Government Operations Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2006

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Before I ask my next question, I just want to echo my colleague's concerns about these types of practices and say that we are grateful for the commission doing its job in auditing the practices and highlighting things like that, so that we not only do something about them but make sure they don't happen again.

My question is about the expansion of the area of selection of the public service, especially officer-level job postings. You talk about it briefly. Again, not having the opportunity to go through the report, I'm wondering if you could tell us how that is going. I know you're in a transition period now. How is that going so far, and how are you finding the progress?

[Maria Barrados]

It's very early to tell, actually. We started that on April 1, so that process is now under way. We have an evaluation going on, and we hope that by November we'll be in a position to say, yes, this is working the way we anticipate and we don't have any unanticipated problems.

I look a lot at the kinds of complaints I'm getting. We don't have too many complaints on the national area of selection, that part of it, but I am getting some complaints about the electronic screening, and we are having to make some adjustments on that.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

And the screening is part of this expansion process, right? It's actually what's making it more efficient.

[Maria Barrados]

It's actually what allows us to do it, because the volume is very high.

There was an earlier question about whether we have a recruitment problem in the public service. Overall, we do not have a recruitment problem. We have a lot of interest in public service jobs. That's not to say we don't have areas where we have some shortfalls. You've heard my colleague talk about auditors and pay clerks as being one area where we hadn't planned or anticipated filling those gaps.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Besides the issue of this electronic screening process, do you want to share with us some of the challenges--and I'm sure there are some challenges in this process--you're facing in this expansion?

[Maria Barrados]

As to my biggest challenge--and this is something I said to the Senate committee when they were discussing Senator Ringuette's bill to eliminate the flexibility to allow geographic limits on external competitions--my biggest concern is that I get workarounds and that the legislation allows managers to go for non-advertised processes if they have someone with a unique skill or they need that flexibility. There is a provision that allows that. So that's what I'm going to be watching very closely. I don't expect people to say “Well, that's too difficult; I'm going to go this route.”

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Mr. Blaney.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Barrados, distinguished guests, thank you so much for being with us this morning.

As a former member of the federal public service, I am one of the statistics you referred to in your report. Indeed, I took a leave of absence that allowed me to run in a federal election. I have a few questions for you.

In the documents that have been provided by researchers with the Commission, it is mentioned that the budget grew by 26% in the last year. To begin with, I would like you to explain the reasons for that increase. This is the first time I've had a chance to look at a report from the Public Service Commission, and just out of curiosity, I was wondering why it provides no information with respect to the size and growth of the public service. If that information is already in there, perhaps you could show me where it is.

Finally, we are aware of the fact that we're now entering a period where the available workforce is declining significantly. Job applications and offers number 750,000, which shows that the Commission is still very active in this area. However, I am wondering what steps you intend to take, if a labour shortage does materialize, to ensure that you have highly qualified people working in the civil service.

[Maria Barrados]

Perhaps you could clarify something for me. You talked about a budget increase. Are you referring to the PSC's budget?

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

I got that information from a document provided by our researchers. It states the following:

For the 2006-2007 fiscal year, the PSC plans to spend a total of $112.02 million.

And a little further on, it says:

Overall, the PSC's estimates for the current fiscal period are up 26.6% over the previous period total of $88.5 million.

[Maria Barrados]

Most of the increase we received was for computer systems. For us, they are the only way of expanding our capacity. This is an amount that is not part of the base. It will be renewed with every Treasury Board approval.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

So, in order to allow all potential candidates, all across Canada, to apply for jobs, you have to implement a selection system. That's the reason why the budget has been increased.

[Maria Barrados]

We have another explanation as well, but the most significant amount was for this particular system. I hope we will continue to receive money for that system, because it is meeting our goals. On the other hand, it is not connected to the other systems; we have to have what is known in English as a patch. It works adequately, but it doesn't allow us to move forward.

If the Committee would like, I can provide a more detailed explanation in writing with regards to the 26% budget increase.

As for the size of the public service, there is data with respect to appointments on pages 43 and 53 of our report, and the total population for the public service is given on page 44. We were very anxious to find out whether there had really been an increase.

For the year ending March 31, 2006, there are two different numbers. If the Canada Border Services Agency is included, the increase is more significant. However, if the Canada Border Services Agency is not included, the population only increased by 1.5%, which corresponds to the actual increase. So, there really isn't much change there.

In answer to your third question, I would say that, in my opinion, we do not have trouble attracting people to the public service, even though we have shortages in a few places. In such cases, we have to take special initiatives to recruit people. As well, we need a better human resources planning system, as well as a plan that will allow us to identify the areas where major shortages will occur. In that way, we will be in a better position to take special recruitment initiatives.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you, Ms. Barrados.

Ms. Thibault.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Barrados, I want to take this opportunity to come back to my two previous questions. I obviously talked too much and used almost all the time allocated, which meant that you didn't have a chance to answer.

Ms. Barrados, I asked you and your colleagues a question earlier about pay officers. Having listened to the discussion and had a chance to start reading your report, I note that it will be quite a challenge finding experienced human resources professionals. I know that you have made major recruitment efforts in that area.

Is there currently a pandemic affecting the pay processing sector? To your knowledge, is this happening only at Public Works and Government Services Canada? Do you have any involvement in recruitment?

When you advise people, what do you tell them about retention of staff? As I understand it, pay processing officers are leaving Public Works and Government Services Canada to go and work elsewhere, where they'll be a little happier. I intend to have direct discussions about this with the people involved.

Are there any problems that you are aware of? Do you have the authority to help the departments ensure that public servants are given the same decent treatment as everyone else and receive their acting pay or overtime pay?

[Maria Barrados]

Thank you for your questions.

This is a very important matter for all of us. We all receive pay cheques. But the short answer to your question is that there is currently no recruitment problem on the administrative support side of the public service. Nor is there any problem retaining staff. However, there may be shortages in some cases.

Donald can probably provide you with additional information about our involvement in that regard.

[Donald Lemaire]

The problem with respect to pay processing officers and professionals is a fairly complex one, because it is linked to classifications and specific rules. So, these are systemic issues for the employer.

As regards recruitment initiatives per se, we are working with the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada on what we call group recruitment. That is what we did to recruit experts in human resources. In that context, we identified certain characteristics that reflect the type of expertise required for pay processing. That is what we are doing with the departments and with the Agency.

In practice, we have learned that it is important to involve departments very early on, so that they agree on the process and can then select someone whose name is on the list. It is important for them to believe that if they select someone whose name is on the list, they will be satisfied, since that candidate meets and even exceeds the basic requirements.

We have had some success with that practice in the HR sector for PEs. Indeed, more than 100 candidates were appointed across a number of departments through that process.

A significant investment was needed in the initial period, but the system is much more reliable and easier to sustain over the long term. For every community, if we can call on pay processing specialists or FIs in this way, we can develop specific strategies to deal with the current situation.

Having said that, I would like to make one comment about something that is not part of my responsibilities. It has to do with policies, rules, and I don't know how many hundreds of conditions. As long as that has not been resolved, process automation will be somewhat hindered by that whole reality.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lemaire.

Ms. Barrados, my next question has to do with the motion I tabled with my colleagues earlier. I would like to talk about recent cuts that were announced on September 25. Is the Public Service Commission of Canada directly or indirectly affected, for reasons of efficiency or otherwise, by the $1 billion worth of cuts announced over a two-year period?

This was the other question you didn't have time to answer earlier.

[Maria Barrados]

We are not affected by the most recent cuts. The only unknown impact could be some interruption in the procurement system. They are currently trying to determine what amount of money will be returned. In our case, I don't get the sense that it will be a significant amount.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

When the Government says it can predict that between 300 and 400 jobs are going to disappear, we're obviously talking about targeted jobs. There won't be any indirect effect on you there either. These are highly targeted jobs at Health Canada, Canadian Heritage, the Canada Council for the Arts or Natural Resources. So, because these are occurring elsewhere, they will have no effect on your resources in your organization. Is that correct?

[Maria Barrados]

Yes, exactly.

Of course, it could affect 30 or 50 people. In that case, it might have an effect on us, and on our work, because we are responsible for managing the priority system. But otherwise, we will not be affected by these cuts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you, Ms. Barrados.

We are going to begin the final round of questioning.

You have five minutes, Ms. Nash.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

On the issue of the phantom positions, how long were they kept open for people who didn't work in them? Were they both for the same time period? How long were these jobs set out for?

[Maria Barrados]

Special assignments can be created at any time and are usually set up for a period of time. Once we revoked those positions I no longer followed those jobs, because it's fully within the discretion of a deputy head to create them. They could fill them with someone else, as long as that person had something to do and was doing it.