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Portugal Civil Service
According to Article 266 of the revised constitution,
public
administrative authorities shall "seek to promote the
public
interest, while observing those rights and interests of
citizens
that are protected by law." Furthermore, the next article
states
that the structure of public administration shall be such
as to
avoid bureaucracy, to bring the state's services close to
the
people, and to involve the people in decision making.
Citizens
are entitled to be informed of proceedings in which they
are
directly concerned and of decisions affecting them.
These provisions were a reaction to Portuguese
administrative
traditions and to the abuses and favoritism of the Salazar
era.
As of the early 1990s, however, opinions remained divided
about
whether the Portuguese state was less "bureaucratic" than
it had
been in the past. The 1970s saw a tremendous increase in
the
number of persons employed by central and local
governments (from
205,000 in 1968 to 550,000 in 1986) and the issuance of
many
regulations that slowed public administration. To counter
these
trends, numerous reforms were enacted in the 1980s to
streamline
government services and make public employees more
responsive to
the public's needs. For example, civil servants were
encouraged
to see themselves as servants of the public rather than as
wielders of state power. Moreover, many trivial but timeconsuming and otherwise onerous bureaucratic regulations
were
revoked. An example of this kind of reform was that
photocopies
rather than original documents could be used when dealing
with
government offices. Portugal's entry into the EC was also
forcing
a modernization of the public sector.
Portugal's public employees were classified as either
public
functionaries, those employed by the national government;
or as
administrative functionaries, those employed by local
authorities. In 1986 national government employees
accounted for
83 percent of government employees. Some 70 percent of
these
government workers were employed by the Ministry of
Education and
Culture and the Ministry of Health. As part of a concerted
effort
to reduce Portugal's traditional centralization of
government,
Lisbon's share of public employees of all kinds was
reduced from
52.7 percent in 1978 to 44 percent in 1986.
The civil service's cumbersome and unfair
classification and
pay structures were also reformed during the 1980s. The
pay of
public employees came to be taxed more than it had been in
the
past. Career structures were simplified. Care was taken,
however,
that no public employee receive less pay than under the
old
system.
The recruitment of new public employees was also newly
regulated. Candidates vied for state positions in public
competitions. Juries selected candidates in a way that
guaranteed
fairness. Public employees were also allowed to be members
of the
main Portuguese labor unions.
Data as of January 1993
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