Evidence of meeting #27 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pco.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:55 a.m.
Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet, Legislation and House Planning and Machinery of Government, and Counsel to the Clerk, Privy Council Office
It's not something a lawyer will disclose in public. You well understand that.
11:55 a.m.
Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet, Legislation and House Planning and Machinery of Government, and Counsel to the Clerk, Privy Council Office
I'm sorry about that.
11:55 a.m.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
Let me ask you a last question on the budget.
The election finance is about $61.4 million, I take it. There has been a lot of discussion on the need for door-to-door enumeration in big cities, in areas where there is a lot of turnover. I know it's really under the Elections Act, it's up to the Chief Electoral Officer, but part of it is how much money is allocated to that area.
Has there been any discussion as to whether...because years ago we used to have door-to-door enumeration, and especially in very dense urban areas we notice that, because people move in and out so often, the list is often dramatically wrong as a result of the lack of door-to-door enumeration in those areas. Has there been any discussion of whether there should be any increase or decrease of that funding?
Noon
Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet, Legislation and House Planning and Machinery of Government, and Counsel to the Clerk, Privy Council Office
As with the whole issue of electoral reform, the role that is played by the Privy Council Office--we have a sub-secretariat that is dealing with that--is not addressing these kinds of issues. I am sorry to tell you that probably the more appropriate official to deal with something like this would be the Chief Electoral Officer. We have no responsibility with respect to that.
Noon
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Brampton South, ON
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Again, in terms of the question that I had before, I want to go back to the commission of inquiry, the investigation of the Air India flight. You had listed in your estimates, or the voted appropriations, that it was $13.5 million, and then you indicated in your opening remarks that the cost has gone up to $19.2 million in total cost. Is that total PCO cost or is that cost that may be incurred by other departments as well? Is there a cost that is absorbed by other departments or other agencies?
Noon
Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
No, this is only the costs that are projected for PCO. As I said, for this year $13.5 million is what's in the supplementary estimates, and it is expected that we will come in for another $5.7 million in the main estimates for the coming year. And that would be the total budget that's planned at this point for the commission. So a little bit over $19 million, and those are only your costs within PCO, but again of course the commission is independent, so it has its own budget. It does receive some services from PCO like financial contracting, human resource pay, things of that nature, but basically that budget is managed by Commissioner Major and his organization.
The other departments that are asked to contribute in terms of information, documentation, whatever it may be, if they have some costs to absorb, then they're not included in those estimates. PCO also has some costs that it's absorbing within its own activities in terms of providing non-corporate services support to the commission. Again, those are not included, but they're not that significant.
Noon
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Brampton South, ON
So do we have an idea of what the total cost of this inquiry would be? Are you able to gauge from what you just indicated now that the commission has its own budget? You are providing support for it and you've indicated your costs. There might be some costs associated from other departments possibly as well. So in light of all those costs that are incurred, do we have a global number that we have an idea of, or that you're tracking?
Noon
Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
No, the $19.2 million is as much as I can tell you at this point. Just to clarify, for the corporate support that we're providing we're charging back small amounts, so it's within that $19.2 million. What I was talking about is if there is time of lawyers working on the file or processing documents that are requested by the commission. I'm sure there'll be some costs associated with that, but we don't have a way to track that--
Noon
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Brampton South, ON
So if we wanted to find out the total global cost of the inquiry, how would that become public knowledge?
Noon
Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
Just like we went through with the previous inquiries, we get a lot of access to information requests or parliamentary questions,and then there have to be some estimates done, because as I said, the $19.2 million is a pretty firm number and it will be presented to Parliament as it is with the first supplementary estimates. The rest are basically costs that the departments are going to be absorbing within, and I expect that they're not going to be huge compared to the cost of setting up and running the inquiry.
Noon
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Brampton South, ON
Again going back to the expenditure review committee savings, you indicated that the $780,000 in savings is attributed to streamlining committee structure. Could you elaborate? Is it strictly based on cabinet committee meetings? Is that all the savings attributed to it or are there are other savings within that?
12:05 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
No. It's an estimate. When the public works department put forward the recommendations in terms of procurement savings, they did an analysis of the buying trends and the use of different types of contracting instruments within departments. After that, they came up with an estimate of savings by bringing more rigour through more standing offers, for example. If you're using standing offers, you should be saving some money.
They came up with a percentage that was then allocated across the board to departments. The percentage grew over a period of three years. The $780,000 represents the second year of the growth of those savings.
Basically, if we're spending a million dollars to procure temporary help services, they assume that through the instruments, the tools they're going to be developing, we may be able to save 5% or 10% of those costs. They then came up with an overall savings target.
It will take some time to determine whether the $780,000 is actually associated with real savings. All departments are struggling with that right now, but we have faith.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Brampton South, ON
Yes. I was about to say the impression one gets is that it's attributed to the savings you talked about earlier on restructuring and streamlining. But it seems to be more focused on the procurement element of this. It's a simple calculation of possible savings due to changing procurement practices, and they haven't been realized. Is that correct?
12:05 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
That's right.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Brampton South, ON
I also want to indicate that earlier when I was referring to page numbers, I was referring to the notes made by the library. There might have been some confusion, and I apologize for that.
I think one of the questions they asked is a question we'll be struggling with going forward. The PCO is responsible for it, and the clerk is the head of the public service and responsible for that particular area. One of the major concerns we foresee is the aging population and the retiring of baby boomers. A void will be left in terms of executive positions and senior positions. It's a major concern in terms of the public service.
I know you have internal management as one of your priorities, and it's an exercise that needs to be done. Is there a concrete plan in place that you have put forth or a proposal to address the issue? Is it something you are actively working on to put in place procedures and some kind of policy to deal with that issue?
It's imminent, and it's going to take place within the next few years. Rather than reacting to it, are we being proactive?
12:05 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
I think we have to describe this as a challenge the clerk has taken on and has asked all of his colleagues across the public service to take on.
In terms of concrete plans, at this point he's looking for all of us to look at what we can and should be doing and to personally become engaged in the problem. We shouldn't wait until it happens four or five years later. We should start right now.
For example, he's gone out and spoken at university campuses. He wants us to do the same thing, with senior leaders going in. You shouldn't leave it to the human resource specialists alone to try to recruit the cadre of future public servants. You should go and personally get involved. If you're a scientific manager, you know which science schools are the best and where the best students may be coming from. You need to go and talk to them about careers in the public service. He has really put the emphasis on leadership across the public service in terms of renewal.
Will there be specific programs developed and specific initiatives to respond to certain niches where there are particular problems? I am sure there will be, but it's still a process under development.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Brampton South, ON
For example, for executive level positions and senior positions, people don't get them when they initially enter the workforce or when they enter the public service. They need to be groomed in that particular area. They need training and they need experience.
The concern I have is that when we see retirement and attrition take place, all of a sudden, there's going to be a void at the senior level in terms of senior positions. We can go to campuses and recruit people, but will they be qualified for senior positions? I doubt they will be, simply because they don't have the experience or the training.
How do we deal with the issue? It's specifically what I was concerned about.
12:10 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
Yes. I guess making the public service an attractive career option not only for young people who are starting their career but for people in mid-career, as you know, is a challenge as well for a lot of reasons. We have to work on bringing people in from the outside.
Recently, for example, we ran a process by which we were looking to see if we could recruit or pre-qualify financial specialists at the senior executive level. We ran a process that was both internal and external. We were quite surprised that the majority of the candidates who qualified came from outside. For municipalities, provinces, and even the private sector, the public service can be an attractive choice. We can recruit at mid-career towards senior executives.
We also have put some good programs in place that we need to continue to nurture. We have the management trainee program, the career assignment program, and the accelerated executive development program. We have some programs, as I mentioned, for the financial community that are becoming more targeted to the needs of those communities. Again, by using those programs effectively, we will also be able to nurture the people who we need to find into senior executive positions.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
La présidente Liberal Diane Marleau
Mr. Roy, I am giving you only one minute, because we have already taken a great deal longer than expected.
12:10 p.m.
Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet, Legislation and House Planning and Machinery of Government, and Counsel to the Clerk, Privy Council Office
You know how these things are done: you start at the top and you make this a priority for everyone in the organization. The clerk has done that, and he's actually asked the number two person in PCO, Margaret Bloodworth, to lead a group of deputy ministers who are looking at recruitment, development—the very thing you're talking about—and leadership also. It is their duty to put together the kinds of programs that will filter through the organization in order to bring back that kind of talent upstream.
It's a challenge. About a month ago you may have seen the article in The Economist. It's a challenge throughout the world.
We are addressing this issue squarely by having the right people asking the right questions at the right time. From this will come, I would say, a number of programs to facilitate things, one of which is already in place. You may have seen this. It's called the Government of Canada fellows program, through which we're going to be able to exchange talent between the private sector and the federal government. People will come into our organization at fairly senior levels to understand how government operates, and we will see the great, bright ideas they have to offer us and will send some of our people to the private sector, where they will learn some of those skills and tricks, and bring them back. But this is only the start of something bigger to come.