The consultation raises the following assumptions regarding the post-sessional period:

1) When the position that has been held in committee of services is obtained by competitive examination.

(2) When another post is obtained by competitive examination, which has also been dealt with definitively.

3) For the Services Commission.

4) When you access a new Body or Scale but do not change jobs.

First.- Postponement period when the position that had been held in committee of services is obtained by competitive examination.

With regard to the time limit for taking up a job obtained by competitive examination, Article 48.1 of the General Regulations for the Admission of Personnel to the Service of the General Administration of the State and for the Provision of Jobs and Professional Promotion of Officials of the General Administration of the State, approved by Royal Decree 364/1995 of 10 March, states the following:

“The period for taking office will be three working days if it does not involve a change of residence of the official, or one month if it involves a change of residence or re-entry into active service.

The period for taking office shall begin on the day following the day of the termination, which shall take place within three working days following the publication of the resolution of the contest in the Official Gazette of the State. If the decision involves re-entry into active service, the period for taking office must be counted from that publication.”

The official who acquires by competitive examination the job he had previously held in committee of services does not change jobs, but there is a change in the form of occupation, which will change from provisional to final.

However, if at the time when the services committee was held it did not enjoy the postponement period, it is understood that the granting of the corresponding postponement period would be appropriate.

This interpretation, on the other hand, would correspond, Mutatis mutandiswith which the Higher Personnel Commission has carried out the permit referred to in the 5th Additional Provision of the General Entry Regulations, approved by Royal Decree 364/1995, on the understanding that said permit is applicable to personnel who, although not entering a new job, would not have had the corresponding period of paid leave.

Second.- On the other hand, those officials who occupy a post with a final character obtain another one by competition, it is understood that they will have the right to enjoy the postponement period, even if the post awarded by competition is of similar characteristics to the one they have been performing, or is in the same headquarters, since the regulatory norm when configuring the postponement period limits it only to the “residence” – granting a postponement period greater or less depending on whether there is a change of residence or not, without other requirements for its concession being included.

Third. The postponement period for the case of the commission of services is provided for in article 64.4 of the General Regulations for the Admission of Personnel to the Service of the General State Administration and for the Provision of Jobs and Professional Promotion of Civil Servants of the General State Administration, approved by Royal Decree 364/1995 of 10 March.

Article 64.4 of the aforementioned Regulation provides that: “If the Commission does not involve a change of residence of the official, the termination and the takeover must take place within three days from the notification of the Agreement of the Committee on Services; if it involves a change of residence, the deadline will be eight days for voluntary commissions and thirty days for compulsory commissions.”.

Therefore, the above-mentioned provision establishes a single time-limit for dismissal and takeover, so that the official must carry out both the dismissal and the takeover within that time-limit, so that the later the dismissal occurs, the less time it will take for the takeover.

However, it must be taken into account in this regard that the purpose of the post-sessional period is to carry out the necessary steps to carry out both the cessation and the taking of possession, as well as the incorporation into the workplace, and that both procedures must be carried out in successive days, both of which cannot overlap in the same day.

It is also necessary to point out that the deadlines established for the commission of services in Article 64.4 of the General Regulations of Entry and Provision refer to calendar days, not working days. In this sense, when the Regulation wants to establish deadlines in working days, it expressly points this out, as for example happens in Article 48 of the same Regulation.

Fourth.- When a new Corps or Scale is accessed but there is no change of job, the fifth additional provision of the General Regulations for the Admission of Personnel to the Service of the General Administration of the State and for the Provision of Jobs and Professional Promotion of Civil Servants of the General Administration of the State, approved by Royal Decree 364/1995 of 10 March, establishes the following:

“Career officials in active service or similar situation who enter a new Corps or Scale shall be entitled, from the moment they take office, to a paid leave of three working days if the destination does not involve a change of residence of the official and of one month if it involves him.”

Therefore, the above-mentioned additional provision resolves the problem faced by career officials who accessed a new Corps or Scale to move to the new destination, since, if they ceased in the previous Corps or Scale, necessarily going to the situation of leave in them, they ceased to receive their remuneration, without earning those corresponding to the new Corps or Scale until the date of taking possession of the new destination, a prerequisite for obtaining the status of career official of the latter. This problem was aggravated for those officials whose new destination led to a change of residence and transfer of furniture and furnishings.

For its part, the Higher Personnel Commission, in its Agreement of 13 July 1995, which was ratified on 5 October 2007, provided that:

“The purpose of this permit is that all the personnel who are serving in the Administration, and access a Body or Scale for internal promotion or free time, enjoy a paid period to join their new job, which does not happen in all cases.

Consequently, this permission will only apply to staff who have not benefited from a paid postponement period.”

It is therefore understood, in accordance with that interpretation, that such permission may also be enjoyed by those officials who, even if they had not taken up a new job, had not previously enjoyed the corresponding post-paid period.

All of the above is without prejudice to remember that, according to the regime of competences of this management center, the answers to queries issued by this general directorate are merely informative and, consequently, do not have the character of a binding criterion, nor do they give rise to rights or expectations of law, nor do they imply any link with the type of procedures to which they refer. In addition, since they are not mandatory or binding, the bodies to which such replies are addressed may, where appropriate, finally take a decision that does not correspond to the opinion contained therein.

The answers to queries contained in this bulletin deal with the issues raised in the light of the regulations in force at the time of their issuance, so that these answers may be affected by subsequent legislative changes or judicial resolutions.