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OUR DES COMPTES

National Police and

Gendarmerie: remuneration

costs and working time issues

Disclaimer:

Summary

of the

Public thematic report

his summary is intended to facilitate the understan-

ding and use of the Cour des comptes report;

only the original report is legally binding on the Cour

des comptes.

The responses of organisations and administrations

concerned are appended to the report.

March 2013

Introduction

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Remuneration costs

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

The organisation of working time

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

Remuneration parity: an irrelevant objective

. . . . . . . . . . .19

Conclusion

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

Recommendations

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes

Table of Contents

ffective control of remuneration costs for state employees is indispen-

sable in the battle to redress the national budget. Achieving the objec-

tive of stabilising total net government spending (excluding interest

charges and employer contributions to the state employee pension plan) will

require strict control over changes in the wage bill, which represents almost one

third of that total.

The National Police and Gendarmerie account for a significant number of

state employees (240,000 ). Their remuneration (

€

14.5 billion in 2011) repre-

sents approximately 12% of total employee remuneration (base salary and allo-

wances), excluding social contributions and benefits, for state employees.

However, from 2006 to 2011, despite the elimination of over seven thousand

jobs in the two police forces, these expenses increased by 10.5% for the National

Police and 5.1% for the National Gendarmerie, as compared to the 4.2% overall

average for state employees.

The Cour analysed the principal factors behind changes in that wage bill in

order to identify cost control methods that are more compatible with the aim of

reducing public spending.

The Cour then studied the systems used to organise working time – the

basis for these remunerations – and particularly the system used by the National

Police, based on granting days off in consideration for arduous hours and extra

services.

Finally, the Cour assessed the progress towards the objective of remunera-

tion parity for National Police and Gendarmes, pursued since the National

Gendarmerie was operationally attached to the Ministry of the Interior in

2009.

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes

Introduction

Remuneration

expenditures

Despite a reduction of over

7,000 police personnel (3%) from

2006 to 2011, these expenditures have

increased quite rapidly, especially in

the National Police, as a result of

multi-year reforms that have pro-

foundly changed the hierarchical pyra-

mid and increased the average cost of

posts through many category-specific

measures.

The overall decline

in headcount

During the period under review,

nearly 3,000 jobs (1.9%) were elimina-

ted in the National Police (leaving

145,000 at year-end 2011) and more

than 4,000 (4%) in the Gendarmerie

(leaving 96,100 at year-end 2011). In

both police forces, the rule of non-

replacement for one out of two reti-

rees was observed, on average, bet-

ween year-end 2008 and year-end

2011. However, job losses in the

National Police due to non-replace-

ment were partially offset by additio-

nal recruitment of

adjoints de sécurité

(ADS, police community support offi-

cers) as contract staff. A comparable

scenario was not observed in the

Gendarmerie, with its equivalent

contract staff, the

gendarmes adjoints

volontaires

(GAV).

The transformation

of staff distribution

In the National Police: the

“corps and careers” reform

From 2004 to 2012, the so-called

“corps et carrières”

reform (“corps and

careers”) engendered a transformation

of staff distribution amongst the diffe-

rent police corps and grades by reducing

the number of policemen, proportio-

nally increasing middle management

provided by officer ranks (

brigadiers

brigadiers-chefs

and

majors

) and greatly

reducing senior management (

officiers

and

commissaires

). The proportion of

policemen has thereby been reduced to

57% of the total of policemen and offi-

cers (101,300 at year-end 2011) as com-

pared to 80% previously. Conversely, the

number of

brigadiers

(~corporals) has

multiplied by 2.4 since 2004, while the

Cour des comptes

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes

Remuneration expenses

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes

number of

brigadiers-chefs

(~ser-

geants) increased by 85%. The

“corps et

carrières”

reform also resulted, between

2005 and 2011, in a 7% reduction in the

number of

commissaires de police

(~superintendents, 1,740 at year-end

2011) and a 25% reduction in the num-

ber of

officiers

(senior officers, 10,300

at year-end 2011), primarily lieutenants

(-64%).

In contrast, between 2005 and

2011, the administrative staff grew by

4%, while technical staff grew by 19%,

allowing, at least in part, the replace-

ment of policemen who had been assi-

gned administrative tasks. Scientific staff

has expanded by 73%, driven by subs-

tantial recruitment and limited retire-

ments.

In the Gendarmerie:

The PAGRE

In the National Gendarmerie as

well, the 2006-2011 period was marked

by a major transformation of its job

structure as a result of the

plan d’adap-

tation des grades aux responsabilités

exercées

(PAGRE, plan for adaptation

of rank and job responsibilities), initia-

ted in 2005 by the Ministry of Defence

for all of its military personnel. The

plan’s objective was to strengthen senior

management. Within the pyramidal hie-

rarchy of the corps, the transformation

has been the opposite of that of the

National Police: it has been characteri-

sed by a decrease of 8% in the propor-

tion of sub-officers (72,200 at year-end

2011), an increase of 31% for officers

(6,600 at year-end 2011) and even grea-

ter growth for administrative staff, tech-

nical staff and

ouvriers d’état

(national

government employees with a special

status), whose part of the total work-

force increased from 1.9% to 3.3%,

while the GAV remained unchanged at

15% of the total.

The partial convergence of job

structures

In the wake of these two simulta-

neous reforms, the job structures of the

two police forces have become more

alike. The proportion of sub-officers in

the Gendarmerie (75%) is now compa-

rable to that of policemen and officers

in the National Police (70 %).

In other areas, significant diffe-

rences remain. The GAV are proportio-

nally more numerous (15%) than the

ADS (8.5 %). Conversely, despite a drive

that took place near the end of the pro-

ject, the share of administrative and

technical employees and

ouvriers d’état

remains significantly lower in the

Gendarmerie

(3.3%)

than

the

Remuneration expenses

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes

National Police (12%).

Finally, despite a major conver-

gence effort, the relative proportion of

senior management remains signifi-

cantly lower in the Gendarmerie (with

6.9% officers) than in the National

Police (8.1 % officers and

commis-

saires

The costly accumu-

lation of category-

specific measures

Within the framework of these

reforms, policemen and gendarmes,

regardless of what force they belong

to, benefitted from numerous cate-

gory-specific measures intended to

enhance their career development,

improve their wage scales and increase

some of their bonus pay.

In the Gendarmerie, increasing the

proportion of officers was bound to

have an impact on the average cost of a

job position. Similarly, in the National

Police, the swelling of the middle mana-

gement ranks (officers), at the expense,

over several years, of a significant ope-

ration of internal promotions for poli-

cemen,

brigadiers

and

brigadiers-chefs

has given rise to spending increases that

largely eclipse the savings due to reduc-

tions in senior management.

Since 2004, the

“corps et car-

rières”

reform has generated higher

expenditures, for which the annual

cumulative impact was estimated, in

2011, at about

€

460 million, or 8.2% of

the wage bill, not counting

CAS

Pensions (special pension account)

contributions

. In the Gendarmerie, in

view of the goal of parity with the

National Police, category-specific mea-

sures that were initially part of the

implementation of PAGRE, starting in

2005, were augmented beginning in

2009. This included the upgrading of

certain

allowances.

The

measures’

annual cumulative impact during 2008-

2011 reached

€

166.5 million. This figure

was less in absolute terms than that for

the National Police over the same

period (

€

284 million), but equivalent

relative to the headcount of the two

forces.

As the implementation of the

“corps et carrières”

reform in the

National Police and PAGRE in the

Gendarmerie came to an end in 2012,

the Cour recommends that the Ministry

of the Interior should carry out an ove-

rall assessment of its success in meeting

the objective of better matching ranks

with responsibilities and skill levels with

Remuneration expenses

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes

the nature of assignments.

A growing wage bill,

despite job cuts

The uninterrupted succession of

category-specific measures has acted to

significantly destabilise the action of

factors that normally combine to drive

changes in the wage bill. The additional

annual cost induced by these measures

during 2008-2011 was significantly

higher than the savings from downsi-

zing, evaluated at

€

131 million for the

National Police and

€

148 million for

the Gendarmerie in 2011, in propor-

tions that respectively amounted to

217% and 113%.

This budgetary impact is in addi-

tion to other factors that increase the

wage bill, in particular,

“glissement-vieil-

lesse-technicité”

measures (GVT, career

development and promotion based on

seniority and skills) that have been a

strong focus.

As a result, during 2006-2011,

employee remuneration expenditures,

excluding social contributions (the latter

including employer contributions to the

CAS Pensions account

) increased by

10.5 % for the National Police and 5.1%

for the Gendarmerie. The difference is

explained by allowances, which increa-

sed by 17.7 % for the National Police.

For the future, given the announ-

ced end to job cuts, a temporary wage

freeze appears necessary, especially via

strict limitations on new category-speci-

fic measures and more rigorous mana-

gement of advancement and promotion

measures (GVT).

This freeze is not mentioned in the

2013 Finance Act. While the budgetary

impact of the

“schéma d’emploi”

(employment action plan) is estimated

to be nearly non-existent for the

National Police (-

€

3.1 million) and for

the Gendarmerie (+

€

0.2 million), the

impact of category-specific measures

remains positive, respectively estimated

€

29.3 million and

€

31.5 million

(compared with

€

62 million and

€

million in 2011). In fact, this is mainly a

repercussion of the implementation of

previous decisions, such as the so-called

“réforme de la catégorie B”

(Category B

personnel reform), whose impact during

2012-2015 is estimated at

€

90 million

for the National Police and

€

53 million

for the Gendarmerie, excluding contri-

butions to the

CAS Pensions account

Remuneration expenses

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes

The faulty

management of

expenses

In the National Police: a ten-

dency to exceed their appro-

priations

To ensure that payrolls would be

met, the Ministry of the Interior had

to obtain the release of the precautio-

nary reserve in 2008, 2009, 2010 and

even in 2012, despite the increase in

core funding of

€

150 million made in

the 2011

loi de finances initiale

(LFI,

initial finance act) after the more

modest (37 M

€

) boost in 2008. On

several

occasions,

year-end,

National Police funding had to be

increased in the French general budget

(including via the Gendarmerie’s fun-

ding) to ensure the remuneration of

its personnel:

€

20.9 million in 2009,

€

115 million in 2010 and

€

34.9 mil-

lion in 2012.

This was, in large part, the result

of the decision to not completely imple-

ment the lower job ceiling voted by

Parliament. While that ceiling was redu-

ced by 4,461 jobs between 2007 and

2011, the actual headcount declined by

only 3,413. Management of remunera-

tion expenses has also been hampered

by unreliable forecasts concerning reti-

rements and resignations of ADS.

Unexpected variations in staff depar-

tures during the year have not been suf-

ficiently taken into account via adjust-

ments in recruitment. This inadequate

management was combined with insuf-

ficient

accuracy

forecasts

for

increases in the average cost of job posi-

tions, as influenced by multiple cate-

gory-specific measures implemented

during the period.

In the Gendarmerie: an

upsurge in unfilled positions

Unlike the National Police, the

Gendarmerie reduced its headcount

by 4,464

between year-end 2006 and

year-end 2011, exceeding the job cei-

ling reduction of 3,493 passed by

Parliament in the LFI (LFI, initial

finance act). Management of

crédits

de personnel

(personnel allocations)

has been facilitated, even if they repre-

sent an insignificant surplus, with the

exception of a balance of 0.8% in

2010.

According

the

National

Gendarmerie, this decline in staff

exceeding the mandates of successive

LFI, as a result of management rules

Remuneration expenses

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes

set down by the Ministry of Finance,

gave rise, within its local units, to

unfilled positions (which they call

“trous à l’emploi”

); while they reduce

remuneration expenses, they do not

affect other spending. In fact, the ope-

rating costs for police units, particu-

larly concerning buildings and vehi-

cles, are not affected by marginally

lower headcounts.

In the current context of public

finances, it has become necessary to

restore consistency between the jobs

ceiling and the actual headcount by

lowering the jobs ceiling and by adap-

ting the organisation of local units

accordingly. This clarification would

put an end to the artificial scenario

that has prevailed for several years.

The imperative to improve

forecasting and monitoring

capabilities

To reduce uncertainties, particu-

larly concerning the National Police, the

reliability of methods for analysis, fore-

casting and monitoring must be impro-

ved (building on the progress made

since 2010), especially regarding retire-

ment and other personnel departures,

personnel arrivals other than via recruit-

ment, the average cost of jobs by cate-

gory, the budgetary impact of GVT and

category-specific measures. In this

regard, the Cour recommends, at the

level of

zones de défense et de sécurité

(a method of dividing the French terri-

tory into regions for national security

and defence purposes), to more closely

associate the

secrétariats généraux pour

l’administration de la police

(SGAP,

general secretariats for police adminis-

tration) with the task of analysing and

monitoring trends in remuneration

expenses.

The organisation of

working time

Two fundamentally

different systems

In the National Police: a parti-

cularly complex set of rules

Theoretical annual working hours that

vary according to working time arran-

gements

There is no uniform work period

common to all National Police staff; dif-

ferent schemes are applied based on the

employee’s department and responsibili-

ties: the weekly schedule based on a

calendar week (five working days of 7

hours 53 minutes, Monday to Friday) or

cyclic schedules with several variations

such as “4/2”, consisting of four shifts

of 8 hours 10 minutes (day or night) fol-

lowed by two days off.

In consideration of the time

constraints inherent to cyclic schedules,

staff members are granted a

“crédit

férié annuel”

(annual holiday credit) and

“repos de pénibilité spécifique”

(RPS,

special hardship leave). In addition, the

number of days off granted in accor-

dance with “

aménagement et de la

réduction du temps de travail

” (ARTT,

a system for reducing working hours by

providing days off) depends on the

branch of service, working time arran-

gements and the number of days off

funded by the administration.

The theoretical annual total of

working hours for a weekly schedule

(1,655 hours 30 minutes) is greater than

the annual maximum set down for

national civil servants (1,607 hours).

However, the figure is lower for police-

men working cyclic schedules (eg 1,536

hours 38 minutes for a daytime 4/2

schedule; 1,416 hours 38 minutes for a

night-time 4/2 schedule).

Costly compensation of overtime in the

form of time off

Actual figures for working hours

differ significantly from the theoretical

annual figures. On the one hand, they

are augmented by supplementary activi-

Cour des comptes

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes

Organising working time

ties (ensuring continuous service, retur-

ning to work for urgent matters, over-

time, returning to work when on call)

performed by staff to ensure 24-hour

operation of numerous services, in par-

ticular concerning public safety, and to

deal with unexpected peaks in activity.

On the other hand, the logic

behind the organisation of working

time for the National Police is to signifi-

cantly underestimate its duration in

order to compensate for the arduous

nature of their schedules. The duration

of compensatory leave granted to offi-

cers and policemen in consideration of

their additional services is significantly

in excess of the services’ actual dura-

tion. That duration is calculated in each

case by applying multipliers, set down by

law, ranging from 100% to over 300%

depending on the time (day, night, offi-

cial holidays, public holidays, compensa-

tory days off) when these additional ser-

vices have been performed. In total, the

number of compensatory hours usually

exceeds the number of overtime hours

served. Thus, in the departments res-

ponsible for public safety, one compen-

satory hour corresponds to, on average,

38 minutes of actual service.

Despite the great diversity of

situations, no statistical data is available

at the national level on the actual ave-

rage duration of police work by type of

unit or working time arrangement. On

the one hand, the

main courante infor-

matisée

(MCI, computerised duty log),

based on data entered by each unit, pro-

vides local,

départemental

(regional) and

national measurements of service acti-

vity, both in total and broken down into

the various categories of responsibility.

On the other hand, the National Police’s

GEOPOL software allows its local

managers to access up-to-date informa-

tion on staff members’ hours. However,

no computer application has combined

these two approaches.

In the Gendarmerie: availabi-

lity as a primary principle

The organisation of working

time

quite

different

the

Gendarmerie. Because of their mili-

tary status under the Defence Code,

gendarmes are not subject to a mini-

mum duration of work. When a gen-

darme is not in active service nor

released from service, he must never-

theless remain available. These periods

where he is “on call” are not compen-

sated. The same applies to a gendarme

recalled to service when he is off duty

or during time off, authorised absence

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes

Organising working time

or leave. In consideration of this gene-

ral principle of availability, gendarmes

are all living quarters at their work-

place.

The organisation of working

time within the Gendarmerie gives it a

permanent capacity to cope with

peaks of activity and events requiring

rapid assignment of additional staff

(eg maintenance of public order, res-

ponse to emergencies, searches for

missing persons).

As a result, the annual activity for

gendarmes assigned to Gendarmeries

at the

départementale

(regional) level,

which averaged 1,797 hours in 2011, is

substantially higher than that of poli-

cemen on a weekly schedule, and even

more so compared to those on a cyclic

schedule.

The difference is even more

significant since it does not take into

account hours of operational duty

imposed on gendarmes without com-

pensation (an average of 7 hours 23

minutes per day). In addition, that dif-

ference results from comparing actual

working

time,

measured

the

Gendarmerie by consolidating data

collected in the units using an ad hoc

computer application, with a theoreti-

cal figure for the National Police, cal-

culated on the basis of applicable

regulations; the actual duration may be

significantly lower after deduction of

the balance concerning compensatory

days off and additional services.

The organisation of

working time in the

National Police: a

system that has

reached its limits

Designed to provide flexible adap-

tation between on-duty staff and fluc-

tuations in activity, today this complex

system imperfectly serves that objective.

It has lost its flexibility and is no longer

sufficiently suited to the constraints of

managing the services.

The ongoing accumulation of

unused compensatory hours

In practice, the impossibility for

policemen, because of the demands of

their work, to make use of time they are

owed in consideration of additional ser-

vices leads to the accumulation of a

large reserve of compensatory hours.

The growing activity of most services

and the overburdened management of

the workforce are less and less adapted

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes

Organising working time

to compensation of overtime by gran-

ting a longer period of time off, as com-

pared to monetary recompense.

The breakdown of the current

system is substantiated by the ongoing

accumulation of 19 million compensa-

tory hours, which staff could have used,

yet which they deferred from year to

year; this figure continued to grow until

2010. While this reserve of hours remai-

ning due stabilised on an overall basis

for the first time in 2011, the situation

was different for hours produced by

cyclic schedules; in this regard, manage-

ment of these hours still does not seem

properly under control.

This mass of unused compensa-

tory hours results in additional compli-

cations for operational management of

units, as it limits the ability to call upon

staff for additional services when they

are already owed a significant number of

hours. This chronic backlog also repre-

sents an expense for future periods,

equivalent to 12,000-13,000 full-time

jobs over a year, or about

€

500 million,

since in the long term, when staff mem-

bers actually make use of their deferred

leave, it will have the effect of reducing

available staff, at the latest in the form

of staff retiring 6 months early – or

even 18 months for the

police judiciaire

(~Criminal Investigation Department).

Meanwhile, as their positions are not

administratively vacant, they are not

replaced.

Monitoring that remains insuf-

ficiently rigorous

The extremely complex rules

governing the organisation and manage-

ment of policemen’s working time are

sources of poor practices, and even

abuse.

Due to the constraints of their

respective duties, the administrative divi-

sions of the National Police all use – but

to varying degrees – this system of

overtime compensation. In absolute

terms, public safety services are the lar-

gest sources of compensatory hours

(62% of the total). On a per-person

basis, the

police judiciaire

produce the

most overtime (between 250 and 300

hours on average per member of the

force). However, there is also a wide

variety of situations, including issues of

evolution, affecting police units that

perform the same types of assignment.

As they have not been the object of ana-

lysis, the observed differences remain

unexplained.

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes

Organising working time

Recent actions must be inten-

sified

The Ministry of the Interior has

only recently endeavoured to emphasise

the responsibility of the entire manage-

ment chain in keeping control over judi-

cious use of additional services and the

routine recourse to compensatory

hours.

Since 2011, the

inspection géné-

rale de la police nationale

(IGPN, gene-

ral inspectorate of the National Police)

has made the monitoring of policemen’s

working time a priority, via unannoun-

ced checks in local units. The top admi-

nistrators in these units (eg the depart-

mental directors of public safety,

direc-

teurs départementaux de la sécurité

publique

) have the final responsibility

for choosing which working time arran-

gements are best suited to their activities

and the associated time slots. It is their

job to ensure that the organisation of

their units does not give rise to excessive

overtime. In particular, they must care-

fully avoid the introduction of work

cycles that tend to generate too many

compensatory hours with regard to their

operational requirements

To help carry out these checks, top

administrators in all National Police

departments now have access to GEO-

POL software. However, this applica-

tion, designed to manage the leave entit-

lements of each staff member, cannot

easily produce a summary dashboard to

detect possible abuses and to identify

the causes in the units concerned. Also,

it has been noted that, while top admi-

nistrators of local units should seek the

support of middle management to carry

out their checks, the latter (in particular

officers) often do not have the appro-

priate training or the necessary autho-

rity.

As part of continuing education,

two-day courses have been set up for

some of the

commissaires

(~superin-

tendents) and certain officers assigned

to public safety. These courses concern

the organisation of working time and

include a summary of applicable rules

and monitoring tools. The Cour recom-

mends extending this initiative to offi-

cers exercising supervisory responsibili-

ties.

Furthermore, central services do

not yet have access to consolidated data

that would allow them to systematically

detect abnormal situations, in particular

by precisely analysing significant diffe-

rences in recourse to overtime among

administrative divisions and among local

units. It has become necessary to pro-

Organising working time

vide them with a data warehouse to cen-

tralise data collected by GEOPOL so

they can follow the correct practices for

recourse to additional services and the

granting of compensatory leave, and

take the necessary corrective measures.

Revising the regulations

These actions should be pursued.

However, given the burden of habits

and union pressure, such actions may

not suffice to influence the behaviour of

chefs d’unités

(unit commanders) and

their staff if certain rules governing

overtime compensation that are particu-

larly favourable to staff members are

not modified; their impact on providing

available staff now seems too costly in

terms of management constraints and

performance requirements to which the

police services are subject.

Therefore, the Cour recommends

giving department heads the option to

compel their staff – when operational

requirements permit – to make use of

their accumulated compensatory hours,

at the risk of losing them otherwise.

Similarly, in the case of the additional

services having the highest multipliers,

the method of calculating compensa-

tory hours should be revised in order to

make it more compatible with the mana-

gement constraints of the services.

Finally, revised laws allowing officers

and policemen to choose their overtime

compensation in the form of time off

or in monetary recompense, at a rate

dependent on the time (compensatory

time off, official holiday, night work,

public holiday) when additional services

are performed, would be both accepta-

ble to the staff concerned and consis-

tent with the goal of controlling remu-

neration expenses.

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes

Remuneration parity:

an irrelevant project

Since the amalgamation in 2009

the

National

Police

and

Gendarmerie under the Ministry of

the Interior, the latter seeks to pro-

mote a staff remuneration policy

based, not on point-by-point parity,

but rather on “overall” parity; obtai-

ning this parity would thus be conside-

red as confirmation that the desired

complementarity had been achieved.

However, despite the comparative

analysis carried out by the two forces,

it appears that the remuneration sys-

tems for the National Police and

Gendarmes, even if they have com-

mon points (due mainly to the partial

convergence of wage scales), remain

largely disparate.

Irreducible diffe-

rences between the

two forces

These major differences stem

from their organisational arrangements,

the employment status of their person-

nel and the balance between ranks and

responsibilities, which reflect the speci-

ficities of the territories and populations

for which they are responsible.

Personnel status

The National Gendarmerie is

mainly composed of officers and sub-

officers whose employment status is

governed by the

statut général des mili-

taires

(general status for the military),

defined in the French Defence Code.

Non-sedentary staff members in the

National Police are governed by the

sta-

tut général de la fonction publique de

l’État

(general

status

for

state

employees)

as well as by a special sta-

tus that may be waived in order to adapt

the organisation of

“corps et carrières”

to the specific duties of the police.

These statutory differences have signifi-

cant consequences for the availability of

personnel, their service obligations and

the organisation of their working time.

Certain components of remunera-

tion are not transferable from one force

to another. For example, payments for

time “on call” have no equivalent in the

Gendarmerie. In addition, the use of

official housing is rare in the National

Police, while it is systematic in the

Gendarmerie, where it is considered a

necessary condition to ensure staff avai-

lability. Obligations imposed on per-

sonnel mobility are also not comparable,

nor are the financial support systems. In

terms of transportation benefits, gen-

darmes have, like all military personnel,

a discount of 75% off the full price of

SNCF (national) rail travel, including

first class, whatever the reason for the

trip. National Police assigned to Paris

and its nearby suburbs

(petite couronne)

are entitled to free public transport in

the Paris region.

An imperfect correspondence

between ranks

Even when responsibilities, duties

and ways of performing their activities

appear similar, a strict equivalence bet-

ween different ranks cannot be establi-

shed on that basis. Correspondences

between ranks considered as counter-

parts are therefore partly the result of

convention.

Thus, the National Police’s staff is

divided into three corps (superinten-

dents; officers; policemen and sub-offi-

cers) against only two (sub-officers and

officers) for the military staff in the

Gendarmerie. Equivalent corps do not

have the same statutory number of

ranks. In the National Police, the corps

of policemen and officers includes 4

ranks –

gardien, brigadier, brigadier-

chef, major

(policeman, ~corporal,

~sergeant, major) – instead of the 5

sub-officer ranks in the Gendarmerie –

gendarme, maréchal des logis chef, adju-

dant, adjudant-chef, major

(gendarme,

~squadron sergeant-major, warrant

officer, warrant officer first class,

major).

Different systems of

remuneration des-

pite steps towards

standardisation

Wage scales

The range of wages (expressed as

a numeric “index”) for certain ranks

considered as counterparts has become

more similar, particularly for policemen

and officers in the National Police and

sub-officers in the Gendarmerie, yet

there remain significant differences for

majors and officers in the two forces.

Career development

For statutory reasons, the condi-

tions surrounding career development

Remuneration parity:

an irrelevant objective

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes

Remuneration parity:

an irrelevant objective

in the two forces are substantially diffe-

rent. For example, officers in the

Gendarmerie advance quickly at the

beginning of their career, automatically

gaining the rank of captain in four years,

as compared to a semi-automatic transi-

tion taking six to nine years in the

National Police. After seven years, an

officer in the Gendarmerie is automati-

cally a captain with a wage scale index of

694; in a majority of cases, the equiva-

lent officer in the National Police is still

a lieutenant (index 546) or captain

(index 622). Thus, after fifteen years,

their cumulative annual net wages may

differ by approximately

€

100,000.

Compensation plans

Beyond base pay, the compensa-

tion structures for the two forces are

different, even if they share some com-

mon components that have been har-

monised: completely, such as the

indem-

nité journalière d’absence temporaire

(IJAT, per-diem for temporary absence)

paid to members of mobile units, or

partially, such as the

indemnité de sujé-

tions spéciales de police

(ISSP, special

constraint compensation for police)

paid to sub-officers in the Gendarmerie

and policemen and officers in the

National Police. The distribution of the

nouvelle bonification indiciaire

(NBI,

new indexed premium, a pay bonus) is

not harmonised since only a small pro-

portion of officers in the National

Police benefit from it, as compared to

40% of officers in the Gendarmerie.

For the rest, given the fundamen-

tally different nature of compensation

plans, particularly in relation to the crite-

ria for localities where personnel are

assigned or for the responsibilities they

exercise, any comparison is futile.

Gendarmes therefore routinely receive

compensation for military duties (ICM,

indemnité pour charges militaires

), in

consideration of the geographical mobi-

lity inherent in their job, which has no

equivalent in the National Police.

Policemen receive compensation for

constraints specific to living in the Paris

region, and a loyalty allowance for wor-

king in “difficult” areas

(indemnité de

fidélisation en secteur difficile)

, which

have no equivalent in the Gendarmerie.

They also receive bonuses based on

supervisory responsibilities they carry

out, such as the

prime de commande-

ment

and

allocation de service

, paid to

officers and

indemnité de responsabilité

et de performance

paid to superinten-

dents, not to mention the

allocation de

maîtrise

paid to all officers and police-

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes

Remuneration parity:

an irrelevant objective

men, which have no equivalent in the

Gendarmerie.

The costly quest for parity

The quest for remuneration parity,

which was neither a prerequisite nor a

necessary consequence of the operatio-

nal attachment of the Gendarmerie to

the Ministry of the Interior, may even

have adverse effects if it is invoked – as

has already happened several times – to

justify new category-specific measures.

Thus, while the rate of compensation

for special constraints on National

Police was already the same for sub-offi-

cers of the Gendarmerie and the police-

men and officers in the National Police,

the initiative for its increase from 24%

to 26%, taken in 2009 by the General

Directorate of the National Police, was

followed shortly after by an identical ini-

tiative from its counterpart in the

Gendarmerie.

All in all, this situation led the

Cour to recommend to the Ministry of

the Interior that it abandons the goal of

remuneration parity for the National

Police and Gendarmerie, as long as the

organisation of the two forces and the

status of their staff remain different, to

facilitate the temporary wage freeze.

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes

Conclusion

etter control of remuneration expenses for the staff of the National Police

and Gendarmerie, which seems necessary in view of their growth from 2006

to 2012, requires reinforcement of the capacity to forecast and monitor the

factors that drive changes in the wage bill; despite recent advances, this capacity

remains far from being optimal.

The necessary changes also follow from human resources management poli-

cies. In the future, it will no longer be possible to expect personnel to systematically

gain efficiency in the fight against crime each year by adding new category-specific

measures to increase expenditures on career development, index-based pay and

compensation plans, as numerous and expensive as those developed since 2004

under the

“corps et carrières”

reform (to benefit the National Police) and the

PAGRE plan (for the Gendarmerie).

For budgetary reasons, these reforms cannot support new expansions of this

nature. However, it would be useful to take stock of the situation, to obtain a base-

line on which future sustainable policy on career management and remuneration

could be built.

The two security forces share a large proportion of their assignments; this jus-

tified their operational attachment in 2009 under the same ministry. Yet, they conti-

nue to have major differences in their manner of organisation (which reflects the ter-

ritories for which they are responsible), their respective employment doctrines and

the employment status of their staff.

In particular, their systems for organising working time are fundamentally dis-

similar. In the National Police, they are based on granting additional days off in com-

pensation for arduous working hours and for the additional services necessary to

ensure 24-hour uninterrupted service. In the Gendarmerie, they are based on the

principle of continuous availability of military personnel, set down in the French

Defence Code and made possible by the systematic allocation of on-site housing,

which ensures access to gendarmerie units when they are needed.

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes

Conclusion

In this regard, the Cour notes that the system for organising working time in

the National Police, already pushed to its limits, no longer provides the management

flexibility for which it was designed. The ongoing accumulation of 19 million hours

of leave, owed to staff members but deferred from year to year, substantiates this

paralysis, as does the decision of the Ministry of the Interior in July 2011 to resort

to an exceptional measure for overtime compensation in order to obtain a tempo-

rary increase in police activity.

Scope for improvement exists: the entire management chain should keep bet-

ter control over the recourse to overtime and the calculation of compensatory time

off. That will require sustained efforts, which are only just starting to be undertaken

by the central administration, to instil a new management culture, both in senior

management (superintendents and officers) and middle management (officers).

It seems inevitable that, sooner or later, the rules for organising working time

in the police forces must be revised: they have become both too complex and too

costly in terms of new constraints for managing the services.

More broadly, these fundamental differences in organisation of the two forces

cast doubt on the relevance of the goal of remuneration parity for the National

Police and Gendarmes, an objective that the Cour judges to be costly. Even if the

working times are not comparable, the same observation applies on the whole to the

remuneration systems that, despite partial progress towards convergence of wage

scales, remain largely distinct in terms of career development and compensation

plans.

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes

Recommendations

With regard to keeping the wage

bill under control for the National

Police and Gendarmerie:

–

take stock of the effectiveness

of the “

corps et carrières”

and

PAGRE reforms, with the objective of

better matching ranks to responsibili-

ties and skill levels to the nature of

assignments;

–

observe a temporary wage

freeze, in particular by strictly limiting

the adoption of new category-specific

measures and by more closely supervi-

sing changes in GVT;

–

provide a directive from the

Prime Minister that prohibits ministers

from adopting a

dossier prévisionnel

de gestion

(DPG, management plan)

that has been judged unfavourably by

the

contrôleur budgétaire et comptable

ministériel

(CBCM, budget comptrol-

ler) on the grounds that the initial esti-

mates of expenditures indicate that

recourse to the precautionary reserve

will inevitably be required during the

exercise;

–

establish an action plan to

enhance the reliability of tools for ana-

lysis, forecasting and monitoring, espe-

cially concerning retirement and other

personnel departures, personnel arri-

vals other than via recruitment, ave-

rage cost per job category and the bud-

getary impact of GVT;

–

spread

recruiting

activity

throughout the calendar year by coor-

dinating it with scheduled personnel

departures, in order to take into

account the high uncertainty that

remains a shortcoming of the retire-

ment forecasts;

–

increase the involvement of

the

secrétariats généraux pour l’admi-

nistration de la police

(SGAP, general

secretariats for police administration)

in analysis and monitoring of trends in

salary expenditures;

–

lower the headcount ceiling of

the Gendarmerie to bring it into line

with the actual staff numbers.

With regard to rationalising the

organisation and management of wor-

king time in the National Police:

–

implement a GEOPOL data

centre to enable monitoring, at the

central level, of local units’ practices

for recourse to additional services and

the granting of compensatory leave;

take the necessary corrective actions;

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes

Recommendations

–

measure the actual average

duration of the police workday, classi-

fied by type of schedule and type of

service assignment;

–

extend continuing education

on regulations concerning the manage-

ment of working time to officers exer-

cising supervisory responsibilities;

–

provide department heads

with legal means to compel staff –

when operational requirements permit

– to make use of their accumulated

compensatory hours, at the risk of

losing them otherwise.

–

in the case of the additional

services having the highest multipliers,

revise the method of calculating com-

pensatory hours in order to make it

more compatible with the manage-

ment constraints of the services.

–

introduce regulations permit-

ting staff to choose their overtime

compensation in the form of time off

or in monetary recompense, at a rate

dependent on the time (compensatory

time off, official holiday, night work,

public holiday) when additional ser-

vices are performed.

Regarding the quest for overall

parity of the two police forces:

–

periodically update the simula-

tions based on standard career paths

for National Police and Gendarmes;

–

in order to facilitate the tempo-

rary wage freeze, abandon the objec-

tive of remuneration parity for the

National Police and Gendarmerie, as

long as differences in organisation and

status persist between the two forces.

Summary

of the Public thematic report by the

Cour des comptes