Interior, Public Administration and Decentralisation Minister Yiannis Ragoussis on Tuesday held a first meeting with the general and special secretaries of all government ministries on the rationalisation and optimal use of human resources in the public sector.
"Since the state consists, in the final analysis, of the people that serve it, we are proceeding with steady steps to a rationalised utilisation and fundamental upgrade of the human resources of public administration," he said after the meeting.
The ministry's plans include the abolition and merger of public sector agencies, a reform of the public utilities and state enterprises now running at a loss and a new wage scale that will abolish special benefits and link public-sector staff wages to productivity. The new plan is also expected to result in some 30,000 staff transfers.
The aim of the transfers will be to remove personnel from services or agencies that fail to produce the hoped-for results, lack any particular mission or those with a surfeit of personnel and to use these to strengthen services that come into daily contact with the public.
Another goal set by the interior ministry in order to reduce state spending is to reduce the number of state-sector employees by 200,000 at the end of 2013. Ragoussis appeared confident that this goal would be achieved through the government's decision to hire just one employee for every five that retire or resign and a 15 percent reduction in the hiring of contract workers.
In addition to introducing electronic governance and establishing advancement based on merit within the public sector hierarchy, one of the government's main wagers is to change the image of the public sector and ensure a more efficient operation of the state.
ANA
