Evidence of meeting #33 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was environment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
We will take your suggestion into consideration.
Bloc
Bernard Bigras Bloc Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
You also seem to be having issues in labour management. That's rather clear. You explained it to us. However, you say that your department has adopted measures to address these issues. On page 5 of your brief, you state the following:
By committing resources to specifically deal with backlog files, particularly the older requests, we have reduced our overall backlog by more than 28% since the 2008-2009 reporting period.
I understand this, but if my daughter's report card contained an F, which is worse than a failure, I would sit down with her and would propose that we come up with a plan and set some goals.
You have made improvements, but have you set any objectives? The backlog has been reduced, and we are very glad to hear that, but has a recovery plan been implemented in the department to remedy the problem?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
Yes. We have developed a plan, specifically for addressing all of the commissioner's recommendations. In some cases, it's possible to set specific targets, but in other areas, things are a bit more complicated. As for our professional development program, it's somewhat difficult to accurately estimate staffing actions for a given year. Regardless of that, we do have a specific plan in place. I think it's been posted online. For instance, the average document retrieval time used to be 26 days, and it's now 18 days. Our goal is to reduce it to 13 days.
Bloc
Director General, Corporate Secretariat, Department of the Environment
In the case of backlogs, we want our compliance rate, or the percentage of requests we respond to on time, to exceed 85% in the short term. It goes without saying that we would like our compliance rate to reach 100%, but we know that's almost impossible to achieve.
Bloc
Bernard Bigras Bloc Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Okay. Management wise, have you established a monitoring committee to ensure that the objectives are met?
Director General, Corporate Secretariat, Department of the Environment
Yes. As a member of the departmental management committee, I have specific objectives regarding targets to be met. As Mr. Hamilton said earlier, these objectives are regularly monitored by the management committee.
Bloc
Bernard Bigras Bloc Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
It looks like you are having a very hard time retaining your employees. Your results seem to be very poor, which is indicative of a systemic issue. It's not just one particular sector that's doing poorly, but rather the whole system.
You have implemented a training plan, but have you tried finding resources outside your department to address your shortfalls? According to the commissioner's report, the government is not doing well. Even the confidence in the system is being put to the test.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
As for the difficulty in retaining experts in our field, the problem is not exclusive to the Department of the Environment. Many other departments are experiencing the same difficulties. We are interested in the employees of other departments, but those departments are also interested in our employees. That's why it's difficult to retain highly qualified staff. I will ask Mr. Bernier to provide you with more details on the issue.
Director General, Corporate Secretariat, Department of the Environment
First of all, retaining employees is not really a problem for us. We went through a difficult period in 2007-2008 and 2008-2009, and our struggles are reflected in the report data. Some people retired, and some employees left to work for other departments. This period coincided with the time when all government agencies were subject to the Access to Information Act, so the demand was high. The demand exceeded the supply, which is still the case.
You probably understand that becoming an access to information officer requires time, training and a knowledge of the department. We're talking about employees that can't be recruited haphazardly. We must recruit from very restrictive pools. So, retention is not an issue. The issue is finding qualified personnel.
You mentioned that we have implemented a training plan. We have also implemented a plan for employee development. We are now recruiting “junior” employees who don't necessarily have experience in access to information, but who do possess basic skills in document revision and analysis. We train employees, so that they can move up to a “senior” level after a period of time.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you for being here today to talk about this important subject with us.
I want to continue with this question of retention and recruitment of folks who do the ATIP work. You mentioned, Mr. Hamilton, that there are 15 employees in the access to information office at Environment Canada.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Are all those positions currently filled with permanent employees?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
Yes, that's the number of people who are there. Actually, if we had our full complement, I believe we'd be around 20 people. We haven't quite got up yet to where we need to be.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
In terms of the training program that you've instituted, how many people are involved within the department?
Director General, Corporate Secretariat, Department of the Environment
We're talking about a development program. We recruited four people during the first hiring wave. We implemented the development program in April 2010. Initially, we were able to recruit four people under the program. We have just publicly announced a second round of staffing actions.
I want to make it clear that our capacity to absorb new staff is somewhat limited because new employees are trained by senior officers. As we don't have many senior officers, our capacity to absorb staff is limited. This is why we are hoping that, if the program is successful, the resulting benefits will be felt in the medium term as well as in the long term.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Can you help me understand what the different requirements for training someone in the ATIP requirements of Environment Canada would be as opposed to another government department? I guess the background question is, why was it necessary for Environment Canada to come up with its own training program on this matter within the department? Why not use something that was across government, for instance?
Director General, Corporate Secretariat, Department of the Environment
I can't tell you why this program is not used across government. We established the program at Environment Canada because a person must have a solid knowledge of the law in order to become a good access to information officer. That goes for all the departments. The legal side of the training is the same for everyone.
However, employees also need to have a sound knowledge of issues specific to each department. They need to know about the access to information requests that are problematic, that may take longer to process, that are complex and that require research and involve a lot of document review. In order to refer requests to the appropriate department section and to then conduct the proper document review, we need people who have a sound knowledge of the department. So the program contains a component that is common to all departments, which is the law, but it also contains a component that is based on the knowledge of each department.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
If I could just add to what Pierre was saying, as I said, there's a common element and there is an element specific to Environment Canada. Other departments are doing this, too. We're not the only department in town that has instituted such a program just for that reason. It's part of the best practices that we look to mirror.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Is there any concerted effort to share information about these kinds of programs across the government? Or is everybody doing their own thing and you happen to hear it about once in a while when you get together for a meeting?
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
I think Pierre, and certainly Shelley, are quite actively involved. It's something that we all are dealing with to varying degrees of success, and there's a common element in the types of issues we need to handle. There's a pretty active attempt at best practices. We're learning lessons as well, learning from the good and the bad. I think we all know that none of us can solve this thing alone. There's always a good idea out there somewhere that we can pick up on.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Is there any perception problem among public servants about doing this kind of work in a department? Do people feel that it's a dead end, career-wise, to become involved in the access to information side of a department's activities? Is there a perception problem with doing this kind of work in the department or in any government department that you're aware of ?
