During a General Board meeting of the Civil Service, the Basque Government on Wednesday put forward a proposal for reducing public expenditure by 100 million Euros in 2012. The proposal includes the withdrawal or revision of various supplementary payments, would avoid making redundancies but would not take on any more personnel.

According to the Vice-councillor for Public Services, Juan Carlos Ramos, the aim of Wednesday’s Board meeting was to discuss the implementation of measures to reduce staff expenditure in 2012. In order to meet this objective, the Government is calling for an agreement regarding the sustainability of public employment versus the efficiency of civic services. With regard to salaries, they have revealed only that remuneration would depend on state-level regulations in basic earnings.

Cuts

The Basque Government would apply a total of six blocks of measures across all departments within the Basque administration in 2012, which would allow for savings of 100 million Euros.

The first would suspend all voluntary retirement bonuses granted by the general administration. The second would do the same in the case of relief contracts which, according to Basque government estimates, could affect some 365 people.

The option of retiring from public service at the age of 65 will also be withdrawn. This would affect 201 employees and falls squarely within the policy of job depreciation.

A fourth block includes the revision of temporary incapacity payments for employees suffering sickness. Basque Government figures indicate that in the first ten months of this year, 48,135 people have taken time off sick at a cost of 43.8 million Euros in incapacity benefits.

The Government’s proposal would also include the suspension of career-related pay, which would affect the Home Office, Justice, Education and Health departments. The sixth and final block contemplates the containment of general costs of administration. In 2011 they claim that “extreme savings” have been achieved by doing away with temporary workers to cover leave and delegating tasks to the remaining workforce.