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REJILLA PARA ARGUMENTOS POR ANALOGÍA
70.
Based on the need for consultants and funds available, Departments and their Divisions identify suitable individuals and propose their names to Division of Human Resources (MTHR) for appointment. MTHR verifies the terms and conditions offered for Agency-wide consistency and compliance with the provisions of Administrative Manual. Further, in order to limit the use of consultants, Agency adopted the following strategy in October 2012:The term of consultants is limited to 2 years, followed by a 1-year break; The selection of Consultants should follow a contestable process.
71.
The Administrative Manual provides that consultants may be engaged to (i) provide advice in a field where the required expertise or training is not available within the Secretariat or (ii) provide specific services for a limited period of time or on project basis or (iii) support other programmatic needs.72.
We observed that:Consultants had been engaged for the work the Agency was expected to be specialised in. These were the core areas of Agency’s functioning.
The Agency did not have sufficient strategy or plan for developing its own expertise and knowledge in those areas where it regularly needed consultants. It did not have any succession plan for those consultants who would be completing a long tenure or who exceed the upper age limit.
Out of a sample of 2462 consultants, 118 were engaged for more than 1000 days, 463 between 366 and 999 days and remaining up to 365 days.
In many cases, the former staff/retirees from the Agency have been engaged as consultants. This indicated that the knowledge and expertise which was existing in the Agency had not been passed on to the successors and the same staff was being re-hired in the form of consultants.
The Administrative Manual stipulates that consultants shall not be hired for any period beyond their 70th birthday. Though there is a provision for exceptions to be authorized by the Director General, it was observed that in more than 30 cases out of 814 consultants engaged during 2012 and 2013 (up to July 2013), the age of the consultant on the day of contract start date was more than 70. In some other cases, consultants would turn 70 during the contract period. Many of them were former staff of the Agency.
73.
As consultants are engaged for providing advice in a field where the required expertise or training is not available within the Secretariat, due consideration has to given to transferring knowledge and expertise within the Agency with the aim of closing any existing gap of skills. However, extensions given to the consultants as well as their successive contracts in the same area over a long period indicate that the Agency was dependent on their knowledge, skills and expertise, and had not been able to transfer or develop such expertise in-house. Moreover, in the contracts reviewed, there was no mention of knowledge transfer in the nature of services/deliverables expected from the consultants.Recommendation 11
a) Consultants may be engaged only in those areas where Agency has no or limited expertise and knowledge; or to supplement staff resources for specific projects.
b) A provision for knowledge transfer may be added so that the Agency is not dependant on particular consultants repetitively or for a longer duration. The need for appropriate succession management and knowledge transfer to the regular staff of the Agency should also be assessed and suitable measures taken.
c) Engaging former staff and retirees as consultants may be reviewed with the goal of ensuring that thorough succession planning is put in place so that the departure of a regular staff member does not leave a skill gap in the Agency. The Management may ensure that staff who are approaching retirement complete their assignments before retiring, to reduce the need for consultants.
d) Upper age limit of consultants should be strictly adhered to except in rare cases with the approval of Director General.
74.
The Management noted the audit recommendations and assured that a provision would be included in the next revision of the Agency’s consultants’ policy to ensure that knowledge transfer requirements are considered according to the assignment.75.
The Management further confirmed that the Administrative Manual was amended in January 2014, and it now provides that:1. Consultants are engaged in their individual capacity to supplement the staffing of the Secretariat for a limited period of time, normally providing expertise, skills or knowledge for the performance of a specific task or piece of work of a professional nature which is a one-off activity. Consultants engaged under this Section are, therefore, not institutions or corporate bodies.
2. Consultants shall normally not be under a day-to-day supervisory control and may only be engaged to:
(a) Perform specific well-defined tasks resulting in a pre-defined output that can be considered as a specific end product such as a research study, a report, a translation, or a scientific document; or
(b) Perform specific well-defined tasks of an advisory nature.