., “Civil Servants”, El País, Cataluña, 17/06/2009); or “The number of civil servants is coming close to the number of entrepreneurs”, El Periódico, 15/06/2009).
- 13.
We should bear in mind the numerous viewpoint of the doctrine criticising the politicized model due to the abusive use of freely designated officials which is open to political manipulation and the high degree of political interference in the Spanish public administration (Morón 2013).
- 14.
Demmke et al. (2008) even claim that traditional career models no longer exist in their “pure” state in the new millennium.
- 15.
Nevertheless, it is worth noting, as Irujo (1993 cited by Briones 2014:158) has pointed out, career options are so limited in small administrations—such as in many local councils—that in reality the civil service career bears greater resemblance with the employment or open system than the career system itself.
- 16.
Though the US is one of the best example of the open system, Hood (1997) has highlighted the gradual incorporation of the “contract by merits”, which entails the apolitical selection of most of the federal civil servants.
- 17.
An example of these “strategic practices” is the implementation of an integrated performance-based evaluation system in public administration (SIADAP) since 2004, and promoting a system of management by objectives (Araújo 2005).
- 18.
However, owing to the 2007–2008 crisis that has profoundly affected the entire public sector, it is possible to introduce a third trend, incipient but real for those states that have adopted the strategy of cuts in public services and employees: “de-civil servicing” through measures such as reducing the possibility of professional careers through internal promotion, reducing perks and other complements, flexibility in the models of functional and territorial mobility, reinforcing the skills of public managers with the intention of reducing the labour force, and increasing the workload of public employees. These measures and others (discourage new staff; the aging of the workforce and the rate of staff repositioning, undermining the role of trade unions in the management of industrial relations in public sector), as stipulated by recent Spanish legislation reforming the labour laws that undoubtedly affect the public sector, introduce a new dimension, supported by the OECD (2013a, b), under the concept of “delegated HRM”).
- 19.
Resolution of the Council of Ministers 109/2005, 30th June.
- 20.
In relation to the variable salary and the number of cases of corruption, the work of di Tella and Schargrodsky (2003), has corroborated a relationship of negative dependency between salary range and the cases of corruption in the hospital public health sector i.e., the lower the salary the more the corruption.
- 21.
It should be highlighted that wages have been frozen for four consecutive years spanning the 2011–2014 budgets.
- 22.
In the case of Spain the figures for the number of public employees of the central national administration in this study do not include 75 % of public employees from the other administrations of the Spanish State. Indeed, if one is to assess the full impact on public employment, the cuts of each autonomous or local administration affecting this 75 % of public employees from administrations with the cuts imposed by national governments. To sum up in just a few words: one does not have to wait long for a state to eliminate extra holiday pay for an autonomous government to immediately follow suit. This comment highlights that the cuts in the pay of public employees varies considerably according to the particular circumstances of each autonomous or local administration.
- 23.
In fact, in the few public sector layoffs reviewed in this study, the Supreme Court of Andalusia (Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Andalucía) has overturned a previous ruling in favour of the Council of Jaen. The weakness of the Spanish law regulating layoffs mainly resides in that redundancies can’t be announced before determining the needs of public services, and that government itself is responsible for the economic hardship resulting from mass redundancies, which in turn leads to considerable legal uncertainty.
- 24.
This Portuguese Constitutional Court ruled in favour of these measures on the grounds that these measures do not violate the constitutional principle of equality.
- 25.
The OECD reported a total of 1622 working hours per annum for Portuguese public employees in comparison to the OECD mean of 1745 h.
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Varela-Álvarez, E.J., de Araújo, J.F.F.E., Gamarra, Ó.B. (2017). Civil Service and the Crisis: A Comparative Analysis of Iberian Countries (2008–2013). In: Schofield, N., Caballero, G. (eds) State, Institutions and Democracy. Studies in Political Economy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44582-3_12
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