I'm glad you asked me that question, because it allows me to talk about a project that we have started in the Public Service Commission.
Some of my gang have been touring other practices, and we're now into extreme job makeovers. We feel they can be done in 45 days, if there's not a duty to accommodate. But that means a lot of change in how things are run. I'm saying the numbers I have here say that if you plan better, you can bring it down right away; you can get significant savings. Some of these are very large processes, and those will always take longer. By that I mean that if there's a decision that we are going to create a pool of about 35 people we can draw on when we need to, those will be much longer processes. But your single processes take too long in the government.
The reason they take too long is that people don't plan them like a project. You have to plan them like a project. You have to get in the expertise. The commission is there to help you—we're developing the expertise. And then managers have to give it the time. Significant kinds of delays occur because you can't get the board together; you have to get managers to do the interview; you have to get the managers to look at some of the applications, to discuss with their potential candidates. If you can't get them, time drags out. There are some of those really obvious ones.
There are some problems that we have in the system. Security clearance can hold up an appointment, depending upon the security of the job. It's a good question why it sometimes takes so long.
Language testing was a huge problem. We committed a terrific resource, and it brought that right down from many, many weeks to one week. I now get complaints that it's now too fast.
Duty to accommodate is a big problem, and that's one I have to put more effort into.