No more “merit” in civil servants’ pay. During his press conference this Tuesday evening, Emmanuel Macron insisted on the great importance that the commitment and results of public agents must take in their remuneration. This announcement is not new: Stanislas Guerini, former Minister of the Civil Service, had already announced in February 2023 that this measure on merit would be integrated into a broader reform of the civil service.
This could well take place in the “coming weeks” according to the Head of State, and should be carried by the same Stanislas Guerini, who has nevertheless lost his full ministry in the new executive and has not yet been confirmed to the government for the moment. L’Express explains to you what this reform could involve and the “merit” remuneration of civil servants, a measure which has already provoked the anger of the main unions.
How are civil servants paid today?
Today, the remuneration of the majority of the 5.7 million public agents (civil servants, contractual and military) is broken down into two parts: the basic salary, called “index salary”, and the bonuses and allowances, which constitute the “compensation” part of their pay.
The amount of salary is determined by salary scales common to the entire public service (State, hospitals, communities). It is therefore identical for all public officials with identical seniority and position.
Bonuses and allowances, for their part, are assimilated to the variable part of remuneration in the private sector. The compensation portion of civil servants’ salaries can, for example, help them cover their housing costs (residency allowance), pay for their overtime but also reward their “manner of service”, a form of recognition of individual merit.
Merit pay, already in the current system
A bonus already exists to reward the individual merit of public officials: the “annual compensation supplement” (CIA). It is “an optional bonus which takes into account the civil servant’s professional commitment and way of serving”, according to the administration’s definition.
This form of remuneration for individual merit can, however, only benefit state civil servants, and represents a limited percentage of their pay. A report commissioned by the former Minister of the Civil Service Amélie de Montchalin highlighted in March 2022 that the CIA’s share was intended to remain “largely a minority” in the bonuses paid to civil servants. Indeed, “it cannot exceed 15% (of bonuses and allowances, editor’s note) for category A” which brings together the best paid civil servants, “12% for category B and 10% for category C”, the least well paid. paid. More generally, in 2021, bonuses and allowances as a whole represented less than a quarter (23.8%) of civil servants’ salaries, according to the administration.
A reform carried by Stanislas Guerini from February?
Tuesday evening, the President of the Republic asked the new government of Gabriel Attal that for civil servants, “the main criterion for advancement and remuneration” be, along with seniority, merit, “in any case much more than Today”.
This measure, promised “in the coming weeks”, should indeed be carried by Stanislas Guerini, Minister of the Civil Service in the governments of Elisabeth Borne. He “will have to carry out a historic reform of the civil service” announced several months ago, even if he has not yet been reappointed, Emmanuel Macron assured parliamentarians of the majority on Monday evening. .
Before the resignation of the previous government, the Minister of Civil Service Stanislas Guerini had already committed to presenting a bill in February. One of the objectives of the text is precisely to “better remunerate those who go out of their way to provide our public services”, detailed the minister at the beginning of November to the National Assembly. Stanislas Guerini’s idea was then to better reward the individual, but also collective, commitment of public agents, for example by granting a bonus to a team of civil servants who had achieved their objective of reducing electricity or gas consumption.
Union hostility
The main public service unions are already quite hostile to such a reform. In a press release published this Tuesday, the FGF-FO (2nd public union) demands “the abandonment of the civil service bill, planned in particular to undermine the general status of civil servants”.
More particularly on merit-based pay, the CGT Civil Service denounced the implementation of such a measure, judging in a press release this Wednesday that it “knows only too well what is hidden around meritocracy: random parts of salaries , discriminatory remuneration […]the widening inequalities between women and men”. Secretary general of Unsa-Public Service (4th union), Luc Farré quipped on the social network it’s already the case !”
“So, in terms of purchasing power […] we refer everything to individual merit”, also lamented on is the salary at the head of the client, it leaves the agents at the mercy of hierarchical arbitrariness”. The standoff between the government and the social partners already seems well underway.