Legal provisions of COM(2018)578 - Use of contract staff in 2016

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This page contains a limited version of this dossier in the EU Monitor.

dossier COM(2018)578 - Use of contract staff in 2016.
document COM(2018)578 EN
date August  8, 2018

TABLE OF CONTENTS


1. Introduction 2

2. Trend in contract staff numbers in the Commission since 2004 4

3. Breakdown by gender and by function group of Commission's contract staff 6

4. Breakdown by nationality of Commission's contract staff 8

5. Breakdown by DG of Commission's contract staff 13

5.1. Breakdown by gender and by DG 14

5.2. Breakdown by contract type 15

5.2.1 Contract staff 3a 15

5.2.2 Contract staff 3b 16

6. Breakdown of contract staff between the other institutions and agencies 17

6.1. Breakdown of contract staff among the other institutions 18

6.1.1 Breakdown by gender and by function group in the other institutions 19

6.1.2 Breakdown by nationality in the other institutions 19

6.2. Breakdown of contract staff in the agencies 20

6.2.1 Breakdown by gender and by function group in the agencies 21

6.2.2 Breakdown by nationality in the agencies 23


1. Introduction


This report fulfils the obligation arising from Article 79(3) of the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Union (CEOS), which provides that ‘the Commission shall provide a yearly report on the use of contract staff including numbers of staff, level and type of posts, geographical balance and budgetary resources per function group’. It offers a detailed snapshot of the contract staff employed in the European institutions at 31 December 2016.

This report includes data for 56 different entities: a) 10 European institutions; and b) 46 agencies or Joint Undertakings as defined in Article 1(a) of the Staff Regulations1.

Data concerning the Commission are more detailed and include all contract staff, i.e. staff financed upon administrative, operational and research budget lines2.

The category of contract staff was created in 2004 as part of the reform of the Staff Regulations. Since then, contract staff have made a useful contribution to the work of the institutions by carrying out administrative support activities at a lower cost and by bringing in skills not always readily available within the institutions.

Articles 3a and 3b of the CEOS define the role of contract staff and functions that they may perform.

Contract staff 3a can be engaged, on either a part time or full-time basis in a post not included in the establishment plan:

- for the institutions' services: to carry out exclusively manual or administrative support tasks in function group I,

- for the EU Representations and Delegations, the Agencies and other entities: to perform the functions specified in Article 80.2 of the CEOS in function groups I, II, III and IV.

This staff benefit from a contract that can be converted into a contract of indefinite duration, after a first renewal.

Contract staff 3b type are employed:

- to perform tasks other than those referred to in article 3a of the CEOS in a post not included in the establishment plan, or

- to replace an official or temporary staff member who is temporarily unable to perform his or her duties.

This staff are engaged for short periods, from a minimum of 3 months to a maximum of 6 years.

Article 80 of the CEOS establishes a link between each function group (FG) and the duties that contract staff may perform:

Function groupGradeTasks
IV13 to 18Administrative, advisory, linguistic and equivalent technical tasks, performed under the supervision of officials or temporary staff
III8 to 12Executive tasks, drafting, accountancy and other equivalent technical tasks, performed under the supervision of officials or temporary staff
II4 to 7Clerical and secretarial tasks, office management and other equivalent tasks, performed under the supervision of officials or temporary staff
I1 to 3Manual and administrative support service tasks, performed under the supervision of officials or temporary staff.




2. Trend in contract staff numbers in the Commission since 2004

On 31 December 2016, 10 institutions and 46 agencies or Joint Undertakings were employing around 12 800 contract staff members. This represents an increase of 9.4% as compared to 2015. However, it can be noted that the relative weight of the Commission in the use of contract staff keeps decreasing, being 55 % in 2016 as compared to 57 % in 2015 and 58% in 2014 and 2013. This is due to the proportionally higher increase in 2016 in the number of contract staff serving in other institutions and agencies (+14%) than in the Commission (+7%).

The breakdown between institutions and agencies is examined further down in this report.

The trend within the Commission since 2004 is as follows3:

Table 1 Trend within the Commission


The initial rise in contract staff working at the Commission is due to a) the mere implementation of the 2004 statutory provisions, implying the gradual replacement of the former categories of auxiliary staff (nearly 3 000 in 2003) and D-level officials and temporary agents, and b) the conversion of permanent posts into appropriations for contract staff in the administrative offices.

Furthermore, contract staff were also taken on as temporary replacements for permanent staff, as provided for in Article 3b of the CEOS, in order to ensure effective business continuity.

For the abovementioned reasons, contract staff numbers grew each year up to 2009.

From 2010 to 2013, the number of contract staff remained stable, with a slight decrease due to several concurrent reasons (e.g., delay in finalisation of the lists of suitable candidates in 2010, transfer of staff to the EEAS at the time of its creation, etc.)

As of 2014, with the entry into force of the new Staff Regulations, the term of employment of 3b contract staff has been extented to a maximum of six years. This implied that many contract staff who had already completed three years of service and were actually continuing to work for the Commission as agency staff were able to be re-engaged for a further contractual period, allowing the Commission to benefit from contract staff already trained and operational. This increased the number of contract staff, while reducing the number of interim agency staff (paid upon the same budgetary appropriations). In particular, the number of agency staff fell from 415 on 1 July 2013 to 89 on 1 July 2016.

In the last two years (2015 and 2016), the increase of contract staff in the Commission is mainly (i.e., for approx. 75%) due to the additional scientific work performed by the Joint Research Center for other Commission services and the replacement of grant holders under national law by contract agents FGIV (up to 500 staff in the last two years), with the total headcount remaining substantially stable. These contracts are paid upon the Research and Innovation programmes Horizon 2020 and Euratom Programme (e.g., therefore with a minor impact on Heading 5 of budget of the Commission).

For the next future, the Commission intends to align the allocation of resources for the recruitment of contract agents, irrespective of the specific source of financing, with the general procedure of allocation of establishment plan posts.




3. Breakdown by gender and by function group of Commission's contract staff

The breakdown of contract staff by gender, function group and grade is shown in the table below.


Table 2A Breakdown by gender, FG and grade in 20164


Table 2B


On 31 December 2016, 7 731 contract staff were serving at the Commission. The most represented function group is FGIV, which increased from 32% to 37 % of all contract staff (mainly due to the recruitments at JRC, as mentioned in Section 2 above).

The overall split between men and women has remained stable over the years. We find a much larger proportion of women in FGII (83% in 2016) and, to a lesser extent, in FGIII (62.4 % in 2015). In FGI, in contrast, men predominate (64.3 % in 2016), due to the nature of the duties carried on in this function group. In FGIV, the gender balance is almost preserved in 2016.

4. Breakdown by nationality of Commission's contract staff


It is worth noting that, as per officials and temporary agents, engagement of contract staff is carried out on the basis of the required profile and the applicants' abilities and language knowledge, without any definition of national quotas.

In 2016, all Member States were represented in all function groups with the exception of Austrians and Swedes in FGI. Nationalities most represented among contract staff are, in descending order Italians, Belgians, French, Spaniards and Greeks, followed by Romanians and Poles. The share of the first four nationalities has been the same since 2005 (around 60%). The UK and Germany, like Poland and the Netherlands, are rather under-represented in relation to their population. Conversely, Belgium and Italy are over-represented in relation to their population.

Following the accession of Croatia to the European Union, on 1 July 2013, 54 Croatian contract staff worked at the Commission on 31 December 2016.

The breakdown by nationality is influenced by a combination of factors, in particular geographical proximity to the location of the European institution’s headquarters (for the Commission, mainly Brussels, Luxembourg and Ispra), salary levels and the duration of the proposed contracts. Candidates are more likely to accept a post with a fixed-term contract if they are resident at or near the site of the institution offering them a job. Indeed, it can be hard for candidates with families to leave their countries of origin and set up home at the institution’s headquarters for a relatively short period of time (on the basis of the general implementing provisions adopted on the basis of the article 79.2 of the CEOS, the duration of the first contract is of just one year). As reported in the tables below, this is in particular true for contract staff FGI and FGII, while contract staff FGIV have a less geographically imbalanced composition.

Table 3A Breakdown by nationality and gender of Commission's contract staff in 20165


Table 3B


Table 4 below gives an analytical breakdown by FG, nationality and gender.

Table 4 Contract staff by gender, function group and nationality6

FGIV

FGIII

FGII

FGI


 

5. Breakdown by dg of Commission's contract staff

There are significative differences between the DGs, largely because of the nature of their work. DG DEVCO, for example, employs mostly FGIV responsible for aid and international cooperation or working as programme managers, both at headquarters and in the Delegations. OIB, on the other hand, employs mostly administrative assistants and childcare workers in FGII. The JRC continued its policy to replace its grant holders with FGIV contract staff, mainly scientific project managers providing as well services for other DGs in various research fields.

5.1. Breakdown by gender and by DG7


Table 5 Breakdown by gender, DG and two clusters of FGs


5.2. Breakdown by contract type8

5.2.1 Contract staff 3a


Table 6 3a contract staff by FG, gender and DG





5.2.2 Contract staff 3b


Table 7 3b contract staff by FG, gender and DG





6. Breakdown of contract staff between the other institutions and agencies


The number of contract staff in the other institutions and agencies increased by 14% in 2016, from 5 031 in 2015 to 5 744 in 2016 (following an increase by 8.9 % in 2015).

Table 8 Trends in the breakdown of contract staff between the other institutions and agencies since 20109



6.1. Breakdown of contract staff among the other institutions10

The number of contract staff in the other institutions increased by 8% when compared to 2015. A slight increase of the contract staff in the European Parliament can be observed11. This trend goes along with the additional internalisation of administrative services: on top of the security and accreditation services which are carried out in-house as of 2010, new drivers were engaged in 2016. The growing number of CAs in the EEAS is mainly due to the reinforcement of security services and the engagements for the Regional Centre Europe (RCE)12.


Table 9 Breakdown of contract staff among the other institutions in 2016


6.1.1 Breakdown by gender and by function group in the other institutions13


Table 10


 


6.1.2 Breakdown by nationality in the other institutions14


Table 11


6.2. Breakdown of contract staff in the agencies

There has been a steady increase in the number of contract staff in the agencies. The numbers are as follows:


As regards decentralised agencies and Joint Undertakings, there has been a sharp increase of the number of contract staff from 2015. This follows the decisions of the budgetary authority to assign increased resources (thus financing increased staffing levels), in particular to those agencies and Joint Undertakings which have been recently created or have recently been assigned additional tasks. E.g., EUIPO, a fully self-financed agency (formerly known as OHIM), registered a significant increase in the number of CAs (approx. 70 agents) due to the development of its activities.

As regards the executive agencies, this increase is mainly due to the engagement of contract staff to perform new tasks deriving from the extension of their mandate in the context of the 2014-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework. In particular, in 2016, the Commission continued to delegate the implementation of tasks to these agencies to enhance efficiency and effectiveness of programme management. The resulting staffing levels are in line with the Commission’s delegation package approved for the 2014-2020 period.


Table 12 Breakdown of contract staff by type of agency in 201615


In 2016, 50 % of contract staff were employed by the executive agencies and 44 % by the decentralised agencies. The remainder (6 %) are employed by Joint Undertakings and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology.

The increase in the number of contract staff between 2010 and 2016 reflects the increase in the number of agencies and, specifically for the executive and decentralised agencies, increased tasks.

6.2.1 Breakdown by gender and by function group in the agencies

The breakdown by function group is relatively uniform between the decentralised and executive agencies and has remained stable since 2012. The number of contract agents in FGIII and IV has slightly increased in the decentralised agencies in order to manage a growing level of tasks assigned under Horizon 2020 and new priorities such as migration and security.

Table 13 Breakdown by function group in the agencies and Joint Undertakings in 201616


Table 14 Breakdown by function group for each agency or Joint Undertaking in 2016


6.2.2 Breakdown by nationality in the agencies

As outlined above for the Commission, table 15 below confirms that the location of the agencies plays a major role in determining the nationalities of their contract staff.

The executive agencies, located on the same main sites of the Commission, present trends similar to those of the Commission: the most represented EU citizens being Italians, Belgians, Spaniards and French.

Similarly, the breakdown by nationality of contract staff in the decentralised agencies and Joint Undertakings reflects their location.


Table 15 Breakdown by nationality in the agencies and Joint Undertakings in 201617


Table 16 Breakdown by nationality for each agency or Joint Undertaking in 2016


1 The total number of institutions, agencies and Joint Undertakings within the scope of the Staff Regulations is 58. It includes (i) the Commission, (ii) the other 9 institutions as mentioned in Section 6.1 and (iii) the 46 agencies and Joint Undertakings as mentioned in Section 6.2, but also the Single Resolution Board and the Community Plant Variety Office, which are not mentioned in this report as they do not employ CA. It is to be noted that the Staff Regulations do not apply to the European Central Bank and to the European Investment Bank Group, which have adopted specific rules for their staff. These institutions are therefore out of the scope of this Report.

2 It is to be noted that the budgetary data (sent each year with the draft budget to the Budgetary Authority - Working Document, parts II and III) show contract staff numbers at the time when the draft budget is presented (including contract staff recruited using assigned revenue), i.e.: a statement of the position at 1 April of year N-1 (where N is the year of the draft budget), budgetary implementation in year N-2 and requests for appropriations with estimates of full-time equivalents (FTE) for year N. This is why some differences appear in the numbers for contract staff, depending on the data source. Since several budget lines include appropriations for external personnel without establishing a distinction between the different categories of that personnel, the budget figures convey the best possible estimates based on the likely average costs and the repartition between categories.


3 Source: Commission HR analytics platform.

4 Source: Commission HR analytics platform.

5 Source: Commission HR analytics platform.

6 Source: Commission HR analytics platform.

7 Source: Commission HR analytics platform.

8 Source: Commission HR analytics platform.

9 Source: Eurostat and EU institutions.

10 Source: Eurostat and EU institutions.

11 As previous years, contract staff engaged by the European political groups are not included.

12 The mission of the Regional Centre Europe is to provide quality administrative support to 27 EU Delegations.

13 Source: Eurostat and EU institutions.

14 Source: Eurostat and EU institutions.

15 Source: Eurostat and Sysper.

16 Source: Eurostat and Sysper.

17 Source: Eurostat and Sysper, only EU28 countries.

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