Summary: The Central Staff Committee at the EPO has a new publication which reveals dishonesty about the EPO's budget, staff prospects, and so much more

THE OTHER day we mentioned how the EPO crisis had happened and what it looks like from the inside. The short story is, there's brain drain and the EPO can barely recruit. It's barely even trying to. From the looks of it, Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos only sought a 'production line' of monopolies and now they pursue a kangaroo court to blindly accept these monopolies as "valid", in effect bypassing national courts in many countries (that's both illegal and unconstitutional). EPO stakeholders aren't exactly happy about this and they're complaining.

"Lying and mischievous violations of the law have become so routine that nowadays they're simply expected."The 'production line' mindset/mentality impacts European software patents, based on EPO leaks, so something must be done about this.

Examiners are meanwhile warning that the regime keeps lying, typically relying on nice-sounding titles (e.g. "Teams Together") to do ruinous, harmful things. One new example of that is described in a newly-circulated paper from the Central Staff Committee. We're reproducing it in full below (HTML, text, GemText):

Zentraler Personalausschuss Central Staff Committee Le Comité Central du Personnel

Munich,20/02/2023 sc23021cp

Reward Exercise 2023

Taking away with the other hand

Dear Colleagues,

In his Communiqué of 14 February 2023, Mr Campinos presented his Guidelines on Rewards 2023 as an improvement. However, in real terms, the number of potential steps and promotions decreases (-8,2%) compared to 2022 and the budget for steps and promotions decreases (-6,4%) compared to the budget approved by the Administrative Council (CA/D 1/22). The focus on bonuses rather than on career progression confirms that management is not willing to invest in EPO staff in the long term. This policy seems unsustainable at a time when production is behind plan, quality has decreased to unbearable levels for our users and the “Bringing Teams Together” project causes staff disengagement. This paper gives more details.

Budget: real decrease of the envelope for steps and promotions

The draft budget¹ for 2023 contained an envelope for steps and promotions of EUR 14,690 million. The envelope was then reduced in the final budget² approved by the Council to EUR 14,380 million. Instead of following the Council’s decision, Mr Campinos has further reduced³ the envelope to EUR 11,700 million.

The table below shows the evolution between the budget approved by the Council and the budget proposed by Mr Campinos:

60% of among eligible staff, but in practice?

____ ¹ CA/50/22, p. 168 ² CA/D 1/22, p. 166 ³ GCC/DOC 3/2023, p. 6

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Two obvious comments come to mind:

Firstly, salaries have been adjusted by +10,8% as of 1 January 2023 to reflect the evolution of the purchasing power and the salaries of national civil servants. Steps and promotions are therefore “more expensive” in the same proportion. However, the envelope for steps and promotions will only increase by 1,7% for 2023. This means, all else unchanged, that about -8.2%⁴ less steps / promotions can be granted. In contrast, the budget for bonuses has increased very slightly in real terms.

Secondly, when setting the envelope, the Council budget took into account the salary adjustment as well as departures, replacements and recruitments foreseen in 2023 resulting in a calculated increase of +8,6%. In 2022, Mr Campinos had already proposed an envelope significantly below the one approved by the Council. One would expect him to increase his envelope at least by the same percentage as the one decided by the Council. This is however not the case. By increasing his envelope by only +1,7% instead of +8,6% the ratio between the two reveals that Mr Campinos has arbitrarily decreased his envelope by -6,4% compared to the envelope approved by the Council.

Quota: 60% among eligible staff

Steps or promotions are available for up to 60% of eligible staff, which remains the lowest level since the introduction of the New Career System in 2015. As explained below the effect is that, in absolute numbers, fewer and fewer colleagues are receiving a step or promotion and thus fewer and fewer colleagues are progressing in their career.

To justify his policy, Mr Campinos still dares to refer to⁵ the baseline scenario of the Financial Study 2019 corresponding to granting a pensionable reward to 60% of eligible staff. Management should refrain from referring to a study which has now proven undeniably fundamentally wrong as it predicts deflation⁶ instead of inflation. It is also questionable whether the 60% can even be reached in view of the President’s cut in the envelope.

After eight reward exercises, the demotivating aspects of the New Career System have also become obvious:

Staff in service on 31.12.2022 and still in service on 01.07.2023 may be considered for steps or promotion, provided that they are not yet in the last step of the highest grade of the respective job group or “off-scale”. (section II, 1. 2)

The number of staff members who have reached the last step (G9(5) for JG6, G10(5) for JG5 and G13(5) for JG4) has increased and they are now deprived of any pensionable reward. This could create some possibility of granting more pensionable rewards to the younger colleagues if the envelope as approved by the Council were used. However, the rigid 60%-quota combined with the arbitrary decrease of the envelope prevents this. The reward exercise is more of a budget-based and quota-based exercise than a merit-based one.

_____________ ⁴ 100%-(101,7%/110,8%) ⁵ GCC/DOC 3/2023, p. 6 ⁶ CA/83/19, p. 20

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Calibration

At a time when production is a matter of concern for management, a new amendment is made:

The pensionable and non-pensionable envelopes are initially distributed to the DGs on the basis of the demographic structure (number and grading of staff). Each VP may then calibrate them within the DG considering unit performance and collaborative achievements. However, no transfer of the different amounts between the different envelopes is allowed. (section I, par. 3)

This new amendment now formalises the practice of arbitrarily reducing the percentage for the teams considered less productive without duly considering the specificities of their work. A COO, a PD or a VP may further reduce the percentage to show that he or she is acting more “sustainably” than other managers.

Conclusion

In his Christmas speech of 12 December 2022, Mr Campinos stated that the salary method is now delivering on an initial promise with a significant “pay rise”. However, in real terms, his envelope for steps and promotions now presumably allows for -8,2% less pensionable rewards and decreases by -6,4%. This gives the feeling that what Mr Campinos had to (reluctantly) give with one hand, he is now taking with the other.

Indeed, the Financial Study 2019 wrongly predicted deflation and limited salary adjustments to Eurozone inflation + 0,2% in the hope this cap would remain low. It was however not the case due to historically high inflation. The new salary adjustment procedure led after three years to a cumulative result similar to the previous procedure. Management is now trying to “repair” what it sees as a mistake with a real decrease in the envelope for steps and promotions.

Salary adjustment and rewards serve different purposes: the former is meant to maintain the purchasing power and parallelism with national civil servants, the latter are meant to reward staff’s performance in the previous year based on merit. The policy of the administration appears to link both with purely financial considerations.

Staffing levels are already too low, production is behind⁷ plan, quality has decreased ⁸ to unbearable levels for our colleagues and for users, and the “Bringing Teams Together” project is further disengaging staff. How does the management intend to motivate staff, if they only propose more of the same?

The Central Staff Committee

_____ ⁷ DG1 Beats - January 2023 ⁸ “Concerns about deteriorating patent quality at the EPO”; Kluwer Patent Blog, 11 February 2023 https://patentblog.kluweriplaw.com/2023/02/11/concerns-about-deteriorating-patent-quality-at-the-epo/

As the above helps show, nothing that the EPO's management says can be trusted. Lying and mischievous violations of the law have become so routine that nowadays they're simply expected. There's no oversight, only complicity from the outside. ⬆