Public Accounts Committee on April 22nd, 2010

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you.

In 2005, your office conducted an audit on co-management. You were speaking of that earlier on these co-management boards. You identified weaknesses that were related to the department's support thereof. As part of this current audit, you noted that satisfactory progress has been made in addressing the weaknesses that were identified in 2005. Could you expand, for my benefit, upon what those weaknesses were and how these things have been addressed?

[Sheila Fraser]

Mr. Chair, I'll ask Mr. Campbell to respond.

[Ronnie Campbell]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We did note that the department had made satisfactory progress in that regard. It was largely around providing guidance and ensuring that the boards had the capacity to deliver on their obligations. We've noted improvements in that area.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you.

Another thing that we heard a lot of when we were there was about the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency. Although your audit didn't specifically cover this, I know that a lot of economic development programs and functions have been transferred to this agency. No doubt they will be the ones responsible for implementing many of your recommendations.

Do you have an opinion as to how this new agency is going to fit in and whether its stated priorities make sound administrative sense? What are your thoughts in that area?

[Ronnie Campbell]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The member points out the interesting thing about that part of the chapter, that the weaknesses we saw were in relation to how the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs had managed some of those programs. But the solutions, as the member correctly points out, need to come from CanNor, because during the course of our audit that transfer had taken place.

We haven't done any audit work on CanNor. We've had some discussions with officials. I know they're motivated and driven to take on the new responsibilities. I think they're still sort of working with the rest of the government to figure out how they would do that. But to the extent that we would come back and follow up on those recommendations, we would be following up on what CanNor might have done by then.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

You're out of time. Thank you very much, Mr. Dreeshen.

I want to come back to just one issue, Madam Auditor. I did raise it, I believe, on Tuesday, and that is this whole issue of human resources that was brought out in your audit, and thank you very much. When you look back at legislation that was passed in 2003 and implemented in 2005, I believe it was a step in the right direction. It certainly made a lot of sense to decentralize some of the human resources decisions, to put it more in the hands of the people who were...and of course do away with the concept that you had to have the best person in Canada for a good job, which was totally inconceivable.

But there's still a problem, Madam Auditor. I want to get your comment, not only from doing this audit but also as the manager of a mid-size agency here in Ottawa with 500 or 600 employees. There doesn't seem to be the planning in HR in Ottawa that I would like to see. We have an awful lot of consulting shops in Ottawa that hire out people to the government. It's very expensive for the government to operate that way. We have a tremendous number of former civil servants working as consultants, and who do they consult? You know who they consult. They consult with the federal government.

We have an awful lot of situations where civil servants retire, and you meet them on the street the next month and you ask them what they're doing: they're back working for the same department for another six months or a couple of years. We have the temp agencies. We have situations where people are employed in either term or contract jobs, which does not necessarily get you the right person. We have close associates. We have nepotism. The whole thing, in my opinion, is very inefficient and ineffectual.

I certainly like the concept of pre-qualification, not only in skill set but in language skills. Kevin Lynch, a former clerk of the Privy Council, has certainly identified this issue. I think he did a lot of work on it. Certainly, the recruitment that was done is a step in the right direction, but still we have this major problem out there. I think we're being unfair to younger Canadians who want to make a career in the public service, who are educated, and a lot of the time bilingual.

Do you have any...? I'm going to get your comments not only from preparing and supervising this audit, but also as the accounting officer of a mid-size Ottawa agency.

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you, Chair.

We haven't looked specifically at planning of human resources in this audit, but as you well know, in past audits we've certainly looked at that issue and found, I think in all the audits we did, that the planning was inadequate, that even things like succession planning was done poorly. You are right in that many people come in on a temporary basis, which I'm not convinced is the best way to get the best people to come into the public service. The change that occurred with the legislation to transfer responsibilities to deputy ministers, I personally think, is a step in the right direction. They are the best place to understand the particular needs of their departments and to hopefully put more priority on human resource management. I just don't think it ever got the attention from senior managers that it requires.

From my perspective in my office, we have the status of a separate employer, which means that we do our own hiring. We have our own classification system and we are able to be very efficient in hiring. We noted in the report we tabled on Tuesday that the average time to hire--this is from a Public Service Commission report--is more than two years.

[Ronnie Campbell]

It's longer.

[Sheila Fraser]

Anyway, it's a very long period, and it has actually gotten longer. If you're taking months and months, let alone years, to hire someone, the chance that they will find a job somewhere else is pretty high.

If the systems can't be more efficient and you can't hire people quickly, I think you're going to lose the best. That is why there is a lot of use of term positions, to get people in to do the job because the hiring process is so long and complex.

As well, there's a question about the uncertainty of funding in many cases. It's difficult to bring in people to full-time positions for a program if you don't think you will have the funding for that program next year.

There is a real need to focus on the time it takes to actually hire people. It's twenty-three and a half weeks, so it's over six months to hire. That is the average, so you can be sure there are some that are longer than that. People will turn to these other mechanisms to get the people in that they need.

I agree that there is still an issue. I do hope, though, that these changes that have been introduced by this legislation will put more focus on this and will improve some of those systems. As we point out in the report, there certainly needs to be better information on whether these objectives are actually being accomplished or not.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Madam Auditor, you see an awful lot of people who are retired, and then automatically, or within a month, they are back, either consulting to the previous department or on a six-month contract. Do you use that procedure in your office? If someone retires, are they back doing basically the same work six months later?

[Sheila Fraser]

When people are retired, for the first year, I believe, there's a clawback, so quite honestly it doesn't make a lot of economic sense for people to do that, at least for the first year--

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I think they just set up and work as a consultant--

[Sheila Fraser]

--unless they set up as a company.

We do occasionally have former people come back for very short, temporary assignments, but they would not be a large proportion of the consultants we use in our office.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I assume we're going to have a hearing on that anyway. I imagine we can explore that further.

We have a few minutes. I'm going to adjourn at 9:50, because the finance committee is coming in later and I want to make a clean transition.

Madame Beaudin, do you have a couple of questions? You have three minutes.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Don't we have committee work to do?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

No, we passed--

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Oh, you did that at the beginning.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Yes. I have an announcement, but there is no other business.

Let's say it's two minutes, Madame Beaudin, two minutes for Mr. Young, and two minutes for Mr. Shipley.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Fraser, I have one more question to ask you about information technology.

You have submitted several reports in recent years. Annual spending amounting to billions of dollars is in issue. The people at Public Works and Government Services Canada respond to you and agree with you. That's the good news. The bad news is that in spite of that, virtually nothing happens over the years. First, I wondered whether you were discouraged. Reading the report, I really wondered what the solution was. Are we going to have to call in experts and get outside advice? How can we hope that by four or five years from now things are going to get resolved?

[Sheila Fraser]

An auditor never gets discouraged.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

So much the better.

[Sheila Fraser]

We will be submitting a follow-up report in the spring on the development of technology systems. I am eager to see whether progress will be satisfactory. In the case of a majority of the follow-ups we do, we find that the government has made satisfactory progress. Some things change and some things improve. For this chapter, the government has said very clearly that it was going to get information and create a strategy within two years. We, and perhaps the committee as well, will have to follow up to find out whether a strategy has been prepared, and if so, what the nature of the strategy is. As I said earlier, I am hopeful that things will change.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Ms. Beaudin.

Mr. Young.