Government Operations Committee on Feb. 24th, 2009

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Yes, I know.

[Maria Barrados]

I am very concerned by the internal capacity of this system to proceed with staffing actions, and to get the right people. That is why we have kept the services system. We have invested a great deal in computer systems, but it's a large organization and we are confronted with real challenges within the system.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

That's too bad, Ms. Barrados.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Merci.

Mr. Warkentin, for eight minutes.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madam Barrados, for being here this morning. I appreciate your testimony this morning.

I'm one of the few committee members who has returned from the last Parliament and who has had the opportunity to hear previous reports. So I appreciate that you've come with the same candour you had in your previous testimony. We appreciate that, as a committee.

In terms of your report, there are a number of different things that jumped out at me. As a matter of fact, my pages are covered in ink now as I make a note every time I hear something that is of concern. As you know, I've been quite concerned about the turnover rate, specifically, which I believe undermines the ability of the public service to do their job effectively.

As you stated in your report this morning, you indicated that the total number of the employees you oversee has increased 4.1% over the previous year. Of course, that is a concern to many of us, especially as we're not seeing the population of our country increasing at that rate, and we're certainly not seeing the ability of government to sustain that type of increase over the long term.

I'm wondering if you might be able to tell us specifically, or generally, what departments saw the largest increases in terms of total numbers, or maybe if it was an increase of 4.1% across the board, or if there were specific departments that saw other increases, or increases that maybe would come with an explanation.

[Maria Barrados]

I was anticipating that kind of question, so we actually did put a table in our report. That's the big brick. It's table 44, where we actually compared the population numbers by department in March 2007 and at year-end 2008. When you run your eye down those percentages, you have to be very careful, because you have some big percentage increases.

It's on pages 154 and 155 in the English version.

You have some big percentage increases, but of course when you have a very small organization, it doesn't involve many people.

In a way, some of it is not really surprising in terms of where we've seen growth. I would just point to some departments. We've seen growth in places like the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, where there was 14% growth. That's on a fairly large base. That kind of growth was related directly to the crisis we had with passports; we had a real problem with getting people their passports in time, so you saw growth in that area.

In some of the other departments, such as the Department of Health, you had some growth, in that case 6%, which is above average.

I'm ignoring all of the little guys. One that's notable is the Office of Indian Residential Schools Resolution, where we had a 45% growth rate, but it was a new organization.

You will see some declines, but the details are there in the table.

There was growth in the Public Health Agency of Canada, and at Public Safety, where there was 15% growth—

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I guess the question leads us to the next point, and that's if there is a concern on your part about the pressures on the entire system from increases of this magnitude, at 4.1%, which obviously is not huge but does put pressures on the system in terms of training, and even in terms of the payroll for personnel from top to bottom, and on the mechanics of government as you consider replacing existing people who are leaving, for whatever reason, in escalating numbers.

I guess you do, in large part, have a plan as to how you are going to address this, but I guess this leads to the bigger issue, which is that we have people today in jobs that they didn't have last year and the year before, when we had turnover of similar rates.

My concern continues to be about this continued movement. I know that you state in the report that significantly high mobility can have negative impacts on operational efficiency and effectiveness. I would suggest that it has destructive effects on many of these different departments, especially when we see the large movements. I am thinking specifically of the HR departments.

I know that we are all in this together and that we're working toward a solution, but is there anything that we on the legislative side can do to be of some assistance to you, as you look to address the high turnover rates and the high numbers of people who are moving from one position to another within government? I am not sure how we can work to address some of these things, but I have anecdotal evidence, even from my own constituency, where people are increasingly frustrated when they call a department and are dealing with one individual, and then the next time they call they're dealing with somebody else, and the next time it's somebody else. I know even from my own member of Parliament office that this seems to be a recurring frustration. I am just thinking that if this is something we're experiencing and hearing about from others, then when we see these numbers we know it's government-wide.

We have a real problem on our hands. We have a civil service that is doing its best to try to address the needs of Canadians, but on the flip side, it is a pretty unfortunate environment in which civil servants are trying to do this, a situation where the corporate memory is just being wiped out time and time again.

I don't know what we can do. I know there are suggestions, but I'm not sure if there are some suggestions you have as to where we as a committee might go to assist you, or if you feel that in time we'll get a handle on it. I know that you have been working aggressively on this front, but I'm not sure if there's anything that we might be able to do to assist you in your efforts.

[Maria Barrados]

It's a good question. Can I just make a couple of comments?

The growth in the public service is not something the Public Service Commission does; that is a government decision. When estimates are reviewed, that's the obvious place to ask questions about the growth and increases in budget. Do they mean increases in people? Are you going to hire people or are you going to contract? Those are really government and then parliamentary decisions. We at the commission are making the observation on how the system is working and how the staffing system is working.

We have a preoccupation about the staffing system, and I agree that if we spend a lot of time looking at the numbers.... And there is not “one fix for everything”. We looked at different occupational groups, at different settings, and at the dynamic of what was going on in those occupational groups. One general statement doesn't apply to everything.

It is obvious to me that this whole system has to be better managed. I think there is an obligation on the employer, the new CHRO, to deal with this in terms of how it is managed.

We now have a system in which, for some occupational groups—look at one of the charts we have on the table, for the ESs—they've all moved within a year; none of them is in the same job. Some of this could be because the job has been re-labelled: it could be that they're doing the same job but it has a different title—and that is the only way we can judge it.

That's a very hard system to manage. It's very hard for providing service and for providing any kind of continuity. But people are staying in the public service. We have people leaving, but not in great numbers; they're staying in the public service.

So I think it's a big management issue. When members of Parliament review estimates and have managers in front of them, asking them how they manage this would be helpful. We keep on about the planning, but planning means not just having a plan; it means looking at your workforce, at the different components of your workforce, and having a strategy for how you are going to replace and renew those different components.

It is also very important for public service managers to work at really actively engaging their employees and having the conversations with their employees because they stay in the public service; they just go and work for another department.

It's a system that has resulted in some sectors and some places having too much movement—what I call classification creep. You see the classification levels going up, which doesn't seem appropriate. In some places, for some groups, I think we've gone through the big retirement, and you see others for which it's going to come. The AS group, you can see, is older; it's going to come. ESs and PEs have done it, and they're now newer.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I have a clarification. I'm sure my time is up, but—

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Yes. It was quite a complex answer. We're at 10 minutes, but if it's just a clarification and colleagues are okay with it, go ahead.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Could I get a clarification of the classification creep? Is that a situation where somebody else—another department—pays more to do the same job, or what specifically do you mean by classification creep?

[Maria Barrados]

We have a system of classifying jobs; it tends to be as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Work that was being done by someone at level 3 three years ago now somehow mysteriously needs a level 4. I manage an organization too, so I'll ask, why does this need a level 4? “It needs a level 4 because otherwise I can't get anybody.”

It's this kind of thing that has occurred in the system, and if you see the distribution of how many are at each level, the level 1s have almost disappeared; we hardly have any level 1s left. But if you look at the distributions of level 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s and how these have gone over time, you'll see that there's just an increase, and I don't think the work has changed to that extent.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Thank you, colleagues. I hope the record will find the longer answer and the clarification useful. We did go quite a bit over time there.

Mr. Martin will have an opening round, followed by Mr. McTeague and Monsieur Roy for subsequent rounds.

Mr. Martin.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Madam Barrados. Good morning.

I think in your last comments you said something that we could start from: that the whole system needs to be better managed. I don't disagree. We found in a study done by this committee that the management personnel who work in HR are really at the front lines. In a way, they're the unsung heroes who are trying to cope with retaining and attracting the people we need, given the burden of the increased turnover.

I guess I'm shocked, though, to hear the numbers put forward by my colleague, that those HR managers are having to go outside to the extent of $170 million a year to do their job. To put that in context, what is the total budget of the Public Service Commission?

[Maria Barrados]

The total budget of the Public Service Commission is about—and I'm saying “about” and will explain why I'm saying it, for I know the numbers exactly—$100 million.

The reason I'm saying “about” is that we are running the big informatics systems for the government. We have a big systems renewal. Whether I'm sitting at $88 million or am at $100 million is due to the amount of money I get for my informatics system.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I'm not worried about the exact number, but I'm trying to put it in context.

If the public service is having to go to outside help to the extent of $170 million a year for private headhunters, essentially, I think that's work we could do in-house, if human resources managers were better resourced or had the $170 million worth of extra capacity. Surely we could do our own headhunting, under the guidance of the Public Service Commission, and it would probably be done more closely within our guidelines and the expectations we have.

Do you have any further comment on what you could do with an extra $170 million by way of human resources management within the public sector?

[Maria Barrados]

I think I have to be very careful. I'm not asking for more money here.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

No, I understand.

[Maria Barrados]

There are two issues. One is that we have the use of the headhunters; the second, I think, is temporary agencies—bringing in temporary help. They are different issues for me. They're appropriate in their use; you just don't want the system getting overly reliant.

My view is that we have a situation now wherein we have a new piece of legislation—the biggest change we've had in 35 years. The vision in this legislation is that deputy heads are really the managers of their HR and their finances. Other members of the committee may know that I spent 18 years at the audit office, so I have a preoccupation with the dollar side of this as well.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

We didn't give headhunters that extra authority just so that they could contract it out. We gave it to speed up the hiring process. I remember; I was on the government operations committee when that new PSCA came in.

[Maria Barrados]

You're exactly right. So now we have managers more responsible, and they have problems with the HR capacity, which was my comment about the HR group itself and the systems they have to work with. You need numbers, you need systems, and that's all really weak.

I keep going on about having to strengthen that. I think as we strengthen it, there will be more capacity inside. I am encouraging our people to do more; hence we are doing a lot more in providing turnkey service. They're doing some very innovative things in my organization. Hopefully we'll have the use of temporary staff at an appropriate level, and not for placing people into jobs that should be public servants'.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

That's not much of a human resources strategy, really—the use of temporary workers. I'll move on, because I have limited time.

I'm interested in whether you could expand somewhat under “investigations”. You say you have completed 17 investigations into improper political activities. Could you expand? What would constitute improper political activity? What are some of the examples of those 16 cases? And you could tell us the names of people too, if you want to.

[Maria Barrados]

I'll answer the question about the cases, and I'll just make a comment about the naming.

The 17 cases are by and large cases of non-compliance with the regulations. The structure of the act, as a result of the Osborne decision in the early 1990s, is that we have a part of the act to deal with improper political activities. For any activity in support of a political party—it could be campaigning, being actively involved in meetings, having any kind of visibility in support of a political party—we provide general guidance. We can launch an investigation, if we view any of that activity as liable to compromise the non-partisan nature of the public service. We have some of those going on.

One of our 16 was such a case, in which we found that a public servant was engaged in improper political activity that in our view compromised the political neutrality of the public service. That was one out of the 16.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

But 16 out of 17 were found to have violated the—

[Maria Barrados]

The other 15 were people who did not follow the proper procedure in getting permission to run for political office. There is a procedure you have to follow: you must get permission from the Public Service Commission; you must be on leave without pay, for provincial and federal elections, during the election period; and it's discretionary for municipal elections.

Our biggest issue is with the municipal elections at this point. We have some federal in this group and we have some provincial.

Our decision on the naming and putting out the details of the case has been a difficult set of decisions. We have regulatory powers that are equivalent to the Privacy Act, in our legislation and our regulations, so we have to weigh the public interest with the private interests.

Our decision was, on a case-by-case basis, that we would put out summaries of our investigations and that we would name those individuals who were found to have been non-compliant in political activities at the federal and provincial levels, the thinking being that those are very public activities anyway. I was getting too many requests from some other candidates for information about a candidate and I thought, we'll just make those public. We are not doing it for municipal elections, because most of the time people don't know what their obligations are.

The one case where we found improper support of a political party has been taken to court. All our decisions are subject to judicial review. It is before the courts, so I can't say anything. I don't think I can tell you, either, unless you're in camera; I think I'd be in trouble.

The other cases are cases of fraud, where we had the same issue about naming names.