LONDON, Oct 6 (APM) - The European Medicines Agency is taking steps to plug a potential staffing crisis because of its forced relocation from London with a near 32 million pounds tender for temporary workers.
Based in London since 1995, the EMA has around 890 staff. Although it routinely employs temporary workers, the scale of the tender is reported to be unusually large. It comes at a time of huge uncertainty for staff, many of whom are expected to quit the agency rather than leave London.
The EMA said it has published the tender documents, worth almost 32 million pounds, because its existing framework contract for recruiting interim staff would shortly expire.
It routinely recruited interim staff in this way “to make up for short-term spikes in workload in certain areas or to replace staff on long-term leave,” it said.
However, it acknowledged that looking ahead, the EMA “will also be using the framework contract to make up short-term for some staff losses expected to occur in the course of its relocation”.
The EMA's executive Director Guido Rasi told Thomson Reuters in an interview this week that crucial work, from approving new drugs to running safety checks, would be put at risk if politicians picked an unsuitable new location. (APMMA 54993)
Preparing for the fallout of the move and the impact of Britain leaving the European Union is already creating extra work for the EMA and forcing it to cut back on some non-critical activities.
The tender documents call for bilingual and multilingual staff with administrative, scientific, regulatory and legal expertise to work in the EMA's current London office.
The agency must be based in an EU country and political leaders are set to decide in a vote on November 20 on a new location among 19 cities vying to host the organisation.
A staff survey last week found that between 19 and 94% of employees were likely to leave after the move, depending on which location was chosen. Picking Amsterdam, Barcelona, Vienna, Milan or Copenhagen as the new headquarters would be the best option for retaining staff, the survey found. (APMMA 54957)
Signs that key staff are heading for the exit have been visible for some time. In an interview at the start of the year, Guido Rasi, head of the EMA, said that seven senior executives had quit the agency since the referendum, more than in the past decade put together. (APMMA 51197)
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