Background to the complaint

1. The complainant applied to participate in a selection procedure organised by the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO) for the recruitment of EU civil servants as assistants in the field of finance and human resources [1]. The complainant applied for the field “human resources”.

2. To be eligible to participate in the selection procedure, candidates had to have a level of education corresponding to completed post-secondary education attested to by a diploma in certain particular fields, followed by at least 3 years relevant professional experience directly linked to the duties to be carried out[2].

3. EPSO excluded the complainant from the selection procedure as it considered that he did not have at least three years of professional experience directly linked to the duties to be carried out.

4. The complainant asked EPSO to revise its decision and he also made an administrative complaint to EPSO[3]. EPSO maintained that there had been no mistake in the scoring process. The complainant then turned to the Ombudsman in May 2018.

The inquiry

5. The Ombudsman opened an inquiry into the complainant’s position that EPSO had not correctly assessed his professional experience.

6. In the course of the inquiry, the Ombudsman´s inquiry team met with EPSO to seek clarifications on the issue complained about and to inspect EPSO’s file on the evaluation of the complainant’s application.

Arguments presented to the Ombudsman

7. The complainant argues that he has more than three years of relevant experience from the European Commission’s Directorate General for Human Resources. In his view, the Selection Board did not explain the calculation criteria that had lead it to conclude that he did not have three years of relevant experience. The complainant enclosed with his administrative complaint to EPSO a certificate that he had performed HR tasks, signed by his line manager at the European Commission.

8. EPSO noted that about half of the tasks that the complainant had carried out in the Commission were not directly linked to HR duties, but were rather linked to finance, IT and statistics.  

9. EPSO pointed out that a selection board enjoys a wide margin of discretion in determining whether the qualifications and professional experience of a candidate correspond to the level required by the Staff Regulations for EU civil servants and the notice of competition for the selection procedure in question, which gives the full details of the profile sought[4]. The selection board does this assessment on the basis of the part of the notice of competition that describes the nature of the duties together with the part concerning the admission requirements[5].

10. EPSO explained that, before assessing the candidates’ applications, the selection boards establish criteria for how they will assess the eligibility of candidates. These criteria set out what type of academic and professional experience is considered relevant for the specific selection procedure, on the basis of the notice of competition. When assessing the eligibility of candidates, only the information provided in the application form can be taken into account.

11. The selection board must also establish a way to calculate the length of the relevant professional experience in the event that not all the duties are considered relevant. For this selection procedure, the Selection Board decided that if the majority of the duties performed by a candidate were considered relevant, 100% of his/her experience would be counted. If some duties were relevant, but some were not, 50% of the time declared by the candidate would be counted. This was rigorously and equally applied to all candidates. In the complainant’s case, the Selection Board considered 50% of the complainant’s experience to be relevant. The Selection Board could not take into account the certificate that the complainant provided together with his administrative complaint to EPSO, as the Selection Board could only take into account the information provided in the application form[6]. Moreover, a candidate’s personal conviction as to how their own merits should have been evaluated cannot replace the selection board’s assessment and does not constitute irrefutable evidence of a manifest error committed by the selection board[7].

12. In response to the above explanations provided by EPSO in the context of the Ombudsman’s inquiry, the complainant argued that some of the tasks that the Selection Board did not consider relevant were indeed directly linked to the duties described in the notice of competition.

The Ombudsman's assessment

13. EPSO has correctly noted that the selection board enjoys a wide margin of discretion when assessing a candidate’s qualifications and professional experience for the purposes of determining whether the candidate fulfils the eligibility criteria for a particular selection procedure. The Ombudsman may thus question the assessment made by the selection board only in case of a manifest error.

14. The documents inspected by the Ombudsman in this case show that the Selection Board examined all information provided by the complainant in his application and that it assessed it against the eligibility criteria. In the course of the Ombudsman’s inquiry, EPSO has also explained how the Selection Board assessed experience that it considered only partly relevant to the duties set out in the notice of competition. The inspected documents show that the Selection Board applied this pre-established calculation method to the complainant’s application. The Ombudsman has found nothing to suggest that the Selection Board made a manifest error of assessment when examining the complainant’s professional experience, thereby finding that some of the complainant’s tasks working for the Commission were not relevant to the duties set out in the notice of competition.

15. On the basis of the above, the Ombudsman finds no maladministration by EPSO in this case.

Conclusion

Based on the inquiry, the Ombudsman closes this case with the following conclusion:

There was no maladministration by EPSO in considering that the complainant did not fulfil the eligibility criteria.

The complainant and EPSO will be informed of this decision.

 

Emily O'Reilly

European Ombudsman

Strasbourg, 13/12/2018

 

 

[1] Competition EPSO/AST/139/16 - 2, ASSISTANTS (AST 3) HUMAN RESOURCES, Notice of Competition available at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:C2016/467A/01&from=EN

[2] See notice of competition, page 2.

[3] On the basis of point 3.4.4.1 of the General Rules Governing Open Competitions (Annex III to the Notice of Competition) and Article 90(2) of Regulation 31 (EEC), 11 (EAEC) laying down the Staff Regulations of Officials and the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community, OJ 1962 L 45, page 1385.

[4] Judgment of the Court of First Instance of 11 February 1999 in Chantal Mertens v. CommissionT-244/97, ECLI:EU:T:1999:27, paragraph 44.

[5] Judgment of the Court of First Instance of 14 July 2000 in Texeira Neves v. Court of Justice, T-146/99, ECLI:EU:T:2000:194, paragraphs 34 - 36.

[6] Order of the Court of First Instance of 3 April 2001 in Zaur Gora v. Commission, T-95/00, ECLI:EU:T:2001:114

[7] Judgement of the Court of First Instance of 15 July 1993 in Camara Alloisio v. Commission, T-17/90, ECLI:EU:T:1993:69, paragraph 90.