Government Operations committee  In the other program, when it's a government outreach to the private sector, no, but in programs where any department is involved in setting up criteria for hiring public servants, absolutely, yes, because we are very preoccupied that those not be biased or introduce bias.

Government Operations committee  Yes. When the Public Service Modernization Act was going through, there were a couple of decisions made to strengthen the independence of the Public Service Commission. One was the appointment of the head and the dismissal of the members of the commission. The second one was to provide a clause that would give the commission a direct report, allowing the commission to report at any time it felt it was important to report to Parliament.

Government Operations committee  The Clerk of the House of Commons and the law clerk.

Government Operations committee  That's not to say they will all retire. We see some very interesting patterns in the public service. Human resource management specialists hit 55 and retire. Maybe they know something; I don't know, but they may. A lot of the others leave over a five or six-year period. It depends really on the work they're doing.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Kramp, this committee is exactly the kind of process I look for. It is very important for me and my organization that we have the dialogue with this committee, because having members of Parliament ask questions on the record focuses the mind, the minds of all the people, and the subjects, which you touch here.

Government Operations committee  We have the same issues in the public service that many have. We had large numbers come into the public service in the seventies; they have moved their way through, and they're all beginning to retire at about the same time. In my organization, we have moved from the actual doing of the staffing to providing a staffing service to try to help departments deal with this issue.

Government Operations committee  We're quite concerned about all of those things, and I can address some of the issues without starting to pull out all the specific numbers—but we can get you specific numbers. Under the previous legislation, there was the requirement that public service jobs first be posted within the public service.

Government Operations committee  Now you're getting to the really tricky part. Your question is anticipating my next comment a bit. In the past—and we're in a transition now—there was a restriction. There was an ability to restrict the geographic area of competition. So any public service manager could decide to allow jobs, if there was one in Ottawa, only from Ottawa-Gatineau, for example, or if it was in Toronto, from only around Toronto.

Government Operations committee  Most members of this committee know that I was at the Office of the Auditor General before taking up my position here at the Public Service Commission. Neither the human resources planning framework nor the financial planning framework is very solid, and we would like to integrate these two frameworks.

Government Operations committee  We have our annual report coming out. We are aiming for or working on a date for the first week in the month of October. It depends, of course, whether Parliament is sitting, so we have to be flexible. We are also looking at the appointments in the EX group, which is an audit we expect to have come out.

Government Operations committee  The federal student employment program is the summer student employment. There was an audit done three or four years ago that raised a lot of concerns about targeting, not giving students fair access. This audit has gone back to make sure there are improvements. Our strategy is that we identify problems and keep coming back.

Government Operations committee  The case of the Canadian Space Agency is a serious one. We developed a process to determine whether or not organizations are ready to receive the new authority, which gives agencies and departments more powers. The preliminary results of our audit showed that the CSA did not comply whit the delegation conditions, and from the outset, we rescinded some of the staffing authorities, including the authority to staff senior management positions.

Government Operations committee  We have revoked appointments in other situations. By way of its new approach, the PSC has strengthened its decision-making process. A decision concerning the Privacy Commissioner is one good example. We had imposed conditions and rescinded authorities. At the time, this committee was very much involved in these decisions.

Government Operations committee  There is a confusion in terms of what is the size of the public service. There are many different numbers. It depends upon the definition you put to it.

Government Operations committee  What we're including in that number is the number of full-time and term employees. We include casuals as well. So it's all the people who are employed, but in the core public service. We're distinguishing between the core—and that essentially is those employees who fall under the Public Service Employment Act—and the non-core, which are other public servants such as the Armed Forces, the armed police, and crown corporations.