The strategy to reduce the temporary nature of public employment in Law 20/2021: a cure-all to definitively eradicate long-term temporary employment relationships or a temporary solution to get out of the situation?

Abstract

The Spanish legal system makes access to the status of career civil servant or permanent staff in the public sector subject to the prior passing of a selection process in which the constitutional principles of equality, merit and ability must be respected. However, this theoretical-regulatory framework has come up against a reality characterised by the huge influx of temporary staff into public administrations, through fixed-term service relationships that have been chained together until their contours have become blurred. This relaxation on the part of the public employer has for years fuelled a structural problem of irregular or fraudulent appointments and recruitment, contributing to the perpetuation of the fact that positions filled temporarily are not filled definitively through the appointment of public employees with a permanent service relationship. This paper makes a diagnosis of temporary employment in Spanish public administrations within the framework of Law 20/2021, of 28 December, on urgent measures to reduce the temporary nature of public employment, while reflecting on the consequences of the abusive use of these fixed-term service relationships and the future needs of the model.