Author: Nino Tsukhishvili

IDFI Legal Expert/ Recipient of the Open Society Human Rights Internship 2013 (OSF)

. Remuneration Systems of Civil Servants: Member States of the European Union and Georgia

The effective remuneration system of civil servants is an important precondition in the process of establishing transparent and accountable civil service, which requires preparing a common state policy of civil servants’ remuneration, adopting detailed regulations by law and implementing them in public service. Analysis of international practice shows that states will pay much attention to civil servants’ remuneration and ensure detailed legislative regulations of its all aspects.

The regulation of civil servants’ remuneration is problematic in Georgia, because the common standard of defining civil servants’ remuneration is not defined and a systematic financial promotion system with regard to bonuses based on an equal performance appraisal of all civil servants is not established by law.

The purpose of the research is to analyze the legislations of the Member States of the European Union (Germany, the United Kingdom, Austria, Belgium, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Italy, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Czech Republic) concerning the remuneration systems of civil servants and compare them to Georgian legislative framework in this regard. The research contains three chapters. The first chapter will analyze the main factors influencing the civil servants’ remuneration system, such as the model of the civil service chosen by the state and the legal status of an individual employed in civil service. The second chapter will discuss the main principles of legal regulation and its legal forms. The third chapter will consider the legislative regulations defining the civil servants’ remuneration (salary, allowances and bonuses), their legal grounds and will discuss criteria of civil servants’ performance appraisal. As a conclusion, the research will present recommendations for improving civil servants’ remuneration system in Georgia.

In conclusion, we will present the following recommendations for establishing effective remuneration system of civil servants in Georgia:

• Establishing common state policy to determine an effective remuneration system of civil servants;
• Exercising effective measures to establish career-based civil service model which means determination of the civil servants’ remuneration by law and providing a financial promotion system;
• Providing financial guarantees for public employees contracted by labor law in civil service to achieve a reasonable balance between the remunerations of civil servants and public employees contracted by labor law.
• Establishing a practice of signing a collective agreement between the state and labor organizations to improve the standards of individual contract and public employees’ remuneration system.
• Preparing common classification system of civil servants’ categories and position ranks in accordance to the entry requirements of the position, the complexity of the work and its responsibility.
• Determining the amount of the salary of civil servant in accordance to granting a salary grade to his/her position;
• The amount of salary may be determined as fixed amount or in terms of higher and lower limits of the amount of remuneration;
• Defining the grounds, the rule of determination and the amount of allowance granted to civil servants  in reasonable connection to the percentage of the salary by law;
• Defining the rule of awarding bonuses, the performance criteria of civil servants for awarding bonuses, and limits of bonuses in reasonable connection to the percentage of the salary by law;
• Providing transparency of information regarding awarded bonuses to civil servants by law;

These recommendations will provide to establish an effective remuneration system of civil servants, stimulate public employees as well as support transparency of the spending of state finances and increase confidence to public authorities in the society.