The Central Staff Committee has just published a document titled "The Financial Study: Yet another hoax". Here is the summary
Dear colleagues,
In the EPO, financial studies tend to be a prelude to cuts in staff benefits. The latest study is no exception. The present publication explains one of the tricks used to make the Office look poor. More publications will follow.
The recently published financial study (CA/46/19) by Mercer and Oliver Wyman seems to indicate that more bad news is to come.
The studies' conclusions ...
The key message of the financial study (p 34) is:
"The EPO faces a structural operational gap, with costs increasing faster than revenues, leading in the future to significantly decreasing cash flows.
The EPO has greater control of cost levers than revenue levers which presents an opportunity to better meet its future obligations through careful cost management."
In other words: the Office must be reducing costs - staff costs.
... and how they came about
The EPO's main income is from fees. The Financial Study includes this 4% fee increase for 2020 but assumes that there will be no further fee increases from then on till 2038. On the other hand Staff salaries and pensions follow the normal increase. For any organisation - as rich as it may be - such an approach will lead in the end to budgetary gaps. According to our first calculations the alleged gaps could be offset by merely continuing the biennial 5% fee adjustments in place.
Märpel is no accountant but checked the study and it seems that the Central Staff Committee is indeed right and that the document was drafted on unreasonable assumptions chosen to make the financial situation appear catastrophic. In contrast, the proven historical records show that the EPO has a yearly surplus of over 350 millions Euros.
It seems that President Campinos has decided to prepare for a new conflict. What other reasons could there be to publish such a blatant lie? A staff strike is planned for the next meeting of the Council.
7 comments:
This time last year people looked with hope to the coming EPO president. After the abysmal performance of the previous president there was a wave of expectation that the new one would at least make some cosmetic changes, if not dismantle the nepotistic and corrupt Battistelli system. He met with more than 100 examiners in 20-minute breakfast discussions in which he certainly heard all the staff´s grievances so one cannot say that he did not have all the information needed. After some months he replaced the VPs and the staff were waiting for positive changes. What came out was nothing less than disastrous. A financial report on outright wrong assumptions stating that the EPO finances were in dire straits and, on an organisational level, the introduction of a pilot project on collaboration among the members of the examining division, another bureaucratic measure with no practical result.
The report led Campinos to propose the sale of one of the representative downtown Munich buildings (?!) while keeping the rental accomodation of the Board of Appeal staff outside Munich in Haar.
The lack of ideas and the unwillingness of the Campinos management to tackle the real problems of the office and come up with real solutions have lead to a general assessment that Campinos may be even less suited to lead the EPO than Battistelli. That is a performance!
It´s hard to understand the fractured logic behind the administration´s thinking. On the one side they brag about the impressive year-on-year results, on the other side they claim the finances are dire (probably in order to impose new salary and pension cuts).
But the waiting time is gone. He will have the first strike on his hands and learn that if he goes down on this path he may be even more despised than Battistelli.
223 mio Euros wasted on IT projects: the managers are not held responsible but get a full retirement.
Quality of searches and grants hits rock bottom but the COO's still occupy their position.
A catastrophic social survey but the HR principal director is still there.
A financial study apparently made by a company who apparently has no knowledge of simple bookkeeping.
A building project that will cost 700 mio Euros but is useful for the EPO's building portfolio.
Welcome to the EPO, a real model organization.
Dear EPO staff, it is time you strike for your rights and stop the managerial incompetence!
Selling Munich BT VII must be done with haste and speed, before the EBA decides whether Haar is "Munich"...
Because if they decide the move was not legal within the framework of the EPC, then they will still not be able to move back, because the EPO has no room for them!
Thereby creating another fait accompli...
And the building will be sold below price to a manager of a portfolio, who.s a good friend, and if the EBA decides, and management against my above first guess, then the EPO must re-rent the building for a "market competitive price", making the manager of the portfolio a man with deep pockets....
I sincerely hope the CA sees through this blatant attempt to funnel money away and set the narrative, and will now allow the sale of EPO property like this....
Märpel thanks you all for the comments, by please use the name option and enter a pseudonym... No URL is needed!
Looks like someone needs to check on the EPO's use of its liquid assets ...
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QnL_yEq34K4J:https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php%3Fp%3D21387791+&cd=1&hl=de&ct=clnk&gl=de
Drunk and disorderly during core business time ... could that possibly be a disciplinary matter?
Campinos can halt planes and be drunk all he wants, he has immunity!
Munich is big.
Besides, there's no indication that the delayed flight was caused by an EPOrg employee.
The flight to Bruxelles could have hosted any number of VIPs going for their last sessions in the European Parliament....
Post a Comment