The state has been building up staff again in authorities and institutions in this country for several years.

From the perspective of the DBB Beamtenbund, however, this has so far not changed the fact that the public administration is in a generally devastating state: Measured against the politically assigned tasks, there is still a severe shortage of personnel, and at the same time public employers are not willing to real upgrade their activities, denounced the DBB chairman Ulrich Silberbach at a digital conference of his organization on Monday.

The digitalization of the administration and the possible progress in efficiency have been delayed.

At the same time, politicians do not let up in expanding the control and administrative tasks of the authorities with floods of new laws and regulations.

Dietrich Creutzburg

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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"We need a clear cut in terms of the state in order to curb all these undesirable developments in the long term," warned Silberbach.

“If we continue like this, we will be bogged down with the business - economically as well as socially.” A state that people increasingly trust, “which does not serve them as they expect it to - such a state has reversed also to expect less and less from people, ”he warned.

Modernization backlog and more

The new Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) and top representatives from several state governments also took part in the conference. Faeser and Berlin's Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) agreed to work intensively for digital progress. They also agreed with the DBB in its demand to strengthen the public service through good working conditions in the competition for scarce specialist staff.

Silberbach attached importance to the fact that the modernization backlog was not due to the unwillingness of the employees. The problem and their suffering are: “Constantly more tasks, ancient technology and a jumble of bureaucracy that stifles innovation and agility in the bud.” It was not the employees who “had passed more than 500 laws in the last four years, but that was it Bundestag". There is not a lack of regulations, "but rather technically and well-staffed courts, authorities and administrations in order to effectively enforce the laws".

According to official statistics, the total number of civil servants had shrunk from more than 5 million to 4.5 million in the late 2000s. Now there are 5 million again. The largest increase has been in communal day-care centers with a plus of 61 percent since 2010. The police recorded an increase of 11 percent. The DBB emphasizes, however, that the proportion of those in employment who work for the state is still rather low at 11 percent in an international comparison. In addition, 1.3 million employees would retire in the next ten years, so they would have to be replaced just to keep the workforce.

Hart Silberbach went to court with what he saw as an all too stingy demeanor on the part of public employers in the latest salary rounds.

"The clap was followed by the clap," he said.

"Nothing except a single bonus, no general upgrading of the professions, not the slightest hint that it is really high time to invest sustainably in personnel."