“This situation raises a fundamental question: do the institutions have enough staff? Would it be necessary to increase their capacity in order to distribute tasks more evenly and avoid work overload?” After an initial parliamentary response published in February--which was not very detailed--MP (LSAP) at the beginning of March continued to push for more detail on the subject of the individual time savings account (CET) for civil servants. Polidori, in fact, sent his question to all 23 ministries.
Created in 2018, the time-savings account (CET) allows civil servants to set aside working hours that they have not used in the form of leave. These hours can come from overtime, flexible working hours or unused leave. Each employee can accumulate up to 1,800 hours--the equivalent of around 225 days of leave. (For teachers, this balance is limited to 900 lessons, with each lesson equal to two hours). A civil service employee can therefore contribute a total of almost a year’s leave if they fill their CET to the maximum--without taking Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays into account.
The same rules apply in the private sector, with the same limit of 1,800 hours. The use of a time savings account is limited to employees with at least two years of seniority with a company covered by a collective agreement or an interprofessional agreement, which provides for a CET.
“My initial intention was for the minister [of the civil service, (CSV), editor’s note] to respond to my first parliamentary question by providing the figures requested. An analysis of the available data shows a sharp increase in staff recruitment after the covid-19 period. At the same time, the volume of hours worked continues to grow,” says Polidori (who’s currently in Taiwan), when contacted by Paperjam.
232.87 hours per civil servant
The number of civil servants has, in fact, risen from 32,848 at 31 December 2021 to 36,102 at the end of 2024. That’s an increase of around 10%. “The increase in CET suggests a growing accumulation of overtime, which could reflect a significant workload for civil servants. The increase in staff in certain ministries has not prevented the increase in CET, which raises the question of the adequacy of staffing levels in relation to the needs of administrations,” notes the LSAP MP.
If we look in detail at the figures provided by Wilmes in his new parliamentary reply dated Tuesday 8 April, by 31 December 2024, the 36,102 civil service employees had accumulated 8,407,418 hours on their CET. That’s an average of 232.87 hours per employee, the equivalent of around 29 working days, or almost six weeks.
Per declared civil servant, the ministry of agriculture, food and viticulture accumulated the most CET hours (479 agents).
Employees of the education ministry are the most numerous, but what exactly can they add to their CET given that they are on leave during school holidays? Questioned by Paperjam, the ministry replied: “Primary and secondary school teachers do not receive additional leave. They credit their CET with ‘lessons,’ with one lesson being equivalent to two hours in the CET. Only direct classroom teaching is taken into account for the CET; this includes, for example, replacement teaching or additional lessons provided in addition to their regular classes.”
“Teachers' CET can be used to benefit from a sabbatical year; a temporary reduction in workload for one or more years; early retirement of up to one year; or an extension of leave or part-time service until the beginning of the term following the end of the leave or until the end of the school year (maternity leave, parental leave, unpaid leave, part-time service),” explained the education ministry. To calculate the number of “lessons” credited by teachers, the number of hours declared must therefore be divided by two.
In the figures provided by the ministry of civil service, it is impossible to know how long the CETs communicated have been contributed to by employees. “It should be noted that the CET was created on 1 October 2018 and that none existed previously within the civil service. That said, there was already a system of flexible working hours that had enabled a positive balance to be recorded. The law of 1 August 2018, moreover, contains a provision having provided for the automatic transfer in particular of the flexitime balance to the CET,” Wilmes’ communications department states.
It is also impossible to know the breakdown in CETs between overtime and leave days. “We don’t have this information,” the ministry states, adding that “civil servants must take a minimum of 25 days leave per year. The rest can be put into the CET.”
This article was originally published in .