Evidence of meeting #39 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was servants.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
Our relationships with the bargaining agents are quite good, but there are some areas that we don't agree on. We have those discussions.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Mr. Gravelle, is that it? You have more time.
All right. I'd like to ask something. You do not have to respond here. You can send your response to us. You talked about critical analysis and skills required. You talked about impartiality, and I reflected on how I jealously guard the demarcation between parliamentarians and the public service, because that's the crux of civil society. There is a problem in third-world countries because that doesn't happen.
How do you maintain integrity in the public service without having political interference? Whatever government it is, how do you maintain it? How do you police it?
There are five minutes for Madam Foote.
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
Can I answer that briefly before we carry on?
Liberal
Judy Foote Liberal Random—Burin—St. George's, NL
I won't ask that one, Madam Chair.
Thank you for being here today as witnesses. I recall that when you were here before, we talked about temporary workers and casual employees. We had a discussion about positions that could go unadvertised and how it was a serious issue within the public service. You said that any position could essentially go unadvertised and that the commission was objecting to that. It was insisting that there be a policy and a rigorous set of requirements.
Have you made any headway on that initiative?
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
I think we have. We've done two things. It's part of the big package. First, we've looked at how departments were giving us those numbers on unadvertised positions. I'm a strong believer in managing to numbers, but then I worry about whether they're sound or not, and we actually don't have a very good number on how many unadvertised positions there are, because it's very manual. We are making moves to think of ways in which we can automate this better so that we can have more confidence in our numbers
Given my worries about the numbers, though, we've seen some drop-off in the number of unadvertised positions, particularly from into the public service. Where we still have a very large number of unadvertised is for the longer acting appointments, and this actually gives public servants a lot of concern, because if you get named in an unadvertised manner to an acting position, your chances of getting that position—if it's a promotion—go from about 6% to 40%. That's an area where public servants are unhappy, because they feel they don't have the same opportunities as others. I still see a lot of usage.
Liberal
Judy Foote Liberal Random—Burin—St. George's, NL
When you say that you don't have a lot of confidence in the numbers you're getting from the departments, why is that?
November 5th, 2009 / 4:10 p.m.
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
Because the systems in place to collect the data are not very good. We looked at four departments. There was one that had it fully automated. You could get a number and it would come from their automated system. The others actually did it manually. We would ask for a quarterly report and they would go back and look at all their posters and processes and have somebody count them. Well, that sets up all kinds of errors.
Liberal
Judy Foote Liberal Random—Burin—St. George's, NL
Whose responsibility is it, then, to make sure that the system is better organized and able to respond to the concerns you're expressing and that are being recognized?
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
It's a multiple set of responsibilities. Our responsibility is to set out what the framework is, but it is on the side of the employer and the Treasury Board Secretariat to provide that leadership and guidance on actual systems and tools.
There are some parts of human resource management in which we are actually making tools available, such as for the application processes. We are continuing to work on that, but the management systems in a department really fall under the Treasury Board Secretariat.
Liberal
Judy Foote Liberal Random—Burin—St. George's, NL
Are you getting pushback from Treasury Board in terms of trying to improve the systems?
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
I think there's a pretty clear recognition that the Government of Canada has lagged in investing in systems and in bringing what's generally termed “back office processes” up to standard.
The Prime Minister has set up an advisory group of experts. In one of its reports, this advisory group in fact said how important it was to be investing in these major systems.
Liberal
Judy Foote Liberal Random—Burin—St. George's, NL
Are these reports available or are they confidential?
Liberal
Judy Foote Liberal Random—Burin—St. George's, NL
Okay.
You talked about the PSC observing new challenges this year with respect to protecting the value of non-partisanship. Could you give some examples, please, of the challenges?
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
We actually gave examples of a couple of cases.
In one case, an individual was an executive assistant to the Clerk of the Privy Council, working in the Privy Council Office and supporting the clerk, who is the deputy to the Prime Minister. This individual decided to take a job in the Office of the Leader of the Opposition. Is this appropriate? Is it non-partisan behaviour or not?
We investigated that case and concluded that it was not a problem of improper partisan behaviour; the individual was looking for another job. But it raised all kinds of other problems in terms of conflict of interest and how many people you can have in the public service who go and work for political offices?
I cited the case of the individual going to work for the Leader of the Opposition, but I could also cite you cases of public servants working for ministers--so working in a political function--and coming back into the public service.
My question is, how much of this can we have and what kinds of fences should be put around it?
Bloc
Jean Dorion Bloc Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC
Thank you.
Ms. Barrados, Mr. Ste-Marie, Mr. Lemaire, thank you for being here.
I read this document on the career paths of employees in the Public Service of Canada. My understanding is that when public servants are recruited, 21.9% of those whose first language is English are bilingual, which is slightly more than a fifth of the people recruited. Is that correct?
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
I have two numbers and am going to ask my colleague to complete my answer.
That number applies only to that sample for that study. If memory serves, the percentage of bilingual employees recruited into the Public Service is a bit higher than the percentage of bilingual employees in the country as a whole.
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
It's farther down. Based on that sample.
Bloc
Jean Dorion Bloc Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC
Page 9 of that document states that 21.9% of employees whose first official language is English are bilingual. There is no mention of a specific sample. That seems to cover all employees recruited into the Public Service.
President, Public Service Commission of Canada
Last year, the number was around 30%, I am going to check. My colleague may have the answer.
