Tasked with a review of expenditure by Gabriel Attal in order to find savings on sick leave for civil servants, considered too costly, the IGF and the Igas estimate that two additional days of absence would generate 300 million euros per year. But they insist on the importance of prevention policies.
Recurring targets of media and political attacks, civil servants are at the heart of one of the spending reviews brought to the attention of the public this week with the transmission by Bercy of a mass of budgetary documents to the presidents and rapporteurs of the finance committees of the National Assembly and the Senate. In this specific case, it is a question of absences of civil servants for health reasons, which give rise to stoppages, the first day of which (called “of deficiency”) is not paid. In his mission letter dated February 22, the now ex-Prime Minister Gabriel Attal instructed the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) and that of Social Affairs (Igas) to formulate proposals for “reduce absenteeism overall, with particular emphasis on short-term absences.”
The government was particularly alarmed by the fact that “Absences for health reasons in the public sector remain higher than the levels observed in the private sector”, both concerning the share of staff affected by a stoppage of at least one day in a given week (7% of agents, compared to 5% of private sector employees), and for the average duration of absence in the year (14.5 days in the public sector, compared to 11.7 in the private sector). Data relating to 2022, a year of a historical high, with an overall cost estimated at 15 billion euros. Admittedly, both the public and private sectors have experienced an explosion in stoppages caused by the Covid-19 health crisis, which occurred in 2020, but 2022 “marks a disconnect between the public and private sectors,” note the IFG and Igas in their spending review, published in July. They respond by exploring avenues which promise, if the future government takes them up, to provoke a strong union reaction.
The waiting day discourages patients from stopping
The most controversial lever is that of waiting days. In 2018, the government of Edouard Philippe reintroduced a waiting day in the civil service, thus depriving civil servants of pay on the first day of sick leave. The measure was first put in place by the right in 2012, then cancelled by the socialists in 2014. As INSEE recently noted, there is no evidence that this waiting day will effectively combat “abuse”, but it reduces the number of sick leave by discouraging sick people from taking leave. And generates substantial savings: 134 million euros in 2023. Also, a move to two days of absence would save an additional 174 million euros across the entire public sector, while three days of absence – as is the case in the private sector – would allow us to aim for 289 million, according to the IGF and the Igas.
Another possibility studied, also very controversial: no longer paying days of leave compensated at 100% of salary, but at 90%, as in the private sector – with the difference that in the private sector, 70% of employees benefit from full salary maintenance because their employer pays at the end, the document recalls. Nearly 300 million euros could thus be saved.
“A more proactive prevention policy”
However, these measures would be far from having the same impact as a return to the pre-Covid situation, with fewer sick people, which would represent six billion euros in savings. However, while the IGF and Igas did not have definitive data on sick leave for 2023, their spending review nevertheless highlights that these seemed to show a clear decline that year, with their increase compared to pre-Covid being absorbed by around 30% in the State civil service, and even 75% in the hospital sector.
Furthermore, while the IGF and Igas have calculated the effects of a move to two or three days, particularly because the government wanted to explore this avenue, the recommendations they make focus more on administrative adjustments in the transmission of information and in the assessment of absences. But also, and above all, on an improvement in the health at work of public employees, “which implies a more proactive prevention policy and increased support for professional careers.”
Reacting in a press release published this Thursday to this review of expenditure, the FO civil service union denounced “yet another report that stigmatizes.” The union, which is very well established among public sector employees, claims that “If civil servants are sometimes on sick leave, it is above all the responsibility of the public employer and in particular of the State employer.” And quote, which goes in the direction of the study, “the job cuts suffered over the years, the permanent restructuring, the weakening, if not the elimination, of preventive medicine, the work overload, and the lack of material resources”.
