Social action advisor is also “A shadow job, with little visibility, while requiring a good technical mastery and a lot of investment time. Tokens at 130 euros, it is not expensive paid,” continues a socialist.
So how do we come to such amounts in Saint-Josse for a counselor especially when we see that other tennood elected officials gravitate between 12,000 and 20,000 euros gross annual? Already, Saint-Josse has set the amount of his presence tokens at the highest level legally authorized: 200 euros per meeting. The law authorizes a minimum of 75 euros and a maximum of 200. The amount is validated by the municipal council.
As many meetings as in Brussels but a town 7 times smaller
Another peculiarity: the advisor in question made 207 meetings over the year against less than a hundred for many others: “There are the advice of social action once a month and the CSSS approximately once a week or more for the big CPAS. There are also different special committees: a dedicated to professional integration, a dedicated to young people, for example. There are office meetings (kind of executive of the CPAS) and If there is a rest house (as is the case in Saint-Josse)there is also a committee for that … in short if an elected headquarters everywhere, it can technically reach 200 annual meetings. ” This is, moreover, the case in other municipalities such as Brussels Ville where advisers often reach 200 meetings. In Schaerbeek, the 2nd largest municipality in Brussels, an advisor reached the 211 meetings, the others revolving around 150.
“The fact remains that Brussels and Schaerbeek are among the biggest CPAS, not like Saint-Josse. It is therefore strange that some advisers reach the same number of meetings in these three completely different communes.” Saint-Josse has 7 times fewer inhabitants than the city and each year, 26,000 people are helped by the city’s CPAS, the equivalent of the population of Saint-Josse in 2024.
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There is also the question of the quality of preparation of these meetings. “”It’s been 3 or 4 meetings per week well. This does not represent full time in terms of work, but it’s complicated to keep a job next to it. We therefore arrive in cases where the adviser’s remuneration becomes almost a salary. And there, it can pose an ethical problem. We should not live with presence tokens. It is not the philosophy of the mechanism. We must take a mandate for the sake of collective interest, not to provide for our own needs. “
Advice
Moreover, after the samusocial scandal which concerned in particular amounts of 60,000 euros annually in attendance tokens, the law has evolved. For local public organizations (inter -municipal, municipal non -profit organizations, autonomous municipal agencies, etc.), tokens are limited to 120 euros with a maximum of 20 meetings over the year, ie 2,400 euros. For presidents and vice-presidents it can reach 300 euros per token for 40 annual meetings (or 12,000 euros). But this limit of the maximum number of meetings is not valid for the CPAS where no maximum is planned: “It would be necessary to ventilate the places a little more in all these committees to prevent some advisers with concentrating all the functions. “ And precisely to follow all these meetings where the administration must also be present and which must therefore be held during office hours, “We end up with an over -representation of the elderly among elected officials. Pensioners, who have time to follow all of this. Obviously, in terms of representatives, this can question. “
Among the tracks mentioned by our interlocutors to improve the situation: “A potential harmonization of the amounts of the presence tokens for the CPAS at the regional level. It is not normal that for the same work remuneration vary from single to double depending on the municipalities. Even if we know in Saint-Josse, in particular thanks to the taxes on offices, money flows from the walls.” Another idea, developed in particular in the city: the abolition or the merger of several special committees which avoids distributing tokens to all-VA and simplifies the work of the administration. In return, many points are returned to the Council of Social Action, the agenda of which is lengthened.
More broadly, as after the scandal at the CPAS of Anderlecht, but also that revealed by the last hour in Saint-Josse, some call at the end of the politicization of certain committees. “”If we want the harmonization of practices at the regional level, we must depoliticize certain committees such as that of allocating aid. We see it in the Brussels region for example, on the interpretation of the situation of cohabitant (which can cause losing social assistance amounts)from one CPAS to another, there are very different policies which leads to a real inequality of treatment of citizens. “
