An initial meeting of interested parties was set up to take place within the TMF workgroup meeting in Athens on April 27th and 28th, with representatives from Banque Nationale de Belgique, Banco de España and Bank of Greece, to assess whether the idea could be of substantial usefulness, and if so to (1) define the new subgroup’s mandate, to (2) suggest and plan the first steps to achieving the group’s objectives and to (3) provide an initial list of possible issues of interest.
The objectives set for the group were as follows:
- Identify issues (problems and challenges):
- Common to most IT Departments of Central Banks around Europe 2. Particular to the IT Departments of one or two Central Banks, where SCECBU could provide assistance
- Related to projects of the ESCB
- Communicate the issues identified to all the unions which are members of SCECBU or affiliated
- Investigate and suggest possible solutions and the respective strategies towards these solutions
- Exchange of information between IT colleagues in Central Banks about working conditions
- Organize and support a forum to act as a technical knowledge base for IT colleagues of Central Banks in Europe
In March 2018 the group launched a major Survey regarding working conditions for the IT Staff in the ESCB. The Survey was presented in April 2018 in the ESCB Social Dialogue and its results in the SCECBU Executive Committee in Porto, in September 2018. The results of the Survey were further examined in the second workgroup meeting that took place in Madrid in October 2018. An abbreviated version of the results was presented in the ESCB Social Dialogue in November 2018, focusing on the problems detected. The ECB stated its interest in developing a joint working group with the unions for IT, an idea which has not materialized yet. The group is about to design and launch a new similar Survey in 2020, that will be presented in the SCECBU Executive Committee in 2021 and publish a detailed issue with the results of both survey’s, presenting the developments in IT working conditions in the ESCB as they evolve in time.
