I propose that some regulation should make the use of time and attendance recorders compulsory for all public sector employees, not just those in the narrower administration of the state.
As far as I know, electronic time registers are still not used in many places to register working time, and in some places they have even devised a system of registration such that it applies only to junior staff, but not to the various officials and other privileged beneficiaries of this system. In many cases, these privileged people regard the registration of working time as something humiliating, which does not befit their status. However, all these employees are paid with our money, that is, taxpayers' money, and we do not pay them to pose, but to do their work for the general benefit and the public good.
Why should we not have electronic time registration for all employees in hospitals, prosecutors' offices, courts and schools as well? Are these employees really any different from the worker behind the desk at the administrative unit, who is not even allowed to go to the toilet without permission from her superiors? Will judges judge any less independently if we, the taxpayers, know what their actual attendance at work is?
As it is, there are various stories circulating in the public domain about how some privileged civil servants abuse such a system without supervision and go out during working hours to go to the gym, to go shopping or, incidentally, to have an operation in a private clinic, even though at that moment they are in fact fictitiously present in a public institution at the expense of the taxpayers.
Of course, the fact is that time registers alone do not mean that employees are really working at that time, or that they are working professionally and efficiently. However, it is better than nothing, and at least it prevents employees from going to the gym during working hours, which is what leisure time is for in developed societies.
I must point out, however, that I do not own, nor do I have a stake in, companies that deal with time management systems, so my interest here is purely in an efficient public sector for our common benefit. For my sake, these projects can also be put out to tender at EU level and foreign companies can apply for them.