No, that's not the norm. That's longer than it normally takes.
This case is particularly challenging because of two main issues. On the one hand there was a desire to have this position classified at the most senior level possible. It's an important position and function and you would want it to be as senior as possible.
On the other hand it fits within an existing structure. Under the legislation the parliamentary budget officer is an officer of the Library of Parliament, so this person answers to the parliamentary librarian. That tells you something about where it's placed in terms of classification. With classification you don't look at one position independently; you look at it in relation to other positions within that organization. There was a bit of a ceiling that we were dealing with in terms of classification of the parliamentary librarian position.
We considered the possibility of completely disregarding the relativity with other positions and just classifying it at the level we thought was right. But there are nine other Governor in Council positions within Parliament, and if we did away with relativity for the purposes of this position, then we could imagine that the nine other positions would ask to be reclassified as well. People expect to be reclassified upwards, not downwards. We would have had an impact on nine positions, which may not be a good idea from the perspective of taxpayers.
In light of those two competing pressures, we came up with a classification of one level below the level of the parliamentary librarian. Because of the function of the budget officer, we thought it was important to give it an additional level of independence that is not subject to performance pay; that is, the Governor in Council won't be determining performance pay for that position. It was put in a range called the GCQ range--“Q”, as in quasi-judicial function--in order to afford it that level of independence.
It ended up being classified at the level of GCQ-5, which is just below the equivalent for the parliamentary librarian, who is a GC-6.