In February, Gabriel Attal requested a mission on expenditure concerning work stoppages for civil servants. Specific measures are being considered with a view to making savings.
With a public deficit estimated at 5.6% of GDP in 2024, the State is looking to make savings. Commissioned by Gabriel Attal himself last February, the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) and the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (IGAS) issued a report on civil servants’ work stoppages that BFM Business was able to consult. The objective: “the identification of quantified and achievable savings and productivity gains”.
“Absences for health reasons in the civil service remained stable over the period 2014-2019 at an average level similar to the private sector – around 8 days of absence per agent or employee,” we can read.
Since 2020, absenteeism due to health reasons has increased, notes the IFG-Igas. It is in 2022 that the gap between the public and private sectors is most marked with an average of 14.5 days of absence per year per agent compared to 11.7 for the employee.
Thus, the cost of these absences – in other words the amount of paid days not worked – is estimated at 15 billion euros in 2022 by the mission, or 350,000 full-time equivalents (FTEs). A “return to levels close to those before the crisis” would be a way to generate savings of 6 billion euros or 140,000 FTEs.
More frequent checks
To stem the problem, the mission is relying on several levers of prevention, control and incentive. In addition to strengthening the recording of absence rates in the civil service, increasing the frequency of data analyses is suggested. A specific regulatory framework is also presented to supervise “checks on the presence at home of civil servants on sick leave and provide for the associated sanctions”.
“Administrative and medical checks on work stoppages of public sector employees are insufficiently mobilised due to the difficulties that public employers face in implementing them,” it is specified.
Better prevention within the framework of the new supplementary social protection system for public sector employees is recommended, as well as a specific plan for public sector employers to “fight against absenteeism” and better regulate it.
Finally, for special leave authorisations, the rapprochement with the existing rules in the private sector is highlighted – in particular those concerning absences for sick children. These various absences account for 5 million days per year and for remuneration of 1.1 billion euros.
Waiting days and replacement rates
Two types of measures would generate considerable savings according to the mission. On the one hand, the introduction of additional waiting days would be a gain in budgetary savings for the State: at two waiting days, the potential gain would be 67 million euros (174 million euros for the civil service as a whole) and 112 million euros (289 million euros for the civil service) at three waiting days. As proof, the mission explains that the reintroduction of the single waiting day in 2018 would have brought in 134 million euros in 2023.
On the other hand, the IGF-Igas mission has worked on a reduction in the replacement rate to 90%, a threshold already imposed in the private sector by law. The report nevertheless recalls that “70% of employees in the private sector benefit from salary maintenance by the employer”.
“A replacement rate below 90% would lead to a less favourable regime for public employees,” it is explained.
For civil servants, the compensation is currently equal to what agents on short-term sick leave currently receive. This implementation of a replacement rate of 90% of sick leave pay would be equivalent to 900 million euros in favor of the State (“approximately 300 million euros in budgetary savings per sector of the civil service”).
Therefore, the introduction of a partial salary replacement rate “at 90% or 80% for example, rather than full pay” would constitute another financial incentive to combat absenteeism.
