26. Supports the recommendations of the conference of Presidents and the Bureau to ensure the consistent implementation of Parliament's internal rules on the reimbursement of parliamentary assistance expenses and to charge the Bureau working party on the Members' Statute, the Assistants' Statute and the Pension Fund with assessing in detail and as a matter of urgency the operation of the existing rules and, given the importance of the matter, to put forward proposals for amendments to those rules; calls on the working group set up wi ...[+++]thin the Bureau to put forward, together with the competent Commission services, proposals relating to a statute for Members' assistants to be forwarded as a matter of urgency to the Council for adoption under the French presidency so that it can become applicable on the same day as the new Members' Statute; believes that this proposed statute would ensure equal treatment of Members' assistants that is also transparent, and help ensure that tax and social obligations, such as salaries and social security rights, are fulfilled; welcomes the decision of the Bureau of 10 March 2008 on Members' parliamentary assistance, as a first step towards complying with the request expressed in its resolution of 25 October 2007 on the draft general budget for 2008 ; calls on the Bureau and its Secretary General to report on the progress on the matter in due time before the first reading;

The need to control the implementation of prevention plans based on risk assessments, which include not only technological risks (like those due to work equipment), but also others which are due to work relations or work organisation, have caused that specialist inspections started to care more about control of risks of work organisation whereas the generalistic inspections have intensified their surveillance on the technological risks.

The changing way in which work is organised, and especially more flexible ways of organising working time and managing human resources on a more individual level, based more on an obligation to achieve a fixed result, are having a profound effect on problems associated with health at work or, more generally, on well-being at work.

The overall attractiveness of a job covers a number of dimensions: satisfaction with pay and working conditions; health and safety at the workplace (public authorities and employers need to assess and control the risk factors relating to an increasingly ageing work force); balance between flexibility and security in contractual relationships (high rates of voluntary part-time work are associated with higher participation rates among women and older workers; conversely, involuntary part-time work and fixed-term contracts are associated with higher exit rates into either unemployment (15%) or inactivity (10%).); productivity improvements; flexible work organisation and worki ...[+++]ng time arrangements that improve access and choice especially of women and older workers.

The use of contractor-owned IT equipment and software in organisations in support of official Commission work may be permitted by the Head of the Commission Security Office.

The French initiative has also led to some positive results in work organisation showing that the issues of working time, work organisation and lifelong learning are closely linked.