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Framework and scope
The Directorate for Public Governance and Territorial Development of the OECD (GOV) is undertaking a two-year programme of studies on public employment and human resources management in government. This program of work includes topical studies on the key human resources management challenges that public services are facing. One of them is a project on the challenges of managing the civil service in the context of an ageing population. In addition to addressing an urgent policy concern of OECD member countries, this project falls under a larger OECD priority to develop policy responses to ageing societies.
A publication will be available in 2007, based on 10 case studies including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, and Portugal.
This project accompanies a related GOV study on the management and reform of public service pension schemes, also available in 2007.
Purpose of the project
The purpose of the project is to analyse the implications of an ageing society on the management of the civil service. It addresses both the human resource management challenges linked to ageing public servants and staff departures, as well as the consequences of changing demands for services from an ageing population on the roles and structures of the public service.
The project aims to provide OECD member countries with a comprehensive presentation of how OECD member countries view the challenges in their own countries, and a list of options and policies being adopted across the OECD to face these challenges.
Governance challenges
An ageing population creates pressures for changes in service delivery with implications for human resource management in government. There is a need to reallocate resources across sectors resulting from an increased demand for additional staff in the social sectors. At the same time, the fiscal pressures resulting from the increased demand for services from an ageing population emphasise the need to reduce staff costs and to rethink the organisational modes of service delivery in order to increase efficiency. This will force further consideration of the division of labour between government and the private sector, or an autonomous status for service delivery organisations, and their implications on the employment rules for staff working in those sectors.
While the public sector must respond to the changing demands made by an ageing society, civil servants are themselves ageing and the exit of a large number of experienced staff through retirement must be managed. Most of the departures will take place between 2009 and 2015, through 2020. The sectors that will be the most affected by the ageing civil service are the education and the health sectors.
Significant staff departures are an opportunity to bring new skills into government, decrease staff numbers and staff costs (entry level salaries are lower), and change the allocation of staff across sectors. However, they are also a challenge, as they entail the loss of key capacity and as a consequence the need to postpone retirement of some key staff. Keeping a balanced demographic profile in the public sector will be particularly difficult in the next decade.
More information
For more information on OECD projects on this topic, please see below:
Ageing society at the OECD, including Economics, Employment, Insurance and Pensions, Public Governance and Management, and social issues:
http://www.oecd.org/topic/0,2686,en_2649_37435_1_1_1_1_37435,00.html
Maintaining Property in an Ageing Society:
http://www.oecdbookshop.org/oecd/display.asp?sf1=identifiers&st1=031998051P1
Reforms for an Ageing Society:
http://www.oecdbookshop.org/oecd/display.asp?sf1=identifiers&st1=812000081P1
OECD Working papers on ageing: http://www.oecd.org/findDocument/0,2350,en_2649_37435_1_119684_1_1_37435,00.html
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