Filenews 6 April 2023 - by Eleftheria Paizanou
The new regulations submitted by the executive for the change of working hours in the Public Service will be submitted today for approval in the Plenary of the Parliament, so that the issue can be closed after a long pending.
The flexible working hours throughout the Public Service, if the regulations are approved today, will start half an hour earlier, i.e. at 7 am, while employees will be able to leave earlier.
In particular, employees of the Public Service will be able to go to work from Monday to Friday from 7 to 8.30 am and will leave their work from 2.30 to 4 pm.
The new opening hours of the state machinery are expected to help tackle traffic congestion. A large number of civil servants residing outside Nicosia will be able to arrive and leave work earlier, using public transport. In addition, the measure may also contribute to the reduction of traffic observed during the start and end hours of work of civil servants on roads in Nicosia, as this is estimated to be shared.
A study conducted by the Ministry of Transport has shown that an extension of the hours of attendance at the public service is expected to contribute to the reduction of traffic by 4% to 6%. It is worth noting that initially the Ministry of Transport had proposed an extension of the hours from 7am to 9am, to further reduce congestion, but the Ministry of Finance insisted on the hours of 7am until 8.30am.
15% before 7:30 a.m.
In the context of the discussion of the regulations in Parliament, a representative of the Department of Public Administration and Personnel had stated that for the time being no further extension of flexible working hours in the Public Service is preferred, as it is considered that the useful time between supervisors and employees will be reduced and the operating costs of offices will increase. Finally, according to a study on the time of arrival and departure of employees of the Ministry of Finance, it has been shown that the percentage of employees who arrive at work before 7.30 a.m. amounts to 15%.
Special Status for Parliament
The determination of the working hours of employees in the Cypriot Parliament will be in the hands of the President of the Parliament. as the relevant regulations have included a provision by which the competent authority, by its decision, will be able to vary in special, exceptional or unforeseen cases the working hours, for a specified period of time, without affecting the total working time of the employees of the Parliament.
That is, the respective President of the Parliament, when it deems it necessary, will have the power to determine the time of arrival and departure of the employees of the House, on the basis of the already foreseen number of working hours for the House and in proportion to the existing arrangement for morning and afternoon work, as well as the manner and time of checking the obligation of employees to cover the required total number of working hours.
The new provision has been incorporated by the members of the House Standing Committee on Finance into the regulations, at the request of the Director General of the Parliament, Tasoula Ieronymidou, due to the autonomy and peculiarities of the Parliament's work, since employees also work on Thursday afternoons.
