Take a walk through the UN System

The ICSC

Maria Dweggah, FICSA

If you are like most staff in the UN system, you either never heard of the ICSC or you have a vague idea but are not exactly sure what it is or what it does. And yet, it is a powerful body that has a major impact on our conditions of service – salaries, entitlements, allowances, post adjustments, human resources policy issues. The ICSC (International Civil Service Commission) is composed of 15 Commissioners who are appointed by the General Assembly and supported by a New York-based Secretariat of 49 staff. The ICSC meets twice a year, in the spring (3 weeks) and in the summer (2 weeks). Present at these meetings are the Commissioners and members of the ICSC Secretariat, administration officers from each organization, and the staff representatives.

Only two staff representative bodies are officially recognized by the ICSC to represent all staff in the common system. They are: FICSA (Federation of International Civil Servants’ Associations) and CCISUA (Coordinating Council for International Staff Unions and Associations of the United Nations System). Their role is to propose items for the Commission’s agenda, to present the collective views of its constituent staff associations/unions and to develop proposals.

Below are some agenda items that will be debated at the upcoming summer session, 14-25 July 2003: — Review of the pay and benefits system, which includes the pay for performance and broadbanding pilot study, validation and promulgation of the revised master standard (job classification system for Ps and Ds), qualitative and quantitative information on performance management in the common system.
— Contractual arrangements.
— Mobility. — Conditions of service of the Professional and higher categories. — Conditions of service for General Service and other locally recruited staff. — Hazard pay for locally recruited staff.

You can access the documents that will be presented by the ICSC at http://icsc.un.org. Papers presented by FICSA can be viewed at www.ficsa.org. If you wish to know more, contact your local staff association or union.

What Is ICSC?

The International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) is an independent expert body established by the United Nations General Assembly. Its mandate is to regulate and coordinate the conditions of service of staff in the United Nations common system (see below), while promoting and maintaining high standards in the international civil service.

What Does the ICSC Do?

The Commission’s mandate covers all facets of staff employment conditions, but the type of action it is empowered to take in a specific area is regulated under its statute. — On some matters (e.g. establishment of daily subsistence allowance; schedules of post adjustment, i.e. cost-of-living element; hardship entitlements), the Commission itself may take decisions. — In other areas, it makes recommendations to the General Assembly which then acts as the legislator for the rest of the common system. Such matters include Professional salary scales, the level of dependency allowances and education grant. — On still other matters, the Commission makes recommendations to the executive heads of the organizations; these include, in particular, human resources policy issues.

What Is The Common System?

The term common system is shorthand for the United Nations common system of salaries, allowances and other conditions of service . Its origin can be traced to the relationship agreements concluded between the United Nations and the specialized agencies. While the wording of these agreements varies, most of them carry language to the effect that it is agreed to develop common personnel standards, methods and arrangements designed to avoid serious discrepancies in terms and conditions of employment, to avoid competition in recruitment of personnel and to facilitate the interchange of personnel .

The common system was intended to prevent competition among the organizations in staff recruitment and to facilitate exchange of staff. Other rationales for a common system include: — Efficiency/economy of scale: central maintenance of salary scales and allowance schedules means far fewer resources have to be deployed for these purposes in each organization; — Equity/fairness: morale can be jeopardized when staff working side by side have different conditions of service — a uniform approach lessens such dissatisfaction; — Cost-efficiency/control: for the Member States, a common set of employment conditions permits an overview of staff costs.

* Affiliated programmes of the UN.