The Ombudsman expressed concern and “serious doubts on the real intention of the Office of the Prime Minister” after lowering the benchmark in an examination for senior public servants in 2017.
Correspondence between the Ombudsman, the Public Service Commission and Principal Permanent Secretary Mario Cutajar indicates that additional information had surfaced following an investigation that upheld injustice complaints.
The Ombudsman noted that the request by the Office of the Prime Minster to lower the pass mark was made through an e-mail on April 20, 2017 at 6.59pm and the PSC’s approval was communicated to Castille the following day at 2.30pm.
“This office did not find any document in the [PSC’s] file relating to a discussion within the commission itself on the OPM’s request – indeed this was a very prompt no objection,” the Ombudsman commented.
The Ombudsman said that during a follow-up meeting with Castille, it was found that while 89 successful candidates were offered the post of senior principal, “about six or seven did not take the appointment” for some reason or other. However, instead of offering the post to those next in line, the Office of the Prime Minister decided to lower the required complement, which the Ombudsman deemed as “juggling with numbers”.
The Ombudsman wondered why this happened, once Castille had previously justified the change of the examination’s pass mark to have enough candidates to fill the posts of senior principals. An official told the Ombudsman “the complement has been revised (lowered) and there were no unfilled vacancies”.
“This sudden change in the complement casts serious doubts on the intentions of the OPM when it was the same office which had requested the [PSC] to lower the pass mark because of the number of vacancies to be filled,” the Ombudsman noted.
He accused Castille and the PSC of “perpetuating the injustice” with several candidates who should have been offered the promotion instead of those who refused it.
The Office of the Prime Minister justified the change approved by the PSC as a consequence of a sectoral agreement signed with trade unions prior to the call and insisted the lowering of the pass mark was stipulated in the agreement.
After reviewing the agreement, the Ombudsman concluded that “the clause (cited by the OPM) of the agreement cannot validly be called criteria” to lower the pass mark.
Read: Senior principals’ exam pass mark lowered close to election
The Times of Malta reported this week that an investigation by the Ombudsman had concluded that civil servants who did not achieve the set pass mark were still promoted after this was lowered following the intervention of the Office of the Prime Minister a few weeks before the last election.
The government insisted that the lowering of the benchmark was necessary to capture the right number of candidates to align with the ratios set in the sectoral agreement. It was a regular procedure and non-discriminatory, it said.
The Ombudsman recently complained that most of his recommendations were not being followed by the government.