WRITTEN QUESTION E-4004/00

by Juan Naranjo Escobar (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(21 December 2000)

Subject: Reform of the Commission

On 30 November last, the European Parliament adopted its four reports on the White Paper on the reform of the Commission, forwarded to it on 13 March. Parliament is thus making a very positive contribution to the reform of the Commission's organisational structure and working methods, without undermining the autonomy which the Commission, like all the Union institutions, enjoys as a matter of principle when it comes to equipping itself with the requisite wherewithal to deal as effectively as possible with the tasks and duties assigned to it by the Treaties.

Taking due account of the Commission's right to autonomy and, at the same time, of Parliament's obligation to exercise scrutiny over the Commission, what is the Commission's estimated deadline for providing Parliament with descriptions of the duties of all A1 and A2 grade officials? When will it provide Parliament with the provisional staff plan showing all movements of staff such as retirements, early retirements, internal transfers, hiring of new staff, etc., for the period during which the administrative reform is being implemented? And finally, when does the Commission expect the internal audit service to become 100 % operational, so that the audit reports will be available as quickly as possible and with a certain degree of regularity?

Answer given by Mr Kinnock on behalf of the Commission

(21 February 2001)

The job descriptions pilot exercise launched in the summer applies to all posts, including A1 and A2 posts. The complex task of evaluating this pilot phase for all posts at the Commission, originally scheduled for November 2000, has not yet been completed.

It is expected that it will be finalised in March 2001, and, following that, final guidelines will be drawn up for job descriptions and the setting of objectives, which will enable the entire exercise to be concluded by the end of the summer at the latest.

The number of posts for Commission staff authorised in the 2000 budget was 17 087 in the operating budget, 2 080 for the Joint Research Centre and 1 624 for indirect actions.

The 2001 budget provides for an additional 400 posts, to which should be added 100 posts to be funded by converting appropriations for external personnel into permanent posts, making a total of 500 additional posts in the operating budget. The indicative breakdown of authorised posts by policy area is shown in the 2001 budget for the Commission (Chapter A-11 Staff in active employment).

The Commission has proposed an ad hoc termination-of-service scheme (dégagement) under which 600 officials would definitively leave the service of the Commission in 2001-02. The Commission would keep only 43 out of every 100 posts thus freed, making a net reduction of 57 posts occupied for every 100 officials terminating their service.

The actual number of posts occupied will depend on recruitment to the new posts requested and the number of departures. The latter is estimated as follows:

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These are indicative estimates in the very nature of such matters: the precise dates of departure cannot be determined in advance.

Taking into account the additions to the posts authorised for 2001 and the above-mentioned termination-of-service exercise, the estimated recruitment requirement comes to circa 1 200 in 2001 and slightly less than that in 2002.

The Commission would point out that it recruited a total of 1 110 people in 1997, 1 030 in 1998 and 950 in 1999.

It is accordingly expected that the recruitment targets will be met.

The Commission formally created the new Internal Audit Service (IAS) service on 11 April 2000 and adopted an organisation chart(1). By 1 May 2000 all the necessary steps had been taken with regard to logistics, administrative appropriations and Information Technology (IT) equipment, the basic methodology had been determined and the first 18 members of audit staff had been selected. The Internal Audit Service was fully operational in mid-September 2000 with a Director (A2), two Audit Supervisors (A3) and 18 auditors.

Following a full procedure of advertisement and selection, the Commission appointed the new Head of the IAS, Mr Jules Muis (A1), on 21 December 2000. He is likely to take up his duties towards the end of March 2001. The IAS will reach its full staffing level of 80 in the course of 2001 once suitable candidates have been selected through an open competition which is currently under preparation. The three remaining Audit Supervisor posts are expected to be filled by September 2001.

From April 2001 onwards the IAS will move towards an approach based on risk assessments while at the same time carrying out a complete cycle of in-depth audits of the Commission's internal control systems. The IAS expects to complete this cycle by the end of 2002(2).

(1) SEC(2000) 560.

(2) Not including the above-mentioned termination-of-service scheme.