Foreign allowances granted to civil servants in 2002-2008

Part A: unpaid secondments

Published on: 9 April 2009

At the request of the House of Representatives, we have investigated the allowances granted to Dutch civil servants who were seconded to international organisations. This report presents our findings on unpaid secondments, i.e. on civil servants who do note receive a salary from the Dutch government during the period of their secondment. The findings on paid secondments will follow in part B of our audit, publication of which is expected in September 2009.

Foreign allowances granted to civil servants in 2002-2008 part A PDF, 845 kB

Audit

Conclusions

Our audit found that 184 civil servants had been seconded without pay between 2002 and 2008. Relative to the total number of civil servants of more than 180,000 in 2007, this is a very small group. Within this small group, however, many mistakes were made. Firstly, many ministries did not correctly record who was seconded and what allowances they were granted. We also found that many allowances were granted without consulting the international organisation, contrary to the rules of most of the organisations concerned. Finally, we found that compliance with pension regulations was poor and that pension contributions were often not recovered as intended at the end of the secondment.

The group of civil servants seconded is not drawn proportionately from the various ministries. Some ministries seconded a relatively large number of unpaid civil servants during the period audited. Apart from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (40), these included the Ministry of Finance (28) and the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management (26). Ministries that seconded few if any civil servants were the Ministry of General Affairs (0), the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (1) and the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (3).

Not all ministries grant allowances to the civil servants they second. Allowances are granted chiefly by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (allowances granted to more than half the civil servants seconded). This is also the only ministry whose records of the secondments are in reasonable order. With regard to pension contributions, more than 40% of the civil servants seconded incorrectly received nearly €2.5 million in pension contributions during the 6 1/2 years we audited.

Recommendations

Our main recommendation is that civil servants on unpaid secondment should be granted allowances only in very exceptional circumstances and only with the approval of the international organisation concerned.

Response of the Minister

The Minister of BZK responded to our report on 20 March 2009 on behalf of herself and her fellow ministers. She said that in future all ministries would follow the procedure of granting allowances only with the prior approval of the international organisation. According to the Minister, the standard we applied for the recovery of pension contributions requires some qualification. The employer is free to decide not to recover both the employer and the employee pension contributions. The Minister will clarify the regulations but wishes to retain this option. She does undertake, though, to recover contributions that have not yet been recovered. In her response, the Minister also explains the weaknesses we found in the records. She sees our recommendation to centralise decision-making as an incentive to define secondment conditions clearly in a new circular.