MONTREAL, 29 JUNE TO 10 JULY 2009
FICSA’S REPORT OF THE 69TH SESSION OF THE
INTERNATIONAL CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION (ICSC)
ICSC/69/R.2
The mandatory age of separation
As agreed by the FICSA Council, the Federation
advocated that the mandatory age
of separation should be extended to 62 for
all staff and that the option of extending
service until age 65 should be available for
all staff. FICSA considered that staff should
be able to choose to extend their service
beyond age 62 and that the decision should
not be solely at the discretion of the executive
head. An extension beyond age 62
should not however affect entitlement to the
full pension at age 62.
FICSA also supported phased-retirement programmes, whereby staff are able to reduce their working time prior to retirement. This type of programme would support succession planning by enabling experienced staff to work closely with their replacements. The extension of retirement age should not be seen however as a substitute for effective succession planning.
The Commission took note of the information provided by the CEB and the HR Network. Most of the members were in agreement with increasing the mandatory age of separation to 62 for all staff and were against the discretionary clause for the executive head. The Commission requested its secretariat, in cooperation with the organizations and the Pension Fund, to prepare a comprehensive report on the possibility of changing the mandatory age of separation, taking account of its various implications in the human resources and pension areas, such as geographical distribution, rejuvenation of the workforce, career development, financial situation of the organizations, gender balance, and decided to revert to this issue at its seventy-second session in 2011.
ICSC/69/R.3
Standards of Conduct for the
International Civil Service
The Director of the UN Ethics Office gave
a presentation on the Code of Ethics to the
Commission. He briefed the Commission
on the draft Code of Ethics which would
be presented to the next session of the UN
General Assembly for its approval in September
2009. He also explained that the
Code of Ethics was not a replacement for
the Standards of Conduct but rather was
intended to complement it. In his opinion,
the Code of Ethics is a short summary of the
principles and values of each organization.
FICSA stated that it would like to see revisions in the following areas: strengthened whistleblower protections (for example, internal auditors from two organizations were fired for pursuing investigations); an additional factor in discrimination (prohibited on the basis of sexual orientation); staff association/union access to governing bodies; recruitment, selection and promotion on the basis of merit, which should have greater weight than geographical and gender factors in compliance with Art 101 of the Charter of the United Nations. The Commission decided to request its secretariat to work with organizations and representatives of staff federations to undertake an initial review of the Standards of Conduct to ensure that they continue to meet the needs of the organizations and to define areas that might need updating. The Commission tentatively scheduled the updating of the Standards of Conduct for 2011.
ICSC/69/R.3
Review of separation payments
This was a long and tough discussion because
several Commissioners did not favour
creating a new entitlement and thus did not
support the establishment of an end-of-service
grant. After extensive discussions and
closed meetings between the members of
the Commission, a consensus was reached.
The Commission agreed to implement an
end-of-service grant for staff on fixed-term
contracts after ten years or more of continuous
service. This new entitlement will be
named ‘severance payment’. The following
table shows the amount of the payment:
| Completed years of service | Months of pay
(gross salary less staff assessment) |
|---|---|
| 10 | 5 |
| 11 | 5 |
| 12 | 5 |
| 13 | 5 |
| 14 and more | 6 |
The Commission requested the organizations
to harmonize their separation payments.
After lengthy discussion, they also
decided not to change the name of the
repatriation grant as previously suggested.
FICSA reiterated the positions that it presented
to the 68th session of the ICSC.
FICSA welcomed the establishment of an
end-of-service grant, which at present was
used by only one common system organization.
The end-of-service grant – to be
granted on the successful completion of
a contract that is then not renewed – is
analogous to an unemployment benefit,
which a staff member would have been
entitled to had he or she been working
in the home country. FICSA explained to
the Commission that approximately 75% of
total UN staff based on the CEB statistics of
2007 and 2008 are now on fixed-term contracts
and continuing appointment cannot
be given to staff due to the limited budget
of each organization. The main question
at issue was the number of years of continuous
service to entitle a staff member
to the grant.
While ICSC had proposed that the entitlement
to the end-of-service grant should
begin at nine years of continuous service,
FICSA considered nine years was too
long. The grant should begin at 5 years of
continuous service and the amount of the
grant should be higher than the amounts
proposed by ICSC.
The first reason is because after five years of satisfactory service, the expectation has been created for a continuing contract. Secondly, should the fixed-term contract not be renewed after five years of continuous service, the average recruitment time for another post in the UN system is nine months. The staff members should be entitled to a grant that at least will take them through that nine-month waiting period.
While the ICSC recommendation was not exactly what FICSA wanted, it is a welcome step in the right direction, achieved through team work between the staff representatives, the administrations and even the ICSC secretariat staff. The final decision on the severance payment belongs to the UN General Assembly. FICSA will therefore make this issue a focus of its lobbying campaign with Fifth Committee representatives.
ICSC/69/R.6
Base/floor salary scale
The Commission recommended a 3.04%
increase in the base/floor salary scale for
staff in the Professional and higher categories
with effect from 1 January 2010 and
requested its secretariat, in cooperation with
the organizations, to collect the common
system staff separation statistics every five
years and, on that basis, to update as necessary
the formula used for estimating the
financial implications relating to separation
payments. If approved by the UN General
Assembly, the increase will be implemented
on a “no loss, no gain” basis - by taking a
percentage of post adjustment and adding it
to the base salary. Thus, net take-home pay
will remain more or less the same.
ICSC/69/R.8
ACPAQ agenda
The Commission agreed to the provisional
agenda of the ACPAQ. FICSA will need to
send its comments on the suggested list of
items and specifications to the ICSC Secretariat
by the end of July.
ICSC/69/R.9
Review of the GS job evaluation standards
The ICSC secretariat presented a report on
the activities of the Working Group. FICSA
presented a Conference Room Paper on
the issues and raised its concerns. At first,
the Commission wanted to implement the
new job evaluation standards on 1 January
2010. After lengthy discussion, they agreed
with the FICSA request to postpone the
implementation and to review the date at
the seventieth session of the ICSC in February/March 2010. They recognized that
more fine-tuning was needed and that the
Working Group should complete its work
before the next session. FICSA would like to
extend its sincere thanks to Margaret Eldon
(General Secretary, FAO/WFP-UGSS), who
is a member of the ICSC working group and
who joined the FICSA delegation to defend
the issue and did it very well.
ICSC/69/R.10
Review of the procedures for the classifications duty stations
The Commission decided to:
- Endorse the road map as proposed by its secretariat;
- Include Hazard Pay in the methodological review;
- Confirm that the additional boarding costs accorded to staff in designated duty stations should be part of the mobility and hardship review in 2010.
FICSA supported the review and expressed its willingness to fully participate in it.