Government Operations Committee on Nov. 20th, 2012

[Alister Smith]

This is not a subprogram activity area in that sense. This will continue to develop over time, but we don't have a particular part of our organization dedicated only to open government. It's done by a number of people within several other areas with program sub-activities, if you wish, within our organization. It's an example of a complication that arises when you try to show things on the sub-activity level, but there's quite a lot of information on open government on our website.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Will there come a day where people don't have to file access to information requests anymore? They will go to their open government website and see what their government is doing with their money. Is that the goal?

[Alister Smith]

Let me mention that there is an open data portal, which has a tremendous amount of information now on all manner of government...

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

A portal—that sounds like a black hole. We're trying to put a ring fence around a black hole.

[Alister Smith]

We've been putting up more and more expenditure data up on that portal in quite a lot of detail.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I shouldn't take too much time here anyway.

Now it's Linda Duncan's turn.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I'm deferring to Denis.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Go ahead, Mr. Blanchette.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In my previous comments, I tried to get you to be specific about the number of people who have lost their jobs up to now. Really, I have not got an answer. The minister has stated that he was satisfied, given the targets he wanted to meet. I respect the minister. I believe that, if he says that, it is surely because he has information that allows him to do so. You mentioned the quarterly reports, which give us an idea about things. So, every quarter, could you provide data on the process of job cutting, with figures showing the retirements, the surplus positions, the reassignments, the voluntary departures, the unfilled positions and the savings achieved as a result of it all, for all departments? You are the central department; you are in charge. So, at very least, you should be able to keep track of all this. I would like to have that information quarterly.

A lot of jobs have been eliminated, but it is all very vague. We do not yet know all the consequences of the cuts. Corrections will certainly have to be made. There is a human resources director in the Treasury Board. Could you tell me whether she has the mandate to assess the effects of the cuts?

[Alister Smith]

I'll let Bill start with the first part.

[Bill Matthews]

Mr. Chair, in terms of tracking the actual reductions in employment, I would separate the dollars from the positions. First and foremost, departments' budgets have already been reduced, and you'll see it again when we do main estimates. Next year you'll see the reductions again, based on the three-year profile in the budget. That money has been lifted from departments' budgets.

The tracking of HR hiring and people leaving for retirement by position is very difficult to do from the centre. The Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer certainly has some information. I'm not certain they can give...

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Excuse me, but if the minister states that we are on track, he has to be basing that statement on something. I respect the minister too much to think that he is picking the statement out of thin air. He is relying on a report, on facts. So can we have a summary of what he based himself on when he made the statement. That is what I am asking.

I do not see why a central agency which issues orders about budget cuts does not look for quick feedback on the effects those orders are having.

I am asking for an overview, not a detailed picture. If you want to tell us about the effect of the cuts in a more general way than I was able to pick out the information, I have no problem with that. You can tell us how many people have retired, how many people have left, and so on, and then give us the total. I would be satisfied with that information. I do not want anything extremely detailed.

I just want some figures added up, with the total in dollars, so that I can see where we are. We have been doing a program review for four years already and we are having a hard time getting an overall picture of things. Now an order has been issued about reducing the number of employees in the public service and we want to know what it means.

You have to remember that the name of our committee also includes the words “government operations”. So basically, we want to know the effect on government operations. That is why we want the overall picture to start with. We cannot do our job if we do not know how many positions have been eliminated, whether that is just because of retirements, or whether we are talking about positions and programs. I do not even want to go that far. I am just asking you for an overall picture.

[Bill Matthews]

I think, Mr. Chair, the information the minister released last week was a status report of where we're at today, which was 10,980 jobs eliminated. As I mentioned earlier, of that amount, 2,200 were because of workforce adjustment types of arrangements. Of the 2,200, 1,500 were transition supports and 700 have agreed to work an additional year and try to find another job. Time will tell in terms of how successful they are.

Beyond that, when people elect to leave the public service, we do not have information at the centre that says why they left. Our chief human resource officer does monitor hiring, inflows, and outflows, but not at the level of why they left, whether retiring, etc.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Monsieur Blanchette and Mr. Matthews.

We'll go to Mike Wallace again.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to follow up a little bit on what was just said.

The question that was asked, Mr. Chair, was just answered, I think, for the third time today: the information that the minister brought to the House in terms of the number of cuts was based on the information Mr. Matthews just presented.

If you really want to know the numbers, you go to the departmental performance reports. This one is for last year; you'll have to go to next year's. I happen to have Treasury Board's here for 2011-12. There's a line item that says “2011-12 human resources”, “planned”, “actual”, and then the difference. It shows what was planned and what the actual was, and in this case they were down 95.

There's nothing to hide. It's a public document. It's on the website, and I printed it off the website, actually. People don't like me to print things, but I like it printed instead of just sitting with the screen.

There's no secret about that information. Mr. Matthews just said what it was. It's available in the documents, and it will continue to be available in the documents.

On the same line of questioning, I'll go back to plans and priorities. I like the report on plans and priorities because it talks about the program activity—and I know we're going to get to a little more of that in the future—and tells why it is a priority underlying something. In actual fact, the chair asked a question about open government.

I probably should have provided this question in advance. With regard to having a set of priorities, I know Treasury Board is a little different from other departments. It's an internal support system for the running of government; it's not necessarily programs to outside constituents. It's the constituency of government inside.

When you say that developing a comprehensive approach to compensation is one of the priorities, I don't know what that means. We probably, in my view, should have a meeting just on the plans and priorities document so that we can have a discussion and not wait until the estimates and do it at that time. We may be able to do it with a new change in the program review, and the things we're looking at.

You have listed plans for meeting priorities. What does that mean to you as an organization, and what does it mean to us? I'll use that as an example.

[Alister Smith]

On compensation specifically, it means not considering elements of compensation in isolation--so not just wages, not just benefits, not just pensions in isolation, but in a comprehensive way.

In the private sector people talk about total compensation, and that's a comprehensive view of compensation that takes into account all aspects of compensation.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

As a strategy or a vision for the department, in terms of work, what do you do to implement that? What's the change that's happening?

[Alister Smith]

If you're talking about a strategy, you are talking about trying to come up with a plan for compensation that is appropriate for your workforce over the long term. It may involve recruitment and retention. It may involve pay for performance. It may involve a whole series of elements that are appropriate for your workforce.

It's at that level of generality that you talk about a compensation strategy.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

For example, on this one, is that something new?

[Alister Smith]

No.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

A lot of these are ongoing projects.

[Alister Smith]

That's correct.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Okay. Somewhere in the document on the performance piece you have an evaluation; you're at 65% there, 95% there. I think you've told me this before, but I'm unclear. Who does the actual evaluation to decide whether you're on target or not?

[Alister Smith]

Do you want to answer?

[Christine Walker]

Each one of the programs responds as to where they are in terms of meeting their commitment. Then that is validated at a more senior level to see if it really makes sense or not, to see whether they are correctly reporting what that is. Before the report is finalized it's given that kind of quality assurance--for example, yes, we are 65% along or 75% along, or wherever we are.