TELEWORK IN THE CIVIL

SERVICE AFTER THE

HEALTH CRISIS

Public thematic report

Executive Summary

November 2022

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Executive Summary

Telework under general laws, which appeared informally in the 1990s, was introduced in

the civil service in 2012 by the so-called Sauvadet law

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, based on the definition set out in the

French Labor Code.

Relatively insignificant before the outbreak of the health crisis, telework has recently

undergone two significant changes. From a legal standpoint, the decree of 5 May 2020 has

made the use of telework more widespread and more flexible and the collective bargaining

agreement of 13 July 2021 on the implementation of telework in the civil service has required

public sector employers to negotiate or renegotiate their telework arrangements. On a practical

level, the use of telework during the Covid-19 pandemic, albeit on a restricted basis, paved the

way to it becoming commonplace.

A very proactive acceleration in the use of telework

Telework developed significantly in the early 2010s, mainly in the State Civil Service

(SCS). However, at the start of the health crisis, it was not a widely used working method. The

absolute need to ensure that public services were able to continue operating during the

lockdowns significantly altered the situation.

Although the decree of 5 May 2020 gave considerable discretion to public sector

employers in the organisation of telework arrangements, the agreement of 13 July 2021

profoundly changed the system by requiring employers to offer employees the option to

telework, save where they are able to demonstrate that telework is impossible. This paradigm

shift has taken place even though the lessons to be drawn from the widespread telework that

was seen during the health crisis have not yet been determined.

The first meeting of the national agreement monitoring committee, held in March 2022,

showed that while, in the SCS (at least at the ministries) collective negotiations have taken

place, the situation was very different in the decentralized local public services (DLPS) and the

hospital civil service (HCS), where the roll-out of telework was not a priority. Nevertheless, the

recent period has seen a significant increase in the number of teleworkers, albeit limited to

those in administrative roles that have no contact with the general public.

This increase was imposed on public policy makers in the last quarter of 2021 in a very

short time frame without any comprehensive and forward-looking review of the management

of public services.

Carefully balancing the interests of the civil service and property costs

with the roll-out of telework

The new role of telework represents a strategic and operational challenge for public

sector employers, both from a equipment-related and a managerial perspective. They have

already made a major budgetary effort to provide their staff with portable equipment and their

departments with audio and video conferencing solutions, and to provide training on system

and on tools with which many staff are unfamiliar. It has also been important to adapt IT

infrastructure quickly.

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French Law no. 2012-347 of 12 March 2012 on access to permanent roles and the improvement of working

conditions for contract agents in the civil service, tackling discrimination and various provisions relating to the civil

service.

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While the effort to equip individual staff members appears to have been completed

(investment will however need to be made in replacing equipment, which will be significant as

equipment will need to be replaced simultaneously in numerous departments), work still

remains to be done on the IT infrastructure. In the short term, the technical functioning of video

conferencing, which is an integral part of telework and a source of tension, needs to be

improved rapidly, given the difficulties encountered in its use.

In addition, the increased use of telework raises the question of the use made of

properties and their cost. While, in the private sector, large-scale telework has frequently been

associated with a reduction in office space, that is far from being the case in the public sector.

The Court considers that public sector employers should, above a certain threshold (e.g.

for staff who routinely telework for more than 50% of their weekly working time or where staff

in a department are allowed to telework three days a week), apply a similar approach.

Above all, the use of telework in the civil service should only be increased if the interests

of the relevant department are clearly taken into account. This is necessary where, in practice,

two approaches to telework operate side by side: one in which staff individually request to

telework, to which managers generally agree with a view to improving working conditions, and

the other, more ambitious in nature, in which telework constitutes a structure developed by the

employer in the interests of the department and staff.

However, due to the slow implementation of telework arrangements, public sector

employers, together with the trade unions, have responded to the challenges of maintaining

working groups and organising the department effectively, mainly by limiting the number of

days on which staff are allowed to work remotely, which seems appropriate in the

circumstances.

If it is to become commonplace for staff to be given the option of telework three days per

week, as set out in the agreement of 13 July 2021, public employers would need to be very

vigilant in ensuring beforehand that the level of service can, at the very least, be maintained.

All in all, the successful roll-out of telework suggests that public sector employers should

now follow a more systemic approach.

Ensuring that telework is productive and that procedures

for monitoring teleworkers are effective

Once the roll-out of telework is complete, the widespread use of telework in the civil

service will raise two issues for public sector employers.

Notwithstanding that certain practices should be prohibited (e.g. the conversion of

periods of part time work into telework periods), employers must ensure that telework does not

adversely affect the overall productivity of their departments, a subject open for debate given

the absence of authoritative studies. They must also put in place effective procedures for

monitoring teleworkers by introducing a local framework and support structure for

management, both for reasons of productivity and equal treatment among staff.

Given the recent and ongoing introduction of telework arrangements under general laws,

the ability of the financial courts to issue findings on these issues has been limited, but they

will be considered closely in future audits.

Telework: an opportunity to improve and refresh the public services

offered to users

Even if telework essentially remains a tool for improving the quality of working conditions,

a growing number of public sector employers believe (and are formally documenting in their

rules of procedure, charters, etc.) that telework can also develop new working groups focused

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on results and quality of service. However, in practice, the Court has noted that a significant

number of public sector employers are currently satisfied that the introduction of telework has

not adversely affected the functioning of their departments.

Such an approach to telework is outdated as it has significant potential to improve the

civil service.

By encouraging the growth of telework in the public and private sectors, the health crisis

has allowed an increasing proportion of the public to become familiar with new information and

communication technologies. This growth is likely to encourage the growth of separate public

service delivery methods that are relatively similar to telework, such as distance learning and

remote medical consultations. Although distance learning is not intended to be generally used

outside of crisis periods, it offers new opportunities for delivering certain courses and solutions

for certain geographic locations. The growth of remote medical consultations in the private

medical sector could have a knock-on effect on its more widespread use in hospitals.

In addition to the ong

oing management of “contact cases”,

telework improves staff

mobilisation and their involvement in the work of the civil service in circumstances in which

physical travel is difficult. Telework can also be employed on a permanent basis to increase

the attractiveness of roles abandoned by staff, and on a temporary basis where departments

are moved or staff transfer between geographical locations.

Above all, the Court has identified two ways in which telework can contribute directly to

improving services for users.

Firstly, it would be very beneficial to use it as a way of extending the hours in which users

of public services are able to contact the authorities, for which there is strong demand among

users. Secondly, it provides an opportunity to develop contact through video conferencing,

which would then become a fourth way of contacting users of publics services

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, thereby limiting

the criticism that has sometimes been levelled relating to the digitisation of procedures.

All these advantages, whether proven or potential, point to the fact that public sector

employers should embrace these working methods, so that telework becomes a major focus

in the modernisation of public services, benefiting both agents and users.

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The other three channels are physical meetings, the telephone and the Internet.