Since 2020, civil servants can find an amicable exit route with a conventional termination. Enough to allow them to receive their unemployment… as well as a generous severance pay.
-
To safeguard
Saved
Receive alerts Civil service
There conventional termination in the public service has just celebrated its fifth candle. Since January 1, 2020, the Civil Service Transformation Law allows agents from the three sides of the public service – State, hospital and territorial – to use it. This system, still in the experimental phase until December 31, 2025, is open to permanent civil servants as well as permanent contract agents. It offers them the opportunity to terminate their employment contract amicably with the agreement of their employer, while benefiting from unemployment benefits and severance pay.
However, if the device is attractive on paper, it is still struggling to find its audience. According to the annual report on the state of the civil service, published in mid-November 2024 by the Ministry of Civil Service, only 1,984 contractual terminations were signed in 2023. That is almost five times more than in 2020, the year the system was launched, where 425 amicable departures were recorded, but fewer than in 2022.
Retirement: how much does a former civil service employee earn?
20,300 euros in severance pay on average
Main beneficiary, the Ministry of National Education. In 2022, three out of four contractual terminations (72%) concerned public education players. Another notable trend: beneficiaries are younger and younger. In 2020, they were on average 50.4 years old, compared to 47.4 years in 2023. On the other hand, the majority profile of these beneficiaries remains unchanged. These are the women which continue to predominate: they thus represented nearly 7 out of 10 conventional terminations (69%) in the public sector in 2023.
Is the relative success of conventional termination in the civil service explained by the departure conditions offered? To find an answer to this question, we must delve into a letter from the Court of Auditors addressed to the Ministry of the Civil Service in December 2023. “Over the period 2020-2022, 5,300 state civil service agents obtained a conventional termination and received an average specific compensation of 20,300 euros»we can read there. Total slate for the State: 107.6 million euros.
Salary of civil servants: how much does a public official earn?
Ministry data struggles to convince the Court of Auditors
Note, however, that all these figures concern exclusively the state civil servicethus excluding the hospital (FPH) and territorial (FPT) sides. For what ? “No information comes from the FPH or the FPT, and in the FPE, not all the ministries communicate their data”deplores the UNSA Civil Service. An opacity also widely criticized by the Court of Auditors. In her letter of December 2023, she points out a “imperfect traceability” decisions and calculation of compensation. The cause: often incomplete files and the absence of verifications by budgetary controllers. The Sages of rue Cambon mention, for example, cases of contractual terminations granted with significant severance pay, “ill-founded” and “around 190,000 euros”.
Receive our latest news
Every week, the key articles to accompany your personal finance.