CESI members in the Expert Commission raised serious concerns about challenges that demographic ageing and lacking recruitment of young personnel mean for a persisting understaffing in the public sector in many Member States. It was made clear that more investments are needed to hire and retain more staff in key areas of public interest like the care and nursing in particular, and that more investment in the training and recruitment of personnel in the public services at large are also needed if they are to be performing for citizens and business and help implement key EU measures for them, including the post-Covid EU Recovery and Resilience Facility and the green-digital transition which the European Commission currently drives. Better intergenerational exchanges were considered necessary for the transfer of expertise and institutional memory and trade unions were named as a potential intermediary for such experiences. Digitalisation was considered a step forward by most of the representatives of central, local and regional administrations. Otto Aiglsperger (Eurofedop), President CESI’s Expert Commission ‘Public Administrations’ said: “The Covid pandemic experience has shown everyone how resilient and flexible the European public sector could be in adopting new ways of working remotely and delivering quality public services”. Carlos Martinez (CSIF), Vice-President of the Expert Commission, stressed how, before the pandemic, only 0.5% of the Spanish public sector employees could telework, but that during the lockdowns the rate increased to even 80%.

The members of the Expert Commission noted positively the European Commission-hosted large-scale conference ‘Supporting Quality of Public Administration in the European Union Member States’ on November 25 as a sign of the EU to jumpstart a strong public service agenda for Europe which CESI has demanded for long.

Secretary General Klaus Heeger said: “We are encouraged to hear European Commissioner Elisa Ferreira stressing the role that public administrations play in the realisation of key initiatives for citizens and business such as the implementation of the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility in the Member States. Also the green and digital twin-transition will not be possible without administrations and the support of public services. Citizens and workers cannot do without public administrations, and public administrations cannot do without sufficient investments in its facilities and equipment and adequate levels of well-trained personnel. We see the conference on November 25 as a successor to our noted conference on public services of October 5 and hope that the European Commission will now jumpstart a new strong public service agenda for Europe which CESI has been demanding for long.”