Government Operations Committee on Feb. 10th, 2011

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Ladies and gentlemen, I see a quorum, and it is shortly after 11 o'clock.

We're pleased to welcome to the committee Mr. Head, from Correctional Services, along with Ms. Dumas-Sluyter and Superintendent Fraser Macaulay.

Mr. Head, you've been here before, and you might be here again, who knows? You presumably have some opening remarks, and we'd appreciate it if you'd share them in the next ten minutes with the committee.

Thank you.

[Don Head, Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to correct something, for the record. Mr. Macaulay is the assistant commissioner of human resources. He left the RCMP to join us, and for us that was a tremendous win. So I try not to remind him of his RCMP background too much so that he would want to go back there.

Anyway, good morning, Mr. Chair and committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the measures the Correctional Service of Canada is taking to adjust our operations in light of the departmental budget freeze.

As you may recall, I first appeared before the committee last October to discuss this issue. At that time I laid out for you some of the measures Correctional Service Canada was taking to ensure that we could continue to produce positive public safety results for Canadians in an environment of fiscal restraint. Today I would like to provide you with some more detailed information about our efforts. I will also address the issue of the Parliamentary Budget Officer's most recent report. Finally, I'd like to provide you with more information about our recruitment efforts in light of an anticipated growth in our offender population.

With respect to Correctional Service Canada's annual budget, personnel costs represent our largest expenditure. For fiscal year 2010-11, Correctional Service Canada's overall budget is $2.46 billion. Personnel expenditures, including salaries and benefits, represent 61.2% of the budget, or $1.5 billion. The rest is dedicated to operating costs, which represent 25.4% of our budget, or $625 million, and capital investments, which is 13.4%, or $329 million, of our total financial expenditures.

One final figure will be of interest to you. For CSC, the reduction identified as part of the containment measures in this fiscal year 2010-11, $4.8 million, is the figure that has been identified for our reduction target, which excludes the employee benefit plan and Public Works and Government Services costs.

You may remember from my appearance last fall that the vast majority, about 90%, of CSC's operating budget is non-discretionary and quasi-statutory. This includes fixed costs that we must fund on a continuous basis, such as the provision of food to offenders, utilities, staff uniforms, and payment in lieu of taxes to municipalities. The remaining 10% provides us with some opportunity and flexibility in seeking out ways for us to meet the freeze on operating costs. In addition, we have undertaken rigorous efforts to reduce our overtime costs by implementing new staff deployment standards for correctional officers and by utilizing a computerized roster system to ensure that we are efficiently staffed on a 24-hour, seven-day-per-week basis.

I'm proud to say that between 2008-09 and 2009-10, we were able to reduce our overtime costs from $83 million annually to $52 million. This year we targeted further reductions in our overtime budget, and we are well on track toward achieving our goals. As of December 2010, our overtime expenditures were at $31 million, compared to $36 million in December 2009. As you can see, we've already realized an additional $5 million in efficiencies.

In addition, we have achieved over $5 million in savings from a more rigorous approach to managing travel and hospitality expenditures. Furthermore, we are studying efficiencies in programming by piloting an innovative integrated correctional program model in the Pacific region.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Please continue, Mr. Head.

I just ask colleagues if they would keep their conversations at a level that allows the presenter to be heard.

Thank you.

[Don Head]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This approach reduces redundancies and overlap in some of the programs we offer to offenders, and ensures a more timely delivery of programs to offenders while maintaining the quality of content and staff training. The preliminary findings of the pilot program are showing efficiencies in delivery and staff training, and promising operational cost-effectiveness.

Another means of ensuring that we have the right people in the right place at the right time has been the integration of our human resources, business planning methods, and our risk profile. This helps CSC to forecast our staffing and recruitment needs more accurately, which is particularly important for us in this time of renewal and change.

To this end, we have developed and implemented a strategic plan for human resource management for the 2009-12 timeframe, and will be updating this following the upcoming budget speech. This overarching framework integrates our business lines as laid out in the program activity architecture and our report on plans and priorities. It commits to focusing on three strategic priorities: building relationships and engaging our partners, building on our foundation, and investing in our people.

Through this strategic alignment of our resources with our corporate priorities, we are ensuring that people and the financial resources we have are focused and directed in step with the organization's overall goals.

This provides me with a good segue to discussing the recent comments surrounding the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report, and the perception that CSC wilfully did not respond to Mr. Page's request for information about our human resource plans.

I would like to assure the members of the committee that this is simply not the case. We received the request, and it was being processed through our internal channels. However, there was a human error that resulted in the file not being submitted in time to meet the deadline. I can assure you that going forward there will be increased monitoring and managerial oversight to guard against repetitions of this type of incident. I regret that our strategic human resources plan was not sent to Mr. Page's office on time. However, the report is, and was, available in full on our website.

This brings me to the final area I'd like to address this morning, which is a part of our human resource plan today and in the future. It is the hiring of additional staff to address the growth we expect to see in our offender population as a result of recent legislative initiatives. We expect we will need over 4,000 new employees to ensure that we can continue to manage our anticipated offender population growth in the coming years.

Our strategic HR framework will guide us with these efforts, and the funds we requested and received from Parliament will ensure that we can allocate the resources we need to handle any influx of offenders who may come our way. We have built internal planning and forecasting tools, in line with the "building on our foundation" priority, to project the number of correctional officers and parole officers we will need over the next 24 to 36 months.

We have mapped this against traditional attrition rates, together with existing and projected resourcing levels, to develop a clear plan to ensure that we have the people in place to manage our complex and diverse offender population. Under the "building relationships and engaging our partners" priority, we have reached out to the RCMP in order to collaborate with them for the delivery of some of our correctional officer recruit training at their facility in Regina, Depot Division. This partnership will ensure that CSC will be able to increase its internal capacity to deliver the comprehensive and rigorous training required for our new correctional officers, while not taking away from CSC's ability to meet the training needs of our other front-line employees such as our parole officers. As part of the "investing in our people" priority, we have undertaken work to revitalize our national training standards and our ability to track training for all staff to ensure they are prepared to accomplish the work they are expected to perform.

I am confident that CSC is well equipped to adapt and continue to provide good public safety results while meeting our financial targets.

I want to thank you again for the opportunity to update you on some of the initiatives we are putting in place to manage our budget. I would be happy to entertain any questions you may have of me at this time.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Head.

Madam Coady.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you.

And my thanks to you, Mr. Head, and your colleagues for joining us today on this important and serious issue.

I have some fairly straightforward questions. I understand, through what you have told us today and through the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report, that by 2012-13 you'll have hired an additional 4,119 new employees. These are new positions, correct?

[Don Head]

That's right, yes.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you.

Can you tell us what your attrition rate would be over the same period of time?

[Don Head]

We're projecting over the next two fiscal years that our attrition rate will be approximately 1,000 employees, give or take a 7.4% margin of error.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you for being so specific.

Let's make sure we're all clear on this: you're losing 1,000 people approximately, but in addition to replacing those positions, you're gaining additional 4,000, so you're actually hiring 5,000 people.

[Don Head]

Yes, we'll go through staffing processes. That will result in 5,000 processes, yes.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you. There was what I'll call a shell game going on with the Treasury Board president about these attrition rates and hiring and so on, and I want to make sure we all understand exactly what we are talking about.

You will be hiring 4,000 new positions but actually going through the process for about 5,000.

[Don Head]

Yes. The one thing I'll clarify is that as we go forward with refining our reduction plans we may be making some other decisions about some of those positions—the existing ones. So it may not be exactly 1,000; there might be a lower number.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

You may not replace some of the positions that people are either retiring from or leaving.

[Don Head]

That's possible, yes.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

And you don't have the number at this point as to what that loss of jobs may be.

[Don Head]

No. We hope to refine that in the next couple of months, based on the upcoming budget speech.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Head, we would appreciate it if you could advise this committee when you have those plans solidified, because we are doing this study and we are also trying to get a handle on the impact to our citizens.

At the same time that you're having to hire these additional 4,000 new positions, you're undergoing a 1.5% budget freeze, in addition to a 5% strategic review, correct?

[Don Head]

That's right.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Okay, I'm trying to justify this in my mind. You've told us you have 90% non-discretionary or quasi-statutory requirements on your funding. So you have a buffer, we'll say, of 10% that has to go towards this. I'm questioning how you actually can do that.

Again, I'll talk about how you're hiring an additional 4,000 new positions at the same time that you're undergoing a 5% cut, we'll call it, under the strategic review process and a 1.5% budget freeze. How are you doing that?

[Don Head]

It's a very good question, and there are a couple of things I'd point out. Some of them are linked to some of the measures I mentioned in terms of getting better control on deployment standards for our staff. That is being accomplished partly through the computerized scheduling system we've put in place for correctional officers. That in itself has allowed us to reduce our overtime budget by $30 million during the two previous fiscal years. And at this point, we're on track for an additional $5-million reduction this year.

We've identified efficiencies in some key areas that will not necessarily impact service delivery, public safety, or the safety of my staff or the offenders we're responsible for. We're putting those in place.

As well, there are the measures we've put in place to reduce costs associated with travel and hospitality. We've become much more rigid and strict around that, and we've achieved some significant reductions that we can sustain in that area.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I'm basically hearing that you're not the least bit concerned, because you've already made the efficiencies within your own budget. You're not concerned about having to hire 4,000 new employees—getting in effect a 6.5% reduction in your budget—I'm still trying to square that peg—even with the savings you've found under deployment and new efficiencies.

I'm going to ask you a question, and this is all about the Truth in Sentencing Act. We look at what the Parliamentary Budget Officer did in looking at that area and the requirements that are going to be needed by the correctional services under that act.

Now, there are many other acts, and I'm just thinking of what's before us today. Bill S-10 is before us today. We've got Bill C-4, Bill C-39; we've got a number of other acts. Bill C-39 is the act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. Bill S-10 is an act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Bill C-4 is an act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act. They can't be fitting into your plans, I don't think, at this point because you're still going through the process. Yet I think the Conservatives are hoping that the process will come to a quick conclusion.

The impact is going to be layered on top of the Truth in Sentencing Act. Are you not concerned that instead of being tough on crime you're going to be wrong on crime, in the sense that the judicial system will face an overburdened point where criminals may actually not be punished in the right and proper manner?

[Don Head]

I am concerned about what the tipping point might be for corrections. But I'm confident that with the exceptional staff I have across the country we'll manage in a way that we deliver good, effective corrections. It's my goal, based on whatever is passed through Parliament, to ensure that we deliver that, and I really am confident--

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I'm sure that as a confident and competent public servant you will do your utmost to do that. My role today is to say I'm quite concerned. Here we have the layering in of all this crime legislation. We know the impact of the Truth in Sentencing Act. We do not know the impact of the other acts, because of course we can't get that information.

On top of that, you're getting a 6.5% cut at the same time you're having to increase by 4,000 employees. I know you're going to do your best, but I will say that is of concern. I'm concerned that we will actually have an overburdened system and the criminals who may need to be punished and may need to go into prisons may not have due process and may actually cause a challenge to our communities in not having them incarcerated in the proper manner.

I don't know how much time I have left.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Half a minute.