Government Considers Remote Work for Public Sector as No Evaluations Conducted Since Pandemic

The Portuguese government is studying a proposal to introduce remote work for civil servants, the first formal evaluation of public sector performance since the pandemic began, as unions warn of declining morale and productivity amid stalled career progression and outdated assessment systems.

The Silent Stagnation: Why Portugal’s Civil Service Hasn’t Been Evaluated Since 2020

For over four years, Portugal’s 600,000-strong public workforce has operated without formal performance evaluations—a vacuum created when emergency pandemic measures suspended all assessment cycles in March 2020, and no government since has reinstated them. This administrative freeze, initially justified by health crises, has become institutionalized, leaving promotions, salary adjustments, and disciplinary actions frozen in time. The current study, led by the Ministry of Public Administration, explores telework not as a productivity tool but as a potential workaround to bypass the broken evaluation system entirely—offering flexibility without accountability.

This isn’t merely about working from home. It’s about a systemic failure to measure outcomes in a sector that manages €45 billion annually in public spending, oversees national healthcare, education, and justice systems, and employs nearly 12% of the country’s workforce. Without evaluations, there is no data to identify underperforming departments, no mechanism to reward innovation, and no basis for targeted training—creating a silent crisis of institutional drift.

Geo-Local Impact: How Lisbon and Porto Are Feeling the Strain

In Lisbon, where 35% of civil servants are concentrated in central ministries, the lack of evaluations has exacerbated bottlenecks in licensing, and permitting. Municipal offices report average processing times for construction permits have increased by 22% since 2021, according to Lisbon City Council data, delaying housing projects and small business openings. In Porto, the regional health administration’s inability to assess staff performance has correlated with a 15% rise in patient wait times for specialist appointments over the same period, per ARS Norte reports.

These delays aren’t abstract—they translate to real-world consequences: entrepreneurs waiting months to open cafes in Baixa, families delaying home renovations due to stalled building permits, and patients enduring prolonged pain given that specialist referrals sit unprocessed. The absence of performance metrics means managers cannot identify whether delays stem from workload, inefficiency, or disengagement—only that the system is slowing.

“We’re not refusing to work—we’re working blind. Without evaluations, we have no way to know if our efforts are valued, if we’re improving, or if we’re falling behind. Telework might offer flexibility, but it won’t fix the silence at the heart of our civil service.”

— Isabel Ferreira, President of Sindicato dos Trabalhadores da Administração Pública (STAP), Lisbon, speaking at a public forum on April 10, 2026.

The Macro-Economic Cost of Institutional Inertia

Portugal’s public sector productivity growth has averaged just 0.3% annually since 2020—less than half the OECD average of 0.8%—according to OECD data. Economists at Banco de Portugal estimate that restoring effective performance management could boost public sector output by up to 4%, equivalent to adding €1.8 billion annually to national GDP through faster service delivery, reduced administrative waste, and better resource allocation.

Conversely, maintaining the status quo risks entrenching a two-tier system: those who can navigate bureaucratic opacity to advance through seniority or connections, and those who leave for the private sector—where 40% of young civil servants under 35 now report considering a career shift, per a 2025 survey by Ordem dos Psicólogos Portugueses. This brain drain threatens long-term institutional capacity, especially in technical roles like data analysis, urban planning, and environmental regulation.

Directory Bridge: Who Can Help Fix This?

Restoring trust and effectiveness in Portugal’s civil service requires more than policy tweaks—it demands expert intervention. Municipalities struggling with permitting delays need urban planning consultants to redesign workflows and integrate digital tracking tools. Health administrations facing rising wait times should consult hospital operations specialists to implement performance-based staffing models. And unions and government negotiators alike will benefit from labor law attorneys specializing in public sector reform to draft evaluation frameworks that balance accountability with fairness—ensuring remote work becomes a tool for empowerment, not an escape from accountability.

The real danger isn’t that civil servants might work from home. It’s that Portugal has forgotten how to ask whether its public servants are succeeding—and in that silence, the quality of governance erodes, one unmeasured task at a time.