Staffing and Human Resources Flexibilities in the Spanish Public Services

In: Review of public personnel administration, Volume 17, Issue 3, p. 46-56

Abstract

Most OECD countries have linked staffing flexibilities to global programs of administrative reform. Modernization of the Spanish public sector was launched in the late 1980s but failed to develop. Decentralization and devolution of power from the center to local cost- centers and line managers, intended as the main tools to make the managing of human resources more flexible, have had only limited effect Some flexibility measures have been adopted, however, as a result of economic pressures to curb the rising costs of the Spanish welfare state. These measures include. downsizing, freezing recruitment, privatization and "autonomization." Other legislative attempts to increase staff flexibility, such as redeploying human resources and relating payment to performance, have not been implemented as planned, and there is little prospect that extensive human resources flexibilities will be achieved in the Spanish system in the near future