The complaint

1. The complainant took part in a selection procedure for recruiting EU civil servants, which was organised by the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO)[1]. The selection procedure was organised to recruit administrators in the fields of energy, climate and environment. The complainant chose field 3 (environment).

2. EPSO informed the complainant that he was not admitted to the final stage of the selection procedure (the assessment centre), as he had not obtained the sufficient score in the ‘talent screener’ stage. In the talent screener, candidates have to answer questions about their professional experience and qualifications. The questions are based on the selection criteria[2] for the selection procedure. The ‘selection board’[3] then assesses and scores the candidates’ answers. On the basis of the complainant’s answers in the talent screener, the selection board gave the complainant a score below the threshold required to be admitted to the next stage of the selection procedure.

3. The complainant believed that he should have received a higher score in the talent screener, and asked EPSO to review its decision. He referred to his professional experience of more than 10 years in relevant fields and criticised the general structure of the talent screener, which in his view was against point 3.3.3 (i) of the notice of the competition[4]. This point merely referred to professional experience of a minimum of three or four years and did not state that this had to be collected in different fields.

4. Following the review, EPSO informed the complainant that the selection board had decided to increase his score. However, this was still not sufficient for the complainant to reach the necessary threshold to proceed to the next stage of the selection procedure.

5. Dissatisfied with the outcome of the review, the complainant turned to the Ombudsman.

The inquiry

6. The Ombudsman opened an inquiry into how EPSO assessed the complainant’s professional experience at the talent screener stage of the selection procedure.

7. In the course of the inquiry, the Ombudsman inquiry team inspected EPSO's file relevant to this case. The inspection report is annexed to this decision.

The Ombudsman's assessment

8. In assessing candidates, selection boards are bound by the selection criteria for the selection procedure in question. At the same time, according to EU case-law, selection boards have a wide margin of discretion when assessing a candidate’s qualifications and professional experience against those criteria.[5] The Ombudsman’s role is thus limited to determining if there was a manifest error by the selection board.[6]

9. The talent screener aims to select those eligible candidates whose profiles best match the duties to be performed. In order to make that choice, the selection board first determines evaluation criteria and a scoring grid for each talent screener question.

10. The documents inspected by the Ombudsman (see the inspection report annexed to this decision) do not indicate that there was any manifest error in how the selection board assessed the complainant’s answers in the talent screener.

11. Regarding the complainant’s argument that there was inconsistency between point 3.3.3 (i) in the notice of competition[7]  and the talent screener, the Ombudsman notes that point 3.3.3 (i) merely contains the eligibility rules for candidates. The rules on the talent screener were laid down in a different section of the notice (point 4.3.3), which in turn referred to an annex to the notice (Annex IV), which set out the selection criteria for the comparative assessment of the merits of all the eligible candidates at the talent screener stage. The inspection confirmed that the questions asked in the talent screener were in line with the selection criteria set out in Annex IV of the notice.

12. On the basis of the above, the Ombudsman finds no maladministration in how the selection board assessed the complainant’s professional experience at the talent screener stage of the selection procedure.

Conclusion

Based on the inquiry, the Ombudsman closes this case with the following conclusion[8]:

There was no maladministration in how the European Personnel Selection Office assessed the complainant’s professional experience at the talent screener stage of the selection procedure.

The complainant and EPSO will be informed of this decision.

Tina Nilsson
Head of the Case-handling Unit

Strasbourg, 11/12/2024

 

[1] EPSO/AD/401/22 – Administrators (AD 6) in the fields of energy, climate and environment: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:C:2022:404A:FULL.

[2] The selection criteria are defined in the ‘notice of competition’, which sets out the criteria and rules applying to the selection procedure.

[3] Each selection procedure has a selection board, which is responsible for selecting candidates at each stage, based on pre-determined criteria, and drawing up the final list of successful candidates.

[4] Point 3.3.3 (i) stated that to be eligible for field 3, candidates had to have either ”a level of education which corresponds to completed university studies of at least four years, attested by a diploma in a relevant field followed by a minimum of three years of professional experience directly related to the nature of duties in field 3, indicated in Annex I to this notice, or a level of education corresponding to completed university studies of at least three years, attested by a diploma in a relevant field, followed by a minimum of four years of professional experience directly related to the nature of duties in field 3, indicated in Annex I to this notice.”
The diploma was to be considered relevant if it had been obtained in one or more of the following fields: Environmental sciences; Life sciences (biology, botany, ecology, zoology, etc.); Earth sciences (hydrology, oceanography, geology, etc.); Chemical sciences; Environmental engineering; Law; Economics.

[5]Judgment of the General Court of 11 February 1999, Case T-244/97, Mertens v Commission, paragraph 44: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A61997TJ0244; judgment of the General Court of 11 May 2005, Case T-25/03, De Stefano v Commission, paragraph 34: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=CELEX:62003TJ0025.

[6] See Decision of the European Ombudsman closing the inquiry into complaint 14/2010/ANA against the

European Personnel Selection Office, paragraph 14 (decision available here:

https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/cases/decision.faces/en/10427/html.bookmark#_ftnref5); and judgment of the Court of First Instance of 31 May 2005, Case T-294/03, Gibault v Commission, paragraph 41: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:62003TJ0294.

[7] See footnote 1 above.

[8] This complaint has been dealt with under delegated case handling, in accordance with the Decision of the European Ombudsman adopting Implementing Provisions.