Government Operations Committee on Dec. 10th, 2013

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

—looking particularly the inflow into permanent jobs. We do monitor the transition from casual worker into permanent jobs to ensure that the merit process is being respected, but that would be the jurisdiction and the perspective of the commission.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Do I have any time left?

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

No. Your time is up.

Mr. O'Connor, go ahead for five minutes.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

Before I get to my actual questions in reaction to my colleague's points, I want to point out that between 2006 and 2012, we increased the public service by about 36,000 jobs. As you record, there might be 11,000 fewer jobs here now than there were before, but a number of those were empty. They weren't filled. A number of people retire also, so we're not talking about a cut of 11,000 people. We didn't cut 11,000 people.

What's the proportion of anglophones versus francophones in the overall public service—just a rough cut?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

Based on the Treasury Board data from 2011-12, 68.2% of the core public administration—which is slightly beyond the Public Service Employment Act population—is anglophone and 31.8% is francophone.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

And that's the overall public service?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

That's the overall public service.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

What's the proportion in the national capital region?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

I don't have that breakdown, but, Mr. Chair, I'd be happy to send that information to the committee.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

I suspect it's a higher number.

In your organization, do you hire people from the outside? Is that your job or do you deal with people moving between jobs inside the public service?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

Thank you for the question.

The overall responsibility of the Public Service Commission is to set appointment policy to ensure that appointments themselves are based on merit and free from political influence. The day-to-day staffing is delegated to deputy ministers and largely done by government departments, except for a few things. My colleague here Gerry Thom still runs the student recruitment programs and a number of programs for co-op student summer employment. The commission manages those processes, but the appointments themselves are done by individual departments and they all do their own human resources planning.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

I've heard allegations in the past that inside the public service—and, as you're saying, the hiring is being done by deputy ministers or their agents—there is cronyism, favouritism, etc. Is that your experience or not?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair.

In general, the commission's responsibility is to oversee the integrity of the appointments in the public service, and so we have a robust system of oversight, which includes regular reporting. We have a robust audit function and every year we conduct in the range of 12 audits, and we continually use a risk-based approach so that we can intervene in departments if we see problems. I spoke earlier about our investigative function. If a problematic transaction comes to light, we have the authority to investigate those transactions and can take corrective measures up to and including revocation.

In general, we see those things as being relatively rare. Since the authority was delegated to departments in 2005, we have been working closely with them to gradually improve their management of the system, encouraging them to have robust monitoring in place because, in a delegated model in such a large, complex environment, we want to see departments themselves detecting and correcting problematic transactions in real time.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

Do I still have time?

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Yes, you have 45 seconds.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

Oh, I have only 45 seconds.

I think this is in your domain. What are the criteria the public service uses to hire people? Does it proportion out men, women, anglophone, francophone, minorities, and whatever?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

Our appointments are based on merit and based on the qualifications for the job, so when it comes to bilingualism, certain jobs are designated bilingual or non-bilingual—and this is done under Treasury Board policy—and so there's a whole policy behind that determination.

In terms of employment equity, there are some provisions under the act, for example, to designate certain competitions or limit the area of selection to certain employment equity groups. However, I would say that over the past five years that's been used on average in less than 3% of appointment processes. So in 97% of appointment processes or more, those provisions are not used in terms restricting areas of selection.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you for these questions and answers.

I now yield the floor to Mr. Byrne for five minutes.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses.

I'd like to ask about the relative contribution or inclusion of whistle-blowers in your investigative process. Would you be able to describe to the committee the volume of independent participants who may raise a concern from within the public service, people we would generally call whistle-blowers, very courageous people? Do you sense there's any constraint to their participation?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

Thank you for the question.

I'm trying to think of the number, but I would say in general we have some 500 investigations. I'll correct that for the record if I'm incorrect about that, but I believe it's in the range of 500 complaints or cases that are brought to our investigations branch on average every year. They're reviewed by our jurisdictions directorate and then we have to determine whether we have both jurisdiction and grounds to launch an investigation.

They come to us in a number of ways. Sometimes departmental monitoring will bring them forward; sometimes it's the commission's audits that will uncover cases; then we have individuals as well who bring cases forward to the commission. The commission is always open to anyone who wants to bring forward a complaint or a concern. We are an independent organization and, using a legal test, we review those concerns independently and then make a determination as to whether or not it would be appropriate to launch an investigation.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Thank you very much for that.

You mentioned jurisdictional issues in your testimony to the committee, whether or not the commission has the jurisdiction to be able to conduct an investigation. Have you been frustrated or thwarted in some of your investigations because you lack the jurisdiction to enter a particular field? Is that a concern of yours, or not?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

It is not generally a concern. There's nothing that's come to my attention since I've been in this office. We do, for example, have subpoena powers and other powers that we can use. So we have quite a robust set of powers that allow us to interview who we need to interview within the normal legal constraints of using those powers.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

One of the points of vulnerability in terms of ensuring a non-partisan public service might be considered the role of the executive, a minister in question. Do you have powers to investigate a minister in terms of the decision-making process for a staffing, a hiring process?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

According to our act, we investigate appointment processes, and in the context of an appointment process we can, if necessary, for example, interview or ask questions of anyone who is involved in the process, including a minister.