The Congress of Deputies admitted this week to the examination of a bill, at the request of the Cantabrian Parliament, of great importance for the highest officials. The initiative proposes to remove the A1 and A2 subdivisions within group A (university graduates) in the job classification of civil servants. This initiative arrived in the Lower House unexpectedly, since neither the Ministry of Civil Service nor the sector’s unions currently have this reclassification of civil servants at the highest levels among their negotiating priorities.
However, outside the parliamentary sphere, the government and public sector unions are negotiating changes that involve certain reclassifications of civil service groups, but they are focusing these changes on the intermediate groups (B, C1 and C2) of the group, and not on the highest categories, as claimed by the legislative initiative that has just started its path through Parliament. This is indicated by various sources consulted within the Executive and trade union centers.
Thus, there are currently several avenues in which the reclassifications of civil servants are studied: the Congress of Deputies, for modifications to the categories of civil servants in group A; and negotiation between government and unions for intermediate levels.
This last area of negotiation, according to the sources consulted, is the one which shows the most signs of progress in the short and medium term. The objective is to develop group B (Senior FP Technicians) with officials who are currently in C1, as well as the transition of certain C2 to C1 or even the unification of the entire group C.
From the UGT Public Services, they are categorical: “The unification of group A is not one of the priorities of the negotiation (between the unions and the Ministry of Civil Service). » On the contrary, “it is urgent that the senior executives of technical professional training who, when they joined the opposition, fell into group C1, be reclassified in the new groups B – very little developed apart from certain autonomous laws on the civil service – because a higher qualification was required of them and they find themselves in a group which no longer requires it”, they explain from this union.
In fact, this evolution of group B, which already includes the consolidated text of the Fundamental Statute of the Civil Service (known in the sector as TREBEP), is one of the issues that remain unresolved pending compliance with the Framework Agreement for a 21st Century Administration, signed by the Executive and the CC OO and UGT unions and which expired on December 31, 2024. But now the Civil Service has just reissued this agreement, to which the union has joined the CSIF, and the parties are considering joining forces. the implementation of this new agreement with the holding of meetings in January to complete the development of outstanding issues from the previous agreement (2022-2024). Among them, the aforementioned development of Group B, so that senior technicians with professional training who are now C1 enter it.
Laboratory and radiology technicians
The majority of this group is made up of health personnel: laboratory or radiology technicians, who would be wrongly classified in group C1. The head of the Department of Politics and Public Service of the Comisiones Obreras (CC OO) union, Miriam Pinillos, explains that this reclassification from C1 to B can be done gradually and in two phases. Firstly, automatic reclassification would be carried out for all those who are already senior technicians and carry out tasks specific to this diploma; and, on the other hand, through internal promotion, taking into account professional experience and qualifying training.
But these changes at intermediate levels do not stop there. For Pinillos, the negotiation must go further, with the unification of C1 and C2 into a single group, because even if different qualifications are required, “in the area of administrations, the tasks carried out by civil servants of the two subgroups (administrative and administrative assistants) are exactly the same”.
At a minimum, the unions seek to have C2 civil servants, such as auxiliary nurses, who are promoted to technicians of medium professional training (C1), because in practice, in many current public tenders, positions occupied by technicians of medium professional training are classified as C2 because the call only requires having the ESO diploma as a minimum requirement (the medium FP diploma is not specifically required).
In any case, the unions recall that current regulations already allow autonomous communities and municipalities to also develop, through scales and levels, this reclassification. The new text of the law on the civil service, blocked in the Congress of Deputies for months, deepens these changes in categories. In fact, CC OO asked the State to provide the legal bases it established for the development of Group B at the State level, so that it could serve as an example to the rest of the administrations.
Alongside all these negotiations, the bill emerged in Parliament at the request of the Cantabrian Parliament. The project is driven by pressure from nursing and physiotherapy groups, which, although having the minimum credits required to be A1 (240), are classified in the A2 subgroup, which prohibits them from accessing research groups or management positions in hospitals, for example.
The solution of eliminating subgroups A1 and A2, unifying a single group A, with the possibility of having some sort of category A more (for diplomas which require 360 credits, such as doctors), does not convince at all either the unions or the associations of senior civil servants. “The proposed bill would also leave two subgroups in Group A, but would require a larger budgetary outlay to improve A’s salary. moreand the salary increase of the current A2,” they explain to the UGT. For the moment, the main parliamentary groups consulted have declared that the development of this standard is at a very early stage and therefore do not wish to make their positions known yet.
For its part, the Spanish Federation of Associations of Higher Bodies of State Civil Administration (Fedeca), which brings together forty associations of civil servants from higher bodies, categorically rejected the disappearance of subgroups A1 and A2, included in the bill, and demanded “the immediate withdrawal of the proposal”. This association, which brings together tax inspectors, labor inspectors, state lawyers; Social Security actuaries and economists; diplomats; engineers of all kinds; statistics; among many other professionals at the highest level of the administration – believes that the legislative text “supposes equalizing the qualifications of civil servants downwards, since the selection of A1s is much more demanding and the capacities and responsibilities are not the same either”.
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