Archive:Public employment - Austria
This Statistics Explained article is outdated and has been archived.
- Source: Ministry of the Spanish presidency 2010, publication "Public employment in the European Union Member States" .
This article is part of a set of background articles and introduces public employment in Austria.
Regional and administrative organisation
Austria is a Central European country, organized as parliamentary democracy, which has been a member of the European Union since 1995. It is a Federal Republic composed of nine States (Bundesländer).
System of government
The Head of State is the Federal President, elected by popular vote for a term of six years. The Head of Government is the Federal Chancellor, who heads the Cabinet. Both are accountable to Parliament, which exercises legislative power through two Houses:
- The Federal Council (Bundesrat) made up of 62 members elected by the State Councils for a period equivalent to that of the regional mandates, which determines party representation in accordance with the elections that are held in the federative authorities.
- The National Council (Nationalrat) with 183 members elected every five years. This is the real legislative decision-making body. The Federal Chancellor is the Head of Government. He/she puts forward the other members of the Cabinet, who are appointed or dismissed from their duties by the Federal President (Head of State). These appointments do not require Government confirmation. Parliament may present a motion of no confidence in the Cabinet or any of its members, in which case, he/she should resign. There is a Vice-Chancellor who acts as the Chancellor’s deputy. He/she endorses the President’s federal acts and assumes the President’s competences in the case of absences of less than 20 days.
Secretaries of State are appointed in the same way as Ministers and take part in meetings of the Council of Ministers as advisers. The Cabinet, as an official body of the Government, exercises the competences attributed to it by Law or President Decree. The remaining competences are vested in the Ministries.
Regional organisation
The Federal Republic is divided into nine States (Bundesländer) and these are divided into Districts (Bezirke), which in turn, are sub-divided into municipalities (Gemeinden) and Statutory Cities (Statutarstädte). These Cities have the same powers as districts and municipalities. The States have legislative powers in certain areas such as culture, social protection or the environment.
Each State has its own Assembly, Government and Governor. Elections are held every five years. The State Constitution determines how the seats in the state government are assigned to political parties (most states have a system of proportional representation based on the number of delegates in each Assembly). The Governor is elected by the Parliament, meaning that it may be necessary to form a coalition in order to secure the election of a particular candidate. Vienna plays a dual role as city and “Bundesland”, meaning that the mayor serves as governor and the city council acts as an Assembly at the same time.
The States have legislative powers in town planning, environmental protection, hunting, fishing, etc. Questions related to education, welfare, telecommunications, the health system and criminal, civil and commercial law, etc, are regulated by federal law. Exclusive power in justice lies with the Federal State. However, the State Governor is responsible for the application of administrative legislation in his State, in addition to other powers.
The Constitution only sets out the powers of the State Administration and not their distribution to regional administrations, which is subject to State Law, but all State Administration matters may be transferred.
The fundamental principle that governs the Peripheral Administration is efficiency, which means that state competences are exercised by provincial bodies, particularly at district level. The Federal State District Authority acts for the good of the province and the state. Some areas, such as finance, police, defence and foreign affairs are the competence of specific State Agencies.
Public employment structure
Regulation:
The most important applicable legislation includes:
The Civil Service Act (Beamten-Dienstrechtsgesetz 1979); Contract Staff Act (Vertragsbedienstetengesetz 1948); Act on the Advertising of Vacancies (Ausschreibungsgesetz 1989); Federal Public Employees Representation Act (Bundes-Personalvertretungsgesetz).
The Federal Law foresees two different types of Public Employees: Tenured civil servants ruled by the Civil Service Act (Beamten-Dienstrechtsgesetz 1979) and contractual staff regulated by the Contract Staff Act (Vertragsbedienstetengesetz 1948). (More than half of Public Employees are the later) Civil servants of the States and Municipalities are regulated by the specific law of each State.
The Federal Minister for Women and Civil Service manages the Federal public employees that serve over 8.3 million Austrians. The most significant statistics in terms of staff (at 31/12/2008) are:
Number of Public Employees: 348 167. (In the Federal Government: 38%, “Bundesländer” [States]: 41 %, Municipalities: 21 %). Union membership rate at a central level: 53 %. 39,5 % of the employees of the Federal Civil Service are women; 18,6 % of Director-Generals are women (this percentage has been constantly rising since several years). The five most significant professions in the Federal Civil Service are: General Administration 48 016; Teachers (Federal); 37 639; Police 29 318; Armed forces 14 641 and Judges and Prosecutors 2 463.
Rights, obligations, principles and values
Public Employees must serve public interest. They must respond to all requests from citizens, unless they are bound by professional secrecy. Public sector employees must observe hierarchical bedience and if they deem that an order given is illegal, they must inform their supervisor thereof in writing. Strike is not explicitly regulated but considered to be part of the constitutional right of association and assembly. Finally, public sector employees cannot perform any other activity which might compromise the performance of their official duties. Tele-working and part-time employment: In general, this type of employment is possible for any civil servant provided that there are no contradictory interests or services.
Career and training
The Act on the Advertising of Vacancies contains systematic and comprehensive provisions governing appointments to management-level functions: all applicants have to take part in a specific competition including a hearing carried out by an independent Commission. The appointment of top-managers such as director generals may not exceed a period of 5 years.
Recruitment of new staff is decentralised to the level of each Federal Ministry; the training of newly incorporated public employees of the General Administration is provided by the Federal Administration Academy.
Objectives to foster the development of staff include: increasing the level of qualifications, supporting leadership and motivation and improving the knowledge management culture. These objectives involve on-going training and measures such as: performance appraisal techniques, management by objectives; employee attitude surveys, mentoring, internal position transfers, corporate identity measures.
Remuneration
Salaries are reviewed annually bearing in mind inflation, economic growth and private sector salaries. The current remuneration system is characterized by a combination of:
- A promotion-based system with functional allowances: The career is divided into 19 salary brackets. Promotion is automatic. A functional allowance based on job category and seniority can be added to the base salary.
- An immediately effective remuneration for superior functions.
Social dialogue and system of representation
The key topics of social dialogue are: salaries and reform of the salary system, the pension system and the staff regulations.
The main unions are members of the Austrian Trade Union Federation (ÖGB) and are: the Union of Public Service (GÖD), which has 230 000 members and the Union of Municipal Employees, which has 150,000 members.
Negotiation between the Government and the GÖD Union follows a procedure regulated in the Federal Public Employees Representation Act. The agreements adopted do not have legal status but often form part of the draft bills of law. Currently the employer is represented by the Federal Minister for Women and Civil Service.
Senior civil servants
There is no special SCS status but the Advertising of Vacancies Act 1989 (Ausschreibungsgesetz 1989) contains diverse provisions governing appointments to management-level functions and higher-level jobs. The highest-ranking civil servants are appointed to office for a maximum of 5 years and undergo an annual performance appraisal, as for other employees, by their direct hierarchical superiors.
Recent reforms and prospects
Since several years reforms have been focusing on controlling costs and cutting staff numbers; including the restructuring of competences between different administrative levels. An important pillar of the current Austrian budget reform is the introduction of performance budgeting (output orientated).