Court rules Torrevieja must pay staff member correct career allowance after promotion

A ruling by the Elche Court of Instance has backed a Torrevieja Town Council civil servant who claimed the career advancement allowance corresponding to her new employment category. The judge considers that the council cannot ignore years of experience built up in a lower category when an employee manages to gain a promotion, recognising the worker’s right to receive the supplement for her new post, in this case with back payments from 1st June 2025.

The case involves a municipal employee who had built up 22 years and four months of experience in subgroup C2 before being promoted to C1 with effect from 1st May 2025. When applying the new municipal career scheme, the council recognised grade IV for her, which she already held in her “horizontal progression”, reflecting her work history. However, the authority calculated her grade IV remuneration based on group C2, despite her already occupying a C1 post.

The judgment notes that a public servant with many years of service for the council who secures a higher category post does not have to start from scratch when having professional experience recognised simply because of a promotion. The resolution is not yet final, and the council may lodge an appeal.

The worker requested to maintain grade IV but with the financial amount corresponding to her new category. The Personnel department rejected her request, considering that years worked in C2 could not be transferred to C1 to calculate the career supplement.

The civil servant then took legal action. In a ruling dated 6th October, magistrate Ricardo Barrio Martin rejected the council’s interpretation and ruled that both the employee’s accumulated years of experience and the category held when the career regulations came into effect must be considered. The judge found that limiting the valuation strictly to the months worked in C1 would ignore the worker’s entire previous professional record. Conversely, maintaining the C2 financial supplement would overlook the promotion already achieved.

The judgement highlights that the council’s own regulations provide for maintaining the career advancement grade when changing groups. Consequently, it determined that the employee must retain the grade IV attained through prior experience and receive the amount corresponding to C1.

The decision addresses a matter that could carry significance for other Torrevieja Town Council workers who have been promoted. Accumulated years of service prior to a promotion cannot be ignored when calculating the career advancement supplement under the circumstances examined by the judge. At least five other civil servants have submitted identical court claims.

This may prove relevant to other municipal employees in similar circumstances, particularly those who changed categories before the implementation of the career advancement framework and whose allowance was calculated using their previous group.

The decision represents a partial allowance of the claim. The judge set the commencement of the financial entitlement for 1st June 2025, one month after the worker received her promotion. The employee had requested back pay dating from January 2025, but the magistrate restricted the entitlement to June of that year. Aside from the outstanding amounts, the council must pay legal interest.

Horizontal career progression at the council was formally approved in December 2025, with retroactive financial effect to 1st January 2025. This was mandated following a ruling from the High Court of Justice of the Valencian Community prompted by trade unions.

Through this scheme, many staff members among Torrevieja’s nearly 800 council employees have advanced their careers, bringing increased earnings via internal promotion without traditional exams. Progression relies on performance evaluations and required scores for each level, distinguishing between horizontal progression and promotion to a higher category.

In Torrevieja, the second transitional provision established that existing municipal workers would begin at the grade matching their professional experience. Horizontal career progression is applied unevenly across Spanish town councils, with some using it for years, others adopting it recently, and several local authorities still lacking an active framework.