Changes of expenditure patterns is inevitable whether there is pandemic or not. In fact, we noted expenditure patterns changes between the 2010 and 2016 round of surveys. The purpose of the survey is to capture cost of living at the duty station as determined by price and expenditure patterns changes. Since prices have also changed during the pandemic, a survey would help align expenditure pattern changes with price changes. Also, other reputable international and national organizations are conducting expenditure surveys during the pandemic. ICSC suspended surveys in April 2020 but re-started the survey program in November 2020.

Staff who have been telecommuting outside the country of station are still eligible to participate in the questionnaire as long as they maintained residence in the duty station. The maintenance of a residence at the duty station is critical in responding to the questionnaire as some of its parts require housing related expenditures at the duty station. Therefore, staff who are telecommuting from outside of the country of duty station and have not maintained a dwelling at the duty station will not be able to complete the questionnaire, as some of the housing related fields are mandatory and without expenditures on those fields, respondents will not be able to proceed to other parts. Similarly, the household section of the questionnaire requires reporting of monthly and annual expenditures in local currency, in at least one field, without which respondent will not be able to proceed. If you did not incur any monthly or annual in-area expenditures in local currency, kindly input $1 in the in-area local currency column, of one expenditure category, in order to proceed with the questionnaire.

Staff members in the following categories are eligible to participate in the survey:

• P-1 through D-2
• FS-6 and FS-7

Yes. The survey provides the benchmark data used for the calculation of Post Adjustment, which is a significant component of salary, currently ranging from approximately 5% to over 100% of net base salary, depending on the duty station. Thus, the results of the survey could significantly affect salaries at a duty station.

The fact that Post adjustment, which is a significant component of your salary, is based primarily on information obtained directly from the survey should provide enough incentive for you to participate.
The survey provides an opportunity to determine salary levels that accurately reflect the current cost of living and expenditure patterns at your duty station.
If you believe that the cost of living and/or expenditure patterns of staff have changed at your duty station, or the post adjustment does not adequately reflect the cost of living there, then it is incumbent upon you to participate and register those changes.
The accuracy and relevance of the survey depends, to a large extent, on the level and quality of staff participation in the survey.

Generally, all things being equal, the higher the response rate, the more accurate the measurement of the cost of living at the duty station will be.
If minimum response rates are not achieved, then the data collected will not be useful in deriving indices and specific expenditure weights at the duty station, possibly leading to inaccurate post adjustments. Therefore, if the minimum response rates are not achieved, then other approximation approaches including updating of prior data will be used.

The ICSC has taken several steps to lessen the burden of participation and make the survey experience as positive as possible for respondents. First, the move from a paper questionnaire to an online, web-based version, provides the following advantages:

1. Respondents can benefit from many ‘ease-of use’ and ‘user-friendly’ features;
2. The questionnaire itself has been streamlined by eliminating duplication and reducing the number of questions overall;
3. It is mostly menu-driven, and equipped with numerous validation checks and default values that eliminate guesswork, making it much easier to complete;
4. Respondents can log in any number of times during the survey month, stopping and continuing where they left off, thus eliminating the need to set aside significant blocks of time to complete the questionnaire.

In addition, the ICSC has redesigned its survey-dedicated microsite, anticipating and clarifying issues that may have been sources of confusion in the past. The microsite also provides numerous tools designed to facilitate the survey process for all stakeholders.

It is estimated that it will take no more than 30 minutes to complete the questionnaire provided that the respondent is somewhat familiar with his/her monthly expenses. In other words, it depends on whether or not you have available the necessary information on your expenditures.

The ICSC secretariat is bound by the rules of confidentiality in the dissemination of statistical information, as promulgated by the United Nations Statistical Commission, and holds all information provided in absolute confidence.

Never once in the history of the ICSC has there been a breach of confidentiality regarding information collected from staff members.

Every aspect of the planning and execution of this survey involves all key players, including the ICSC secretariat and survey coordinators working in collaboration with local survey committees. The rules and guidelines for the conduct of the survey are recommended by the Advisory Committee on Post Adjustment (ACPAQ) and approved by the Commission.

The retail price data are collected by an independent Pricing Agent in retail outlets at the duty stations identified by the local survey coordinator and by the ICSC secretariat staff for the headquarters duty stations and Washington D.C.
The Staff Expenditures survey is also coordinated by the survey coordinator or local survey committee with support from the ICSC secretariat in terms of the provision of tools and resources to facilitate the administration of the survey. The data provided in the staff expenditures survey come directly from staff members.

You can start by previewing the types of expenditures included in the survey and estimating and/or averaging what you spend per category, and by frequency of expenditures, as indicated (Monthly, Annual, etc.).

A new, easy to use Excel-based personal expense tracking tool can be found on this micro-site. This tool not only makes completing the survey easier, but also serves as a personal budgeting tool.

All categories of expenditures and questions have specific instructions, which are available within the questionnaire. It may be helpful to review those instructions for the categories that relate to you while completing the questionnaire.

The Staff Expenditures survey is administered online. Completing the user-friendly and menu-driven questionnaire online takes advantage of numerous built-in validation checks, which minimize the possibility of recording and other measurement errors. Furthermore, data entry errors are eliminated by the fact that once the staff member completes the questionnaire and submits it by clicking the ‘Submit’ icon at the end of the questionnaire, the information is automatically entered into a survey database maintained at the ICSC secretariat.

A PDF version is provided on this micro-site only as an additional tool that you can use to track your expenditures on certain items prior to the survey and as a back-up if technical problems arise and you are unable to complete the survey on-line.

Yes, it does.

The Staff Expenditures survey is designed to capture the most representative categories of expenditure for the consumption of staff and their households. In addition to housing, usually the most important category of expenditure, the questionnaire elicits information regarding expenditures on the consumption of food and beverages, clothing, various goods and services for the maintenance of the house, transport, communication, recreation and culture, education, health, restaurants and hotels and miscellaneous goods and services. The respondent can also record "Other expenditures" not categorized in specific boxes in the questionnaire. If sufficient information is provided for these expenditures, they will be allocated to the appropriate categories at the data processing stage. If sufficient information is not provided or the expenditures are deemed to be relatively minor, then they would not be considered in the determination of the expenditure weights. However, if any emerging or significant trends in the expenditures of the staff population, in general, are detected, then they will be flagged for incorporation into future revisions of the questionnaire.

You will receive an e-mail from the ICSC providing detailed instructions.

A link to the questionnaire and the micro-site will be provided in the email. You may choose to complete the questionnaire in English, French or Spanish.

Expenditures in categories with consistent amounts are easier to remember, for instance, rent, domestic service costs, utility bills, expenditures on durable items, etc. Expenditures in other categories, however, may be more erratic and difficult to recall, for example, monthly expenditures on groceries. For these items, estimates based on past trends are acceptable.

Generally, you should provide an exact amount of your expenditure; otherwise, provide an estimate which makes sense to you and is plausible for the item under consideration.

You may use receipts if you have them, but you are not required to keep receipts for the survey. To help track your expenditures for a few months prior to the survey, and also calculate reasonable estimates of monthly expenditures, you may download and use the PDF version of the survey questionnaire or use our new tracking and budgeting tool both of which are available on this micro-site.

Enter total expenditures for your entire household, not just yours.

All eligible staff (from P1 to D2; and FS6 and FS7) should participate in the survey regardless of their housing status (renter vs homeowner) by completing both expenditures and housing sections of the questionnaire. However, the housing section of the questionnaire has slightly different questions for renters and homeowners.

Housing expenditures for primary residence (whether inside or outside the country of duty station) should be entered in section 2.1 while expenditures for secondary residence whether inside or outside the country of duty station should be entered in section 2.2.
Housing related expenditures for dependents or other family members regularly living away from your current primary dwelling but within the country of duty station should be reported under "other expenditures" in section 4 (question 28).
Housing related expenditures for dependents or other family members regularly living away from your current primary dwelling, outside of the country of duty station should be reported under "remittances" in section 4 (question 27).

Investments with expected capital gains, even if the gains do not materialize, should not be included.

Yes, if the appliances are now being used at the duty station. Such expenditures should be recorded in the out-of-area column in the appliances section of the question.

Lease payments for cars should be entered under "Other services in respect of personal transport".

Such expenditures should be reported under remittances except for health and education which should be captured in their respective sections of the questionnaire.
Remittances include all money transferred abroad, regardless whether for consumption or non-consumption commitments. Typically, they will include money transfers for the support of dependents living outside the country of the duty station. Remittances may include money transferred abroad for saving and for staff own household’s deferred consumption. However, transfers for the upkeep of dwellings abroad (usually, but not necessarily, the home country), including mortgages, should be reported under secondary residence (section 2.2)

The out-of-area (OA) component is a unique feature of the post adjustment index designed to reflect the fact that a portion of the remuneration of international staff is normally spent outside the country of the duty station of assignment. Such expenditures include:

1. Expenditures on items that staff import directly because of limitations of the local market or out of personal choice;
2. Cost of private travel outside the country of the duty station (home leave, vacations, etc.);
3. Fees for education and support of dependents living abroad;
4. Costs for the maintenance of a dwelling in the home country; and
5. Other financial commitments outside the country of the duty station (so-called non-consumption commitments (NCCs)), such as mortgages, homeowner’s insurance, property taxes, national insurance, savings, personal loans, life insurance and income tax, etc.

Staff on pay points beyond the maximum salary step (currently step 13) on the unified salary scale should choose either PP1 or PP2 which correspond to steps 14 and 15 respectively that were on the salary scale applicable before the promulgation of the current unified salary scale.

Purchases made over the Internet by household members may be difficult to determine as to whether they were incurred inside the country of the duty station (in-area) or outside of the country of the duty station (out-of-area). If you know that the purchases were made at website addresses registered or otherwise regulated by the laws of the country of your duty station, these should be classified as in-area. If the website address is known to be registered or regulated according to the laws of other countries, or this information is not known or cannot be ascertained, the purchases should be classified as out-of-area.

Expenditures on secondary residence whether inside or outside of the country of duty station should reported under part 2.2 of the housing of the questionnaire.

Post adjustment is applicable to United Nations common system international staff in the professional and higher categories, and is an amount added to net base salary, in order to ensure that no matter what duty station United Nations common system staff work in, their net remuneration has a purchasing power equivalent to that of their counterparts in New York City, the base of the system. Adding post adjustment to the net base salary yields “Net Remuneration”.

Post adjustment is determined on the basis of a “post adjustment index” or PAI; and a “post adjustment multiplier”, or PAM, which are defined below.

The post adjustment index (PAI) is a statistical measurement of the cost of living experienced by staff working at a given duty station, relative to that of New York City, the base city of the system.

It is established by means of periodic comparisons of cost-of-living data between the base city and other duty stations. The data are collected through cost-of-living surveys called “place-to-place surveys” which in most cases are conducted every three years. In between these place-to-place surveys, the PAI is updated through periodic adjustments which take into account movements in local prices, as well as changes in local exchange rates relative to the US Dollar.

In years when a place-to-place survey is not scheduled, a housing survey is conducted so as to update the housing component of the cost-of-living comparison, as well as the rental subsidy thresholds.

The post adjustment multiplier (PAM), also known as the post adjustment classification (PAC), determines the post adjustment amount that is added to the base salary as compensation for the cost of living at the various duty stations. One point of the post adjustment multiplier corresponds to one percent of the staff member's net base salary.

In principle, the PAM is obtained by subtracting 100 from the PAI. However, the determination of the actual multiplier is subject to several administrative rules and procedures governing the post adjustment system which have been approved over the years by the Commission and the General Assembly. These rules and procedures are based on practical or financial considerations with very little relationship to the measurement of the cost of living at the duty stations. Consequently, the PAM is not always directly related to the PAI.

Local cost-of-living data comes from three sources: (i) retail prices of a basket of goods and services, (ii) housing costs incurred by staff members in the duty station, and (iii) monthly/annual expenditures of staff members at the duty station.

Prices for a basket of goods and services are collected from retail outlets and stores within the duty station. The retail outlets are identified by the duty station’s appointed Survey Coordinator as establishments likely to be patronized by UN professional staff. Prices are recorded by independent pricing agents identified by the Survey Coordinator and recruited and paid by the ICSC. Pricing agents personally visit the stores and manually record the prices of a large basket of goods and services generally purchased by UN professional staff. Survey Coordinators also gather and record various other prices. The prices of these goods and services are ultimately compared with the prices of a similar items in New York City, the base of the system.

Housing expenditures are provided by staff members themselves, as are monthly and annual expenditures. This information comes from the questionnaires staff members are asked to complete on a periodic basis.

The example below shows how the post adjustment is calculated for a staff member at a duty station with a PAM of 25.0.

Post adjustment multiplier (PAM):	25
Net Base salary (after staff assessment):	80,000
Post adjustment amount:	$80,000 x 0.25 (Multiplier as a %) = $20,000

A place-to-place survey is a statistical activity used to obtain and process benchmark data for establishing the post adjustment index (PAI). The ICSC survey programme is organized in 5-year survey rounds. The PAI resulting from a place-to-place survey ensures purchasing power parity of salaries of Professional staff serving at any given duty station relative to that of their counterparts in New York. For headquarters and other group I duty stations, a place-to-place survey is conducted approximately every five years (an extra survey is mandated by the Commission for three eastern European group I duty stations: Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania). For group II duty stations, surveys are normally conducted every 2-3 years; and every year for duty stations for which consumer price index information is not available or not reliable. Between surveys, purchasing power parity of salaries is approximated by updating all PAI components to account for inflation (once a year), and exchange-rate fluctuations (every month).

A place-to-place survey has two components:

• A price survey of a representative basket of goods and services that are likely to be purchased by international staff both in and outside of their duty station of assignment; and
• A staff expenditures survey which elicits information on expenditures made by staff member's household in the duty station or outside. The survey covers expenditures on all consumption categories in the current post adjustment index structure.

The price survey entails the collection of retail price data for a basket of goods and services from retail outlets likely to be patronized by professional staff. The basket of goods and services consists of 304 items to be priced by the Pricing Agent and some by the local Survey Coordinator. The list of outlets is drawn up by the survey coordinator at the duty station, working in collaboration with administration and staff representatives through local survey committees (LSCs).

The prices collected at the duty station are compared with prices of the same items in New York to determine price relativities between the two duty stations.

The Staff Expenditures survey (housing and household) elicits information on expenses incurred by professional staff members and their families both inside and outside of their duty station of assignment. The purpose of the staff expenditures survey is to collect data to be used in the determination of in-area expenditures and out-of-area expenditures and to establish their corresponding weights.

In addition, data from these surveys are used to calculate rental subsidy thresholds for the various duty stations, and retail price indices, which are widely used by Member States and other interested parties involved in cost-of-living adjustments of salaries of expatriate officials.

The price survey generates average prices for each item in the common basket of goods and services. These average prices collected in the duty station are then compared to the average prices of the same items collected in New York. The price differences provide an indication of the cost of living at the various duty stations relative to New York. However, to determine the cost-of-living differential, these price differences must be averaged using weights derived from the staff expenditures surveys. In this way, the expenditures surveys determine the relative importance of the various expenditure categories.

Clearly both the price and expenditures surveys are indispensable in the process of determining a PAI that accurately reflects the cost of living at duty station. For instance, the price of an item or group of items can increase significantly in a duty station, but this would have no impact on the PAI, if Professional staff members serving in the duty station do not complete the survey questionnaires, registering their expenditures on these items.

The information icon accompanying each box on the on-line questionnaire (or the glossary of explanations corresponding to each box in the hardcopy version of the questionnaire) provides a complete listing of all items covered under each basic heading. If you do not find any category under which to enter the expenditures on an item, please enter it in the "Other expenses" section of the questionnaire and provide details of the expenditures. Providing sufficient detail will enable ICSC statisticians to allocate it to the appropriate category at the data-processing stage.

Instructions can be found in the questionnaires themselves. Many input boxes have icons, which when clicked will display detailed instructions for that specific line item.

The results of these surveys will generally be implemented with effect from the first of the month following completion of analysis of the data by the ICSC, except for the headquarters duty stations and Washington D.C whose survey implementation takes close to a year.

Please see the Post Adjustment Booklet or the Explanatory Notes on the Post Adjustment System for HR Managers.

Of course! If you are a United Nations common system Professional staff assigned to Geneva, you should participate in the survey regardless of your place of residence.

The data you provide for your expenditures in Geneva will be combined with similar data from other duty stations (New York, Montreal, London, Rome, Madrid, Paris, Washington D.C, Vienna, Nairobi and Bangkok).

Specific to Geneva, is the possibility of being resident at the duty station while at the same time residing beyond national boundaries in neighbouring France. Staff who reside in neighbouring France will be able to indicate their locality of residence, whether they live in the country of the duty station and peruse the housing section following provided guidelines, and at the end of the questionnaire, also to respond to the question on telecommuting and to provide open feedback as their counterparts residing within Switzerland.

Not really. In general, individual staff members have different expenditure patterns. For instance, some staff members consume alcohol or cigarettes; others don’t. Some live in cheap housing far from the work place; others live in expensive housing closer

Absolutely not! In keeping with a decision of the Commission, this price survey is limited to Geneva and Nyon and other areas in the southern part of Canton de Vaud bordering Geneva only. The list of outlets was developed by the Geneva local survey committee.

Absolutely not! Rent comparisons with New York are based on market rent data collected by the International Service for Remunerations and Pensions (ISRP) in Geneva, Nyon and other areas in the southern part of Canton de Vaud only. No market rent data is collected from neighboring France.

The Commission’s decision to maintain the classical classification of in-area and out-of-area expenditures, and not modify it to take into account commuting distance regardless of national boundaries, and other factors, was fully supported by Geneva-based. For a resident of France, expenditures incurred in France would be reported as out-of-area while expenditures incurred in Geneva would be reported as in-area.

Your primary residence is outside of Switzerland and so your housing related expenditures are out-of-area by definition. They will therefore be treated the same way as your other out-of-area expenditures and contribute to the determination of the actual out-of-area weight. Such housing expenditure would not be used for the housing weight.