In the Nationalist Party’s pre-Budget document there is page titled ‘Public spending’, which focuses on the public sector. The 10 proposals listed include, among others, an independent HR audit, a roll-back of the number of positions of trust, decentralisation, roll-out of non-core and support services to the private sector and the assurance that all officers, including political appointees, are held to account for all transgressions.

The Labour Party opted to interpret the proposals as a PN plan to lay off civil servants. Party leader Simon Busuttil denied the claim and said the proposals were aimed at seeing a gradual decrease in the public sector workforce in a bid to keep the public payroll under control.

One of the PN’s proposal raises a red flag for Gozo, saying that “hundreds” of Gozitan workers have been given public sector jobs and paid the minimum wage. It says that some of them had given up better-paid private sector jobs, trading better conditions for job security. “Precarious work in the public sector in Gozo is more common than in Malta,” the PN said. This is of immense concern.

Firstly, it is logical to assume that public sector jobs in Malta and Gozo would offer the same workings conditions. However, it is not as simple as it sounds. The Ombudsman has recently warned that the deal with Vitals on the Gozo Hospital would end his remit in that sector, putting employees and patients there in an inferior position when compared to their Maltese counterparts.

Secondly, and more worrying, is that these minimum wage employees have left private sector jobs to fill up public sector posts. Exactly how productive and necessary these jobs are is not possible to tell but it is likely the workers have opted for worse conditions just to obtain job security and perhaps be able to do some extra work on the side, too. All this at taxpayers’ expense.

The perception, and even the reality, is that a government job comes with security. In the 1987 election, the Labour Party had told thousands of irregularly employed public sector workers their jobs were at stake if the PN should win.

Public sector employment always comes across as a safety value for the government of the day. This has been seen recently when former Enemalta employees, some skilled in engineering, ended up doing maintenance jobs and gardening work. A similar plan appears to be in place to absorb ‘surplus’ Air Malta staff, should its partial sale materialise.

This government has been particularly sensitive to accusations that unemployment has been decreasing thanks to public sector recruitment and has repeatedly pointed out that the economic growth has been creating jobs in the private sector. But that does not explain the hundreds of appointments in positions of trust with the public sector. It really comes to very much the same except that these appointees would lose their jobs with a change in administration.

It would be hard, if not impossible, to do away with the idea that a ‘government job’ is a job for life because it effectively is. Controlling recruitment, and gradually decreasing the public workforce, is the more realistic option to exercise some control.

The PN is suggesting that the redeployment of human resources between public sector entities to limit additional recruitment. It wants to review recruitment and promotion procedures to ensure they reflected the national needs and to reduce the number of positions of trust to the bare minimum.

That does not sound like laying off civil servants and is also commendable.