The public service of tomorrow must be committed, in tune with major transformations, operational and versatile. By choosing to give his back-to-school speech from a regional institute of administration (IRA), the Minister of Transformation and the Public Service, Stanislas Guerini, underlines the importance of these institutes, whose place must be confirmed, reinforced and reinforced. Additional resources will also be deployed to accommodate 20% more students and continue to train them better.
But also, by choosing to give his back-to-school speech from the IRA in Lyon, whose premises were partly burnt down this summer during the urban riots, the Minister recalls that the first mission of the public employer is the physical protection of its officers.
Protect public officials
Consider to physically protect
The summer of 2023 was shaken by the news: town halls, police stations, courts, schools, libraries, universities and France services houses were attacked. Just like this heritage, public officials (front line at the counters, police, gendarmes and firefighters) were injured. In total, 10,000 have been displaced from their places of work. However, the first consideration of the public employer is to protect them physically. From incivility to the most serious violence, the public employer must be at the side of its agents.
This is why an ambitious plan to improve the protection of public officials will be deployed in the coming weeks. To do this, the Minister initiated consultations, as early as June, with employers and public operators in order to build concrete actions with them to better prevent acts of violence against agents, in particular those in the counter, in daily contact with users.
This will in particular involve the strengthening of functional protection, alert systems and enhanced support.
Consider to protect the health of public officials
Considering and protecting our agents also means committing more to their health. It also means sustainably improving their working conditions and protecting them against life’s accidents by improving, for example, prevention policies, in particular the prevention of addictive behaviour.
Public service schools will now be “Tobacco Free Campuses”, as some schools have already committed to. This represents a further step in the development of a culture of prevention at work, in the same way as the advances made in the fight against chronic diseases and for women’s health and promoted by the Minister.
Long-term protection against life’s accidents will therefore have to be more effective and tangible for public officials. A historic meeting will also be organized in this new school year around the establishment of a provident fund in the public service.. Objective: to establish an agreement on the issue between the ministry and the trade unions.
Consider to improve the living conditions of public officials
Since his appointment, the Minister of Transformation and the Public Service, Stanislas Guerini, has been at the initiative of the largest increase in the index point for 35 years, for all agents, for the three sides of public service.
In an inflationary context, the ministry continues to act for the protection of public officials against the high cost of living by taking new unprecedented measures last June, namely a further increase in the index point of 1.5% effective from July 2023. And on January 1, 2024, the ministry will increase the remuneration of all agents by five index points.
This action also involves defending the middle and working classes in the public service. via the raising of the beginning of the grid of categories C and B, via the allocation of a purchasing power bonus for all State and hospital civil servants, whose remuneration is less than €3,250 gross per month. This bonus represents up to €800 gross for the lowest salaries and will be paid in one installment from the October payroll.
Consider to reform the civil service
But to consider public officials is also to look reality in the face: the blockages, the archaisms that may continue to exist within the public service. In this sense, considering public officials is equivalent to acting to reform what needs to be reformed within the system.
For six years, many initiatives have been implemented under the authority of the President of the Republic and his governments. This is the example of the reform of the senior civil service and the creation of the National Institute of Public Service (INSP), whose exit classification has finally been abolished. It is also an example of action for equality between women and men via the strengthening of parity requirements in the highest positions and the creation of a civil service equality index.
However, these advances do not erase the many dysfunctions within the civil service concerning, in particular, working conditions, career development, continuous training or the remuneration of agents.
This is why a reform is essential for defence:
a public service that recognizes rights and duties, a public service that recognizes and encourages the development of skills, a public service that is not one of statutory egalitarianism but one of equality of chances, of a public service which is not that of corporatism but of professions, of a public service which does not assign to a category or a body but which emancipates, of a public service which is that of the deserving and of the engaged.
This is the whole meaning of the reform of the public service announced last February from the IRA of Nantes and carried by the minister. Exchanges have been set up with all the stakeholders to feed it: unions, employers, agents and students. More than 90,000 agents have already responded to the consultation launched last June.
Consider to better listen to public officials
Considering public officials also means listening to them. In order to meet their expectations, the Minister will propose a bill around a few essential principles: better rewarding the merit of agents, encouraging and facilitating mobility within the public service and putting skills at the heart of the career.
Reward the merit of agents : the processes for access to the civil service must be overhauled, valuing professional experience, motivation and field knowledge as much as academic skills or seniority.
This desire for recognition of individual and collective merits will go through better remuneration for the agent who has done more and better as well as for the team mobilized exceptionally in times of crisis or who have collectively carried out a demanding project.
Encourage and facilitate mobility : paths and careers will be made more fluid in order to give agents the opportunity to move more easily from the field to the central administration, but also from one side of the civil service to the other. The objective is to allow career development from the “lowest” level to the highest.
The other objective of this mission is, on the one hand, to facilitate mobility between the public and the private sector and to allow those who are not career public officials to have their seniority recognized when they wish to join the public service. , regardless of their age. On the other hand, it will also be a question of facilitating the exit of public agents towards the private sector.
Putting skills at the heart of the course : continuing education must be scaled up. It must become a real lever for professional development, for the agent as well as for the public service in general, and anticipate changes due, for example, to digital technology with artificial intelligence. We must respond to these upheavals by developing continuous training and skills
Thus, reforming the public service by better recognizing the merit, commitment and skills of each person means giving more meaning to the work of agents. The objective: to give everyone more freedom in building their career.
These changes are essential to enable us to cope with the major transitions we are going through: digital, ecological and demographic. Just as they are to maintain the confidence of the French in the efficiency of their public services.
Restore confidence in public action and its services
Restoring the confidence of French people in public services means giving everyone access to them, whether online or via an agent. And for that, it is necessary to put a definitive end to the opposition between digitization and humanization. Both options are required.
The debates around artificial intelligence illustrate this very well. On the one hand, we can ignore this development and leave its benefits to the sole benefit of private companies or other European and global administrations. On the other hand, we can embrace this change, seize it with all its conditions to put them at the service of public officials and thus reduce their hardship at work.
The last option is preferable. This is why, from October, 1,000 volunteer agents will be equipped with software using generative artificial intelligence in their daily missions.
For those who fear accompanied productivity gains, in fine, the disappearance of the proximity link of users with the field, we answer that France services exists for this reason. The device is a model of proximity, support, listening and innovation where digital approaches, human advice and physical proximity are linked. We are reopening sub-prefectures, we will reopen France services there, we are strengthening the decentralized services in these medium-sized towns which constitute the backbone of our country.
Transforming public services to support the ecological transition
Transforming public services means making them a lever to address the major transitions, in particular the most important, that of the ecological transition.
This is why we must first lead by example. The State is 94 million m2 of buildings. Reducing the State’s energy consumption would amount to erasing the consumption of the city of Montpellier and reducing its water consumption by 10% in summer would be equivalent to erasing the water consumption of a city like Angoulême. Our responsibility is considerable.
Beyond that, the state has a considerable driving force with its population. This is why the ministry has launched a training plan unique in the world by its ambition: to train all public officials in the ecological transition by 2027.. An ecological planning council will be organized under the chairmanship of the President of the Republic. Minister Guerini will notably present a plan for the ecological transformation of the State.
The ecological transition is a real lever for the transformation of public action, the public service, the way of working there and the innovation that we must deploy.
With the Covid-19 crisis, with the urban riots last summer, our public services have been put to the test. At all times, public officials have responded with their commitment.
Stanislas Guerini’s back-to-school speech from IRA Lyon
Download Stanislas Guerini’s speech available in .PDF format
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