Government Operations Committee on May 2nd, 2013

[Mario Dion]

I'm not a statistician. I'm just a lawyer. There are 375,000 public servants in the federal public sector. The number of disclosures last year was 113. This is a very small number compared to the size of the federal public sector: 365 days a year, 24-7, 113 disclosures. I think we could have much more than that.

It is increasing. The only factor I can think of is that more people are becoming aware of this avenue and they're using it. The potential is much greater, in my view, just mathematically speaking. The definition of wrongdoing is very vast as well, in section 8 of the act. I'm sure there are thousands of wrongdoings that could be disclosed.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

One thing puzzled me. In your opening remarks I got the impression that you were pretty well going to solve all the cases that were brought to you. When I read your plans and priorities, you say that your target is only 60%, in terms of the number of cases resolved as a percentage of the number of investigations. That suggests you'll only resolve 60% of your cases.

[Mario Dion]

No. We're talking about the timeliness with which we resolve them. At that point in time we had created an objective of resolving 60% within a set period of time.

We actually mean within the time targets. The document is not clear. Of course, every case that comes to us will be dealt with. In the case of a disclosure of wrongdoing, the final outcome is that either we determine there was no wrongdoing and we close the file, or we determine there was wrongdoing and we file a case report in Parliament.

Every case, all 113 cases that were filed, either will be closed because there is no evidence of wrongdoing or will be the subject of a case report to Parliament.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Only 60% of them will be....

[Mario Dion]

They will be done within the timeframe that we had set for that fiscal year.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

That suggests you have a problem, because your expenditure levels are going down and your cases have doubled. That means 40% of them won't be resolved in the appropriate time period.

[Mario Dion]

Mr. Chair, I'm aware that I'm talking to an economist, who has a distinct advantage. I'm just a lawyer. I went into law because of mathematics.

When I started two-and-a-half years ago, there were 14 employees in the office. We now have 28. There has been a gradual process. We've doubled the workforce. We've recruited competent people to do the work within the same initial budget that was available. That's why I'm so confident that at this stage, this morning, I'm able to say we will dispose of cases in no more than one year when we investigate.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

Turning to Ms. Robinson, the government has said that cuts would be 70% back office. Have you achieved that objective?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

In terms of our own organization, much of what the Public Service Commission does is internal to government. We of course have our oversight activities where we work with internal departments to audit and to conduct investigations in staffing activities. It depends, I guess, on how you categorize that. Of course, we do that as well as an activity to report to Parliament on the assurance of the system. We also provide staffing services to departments, which are internal services. If you put those in the category of internal to government, that's where all of the reductions took place.

We do provide some services to Canadians, of course, through our job portal. When Canadians want to apply for a job in the federal public service, they use our electronic recruitment system. None of that has been changed.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

In all our conversations with Treasury Board, we've been unable to get a definition of what exactly the back office costs are. You represent the Public Service Commission, so maybe you can give us a definition of exactly what a back office cost is.

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

It would not be part of my mandate, I'm afraid, to give the definition. From my experience, I consider back office costs certainly anything in the corporate service area—HR, finance, and those functions. We tend to consider those to be back office functions. Within each program, sometimes there are administrative functions that can be part of the back office. I tend to categorize them as administrative functions.

Much of what we do at the commission is internal to government to support and serve the staffing system.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Your report also says that the priority administration program is a significant pressure on resources and also that the shift in demand from certain services is putting pressure on the commission's capacity to reallocate resources in a timely and effective manner.

If you have pressures in these areas and you're reducing your overall costs, what's getting cut?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

The things that are being cut are the things that I mentioned at the beginning. We are closing two regional offices, amalgamating some management structures. We've closed our library and we resized our corporate service function. Having said that, I do acknowledge that we do continue to have some pressure and it is....

What we have is some areas of the commission where the demand has decreased because the volume of staffing services is declining. So the demand for that part of our work is decreasing. What we've done in some cases is that we've redeployed some of those persons to work in the priority admin system because they have similar skills and expertise.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Mr. McCallum.

Next for the Conservatives, Kelly Block.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair, and I too would like to join my colleagues in welcoming you here today.

My first question is for you, Commissioner Dion. In your opening statement you said that when you receive a disclosure or a complaint of reprisal, that it is your role first to decide whether the case warrants a full-fledged investigation or not. I'm wondering if you could explain for us the process or the criteria that you use in determining whether it is a full-fledged investigation that is needed when you receive a complaint.

[Mario Dion]

First of all, everything we do in this office—I do and the office does—is governed by the statute, which is a very detailed statute and provides the commissioner with a lot of discussion vis-à-vis how to use those limited resources that are available to make those decisions.

A case comes in typically in writing. It is typically incomplete. So there's an intake officer who basically reviews the content of the disclosure, determines whether additional information is needed in order to properly analyze whether it falls within our statute and gets the additional information, comes to.... There are sections in the act that allow the commissioner to.... First of all, there are sections that say I can not deal with something, for instance, that's currently before a court. That's one example where I have an absolutely mandatory obligation not to investigate.

I have a number of situations where I have to weigh whether it's sufficiently important. So if you have a disclosure involving a very small sum of money, I have to make a decision as to whether it's worth investing in an investigation. Or if something has taken place a long time ago, that's another factor that the act indicates I should take into account in determining whether to investigate.

There are situations where we very often find ourselves in a situation where another duly established body could deal with it. For instance, if somebody comes to us and discloses an allegation of racial discrimination for instance, the act makes it clear that I may decide to simply indicate to the person to go the Human Rights Commission, which is equipped to handle those complaints.

The same is true of staffing irregularities. We do receive several cases every year in which the central issue is one having to do with staffing. In which case I typically refuse to deal with it and indicate to the person that they should go to the Public Service Commission, which is much better equipped to review staffing matters.

That's how we do it. The commitment is to make this decision in no more than 90 days so that the person actually knows where her complaint or his complaint is going.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

You have about two minutes left, Kelly.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Okay, great.

My next question is for you, Ms. Robinson.

I'm looking at your report on plans and priorities and note that you talk about three priorities in your opening message. You also talk about your first priority, which is to provide ongoing independent assurance to Parliament in relation to the performance of the staffing system and in doing so, that you will continue to focus on your core activities.

Now you may have explained some of that in your testimony and in answer to other questions, but I'm wondering if you could just provide me with an understanding of what those core activities are.

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

Thank you very much.

They generally relate to our oversight of the staffing system. We have an audit program whereby we audit each department on a seven-year cycle, and so we directly examine their staffing files and their systems and controls and procedures around staffing to assure ourselves that they're managing their delegations appropriately.

We also have an investigations function. In a year, we receive in the range of 500 requests for investigations, and complete 100 investigations on average, and again those relate to situations with respect to a staffing transaction. For example, under a fraud investigation, one might find that someone has submitted a false diploma or something like that, just to give you an example.

We also have a reporting function whereby departments are required to report annually to the commission on certain staffing patterns and tendencies within their organization. It's another way that we survey the staffing system and assure ourselves that people are respecting the authority delegated from the commission to departments and agencies.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

You have 30 seconds. Do you have another question?

No? Thank you very much, Kelly. That concludes our first round of questioning.

I'm interested from the chair's point of view, and perhaps committee members would be interested as well. The Public Service Commission is one of the oldest institutions and agencies in the system, isn't it? It goes back to what, 1920 or 1910?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

It goes back to 1908.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Yes. My understanding is that it was created to prevent nepotism and to promote fairness in hiring. But I notice in your report on plans and priorities that you report to the Minister of Heritage. So is this an independence shift? It used to be an independent agency, and it was set up to prevent interference and nepotism and favouritism. Now you don't report to Parliament, you report to a minister, whereas Monsieur Dion is completely independent as an officer of Parliament and reports to Parliament, as I'm sure is vital in the type of business he's in.

Do you know anything about the history? When did it shift happen from being an independent office to essentially a part of government?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

I can't give you the full history but I can say that in 2005 when the new act was put in place, I believe the independence of the commission was strengthened in some ways. If I could clarify for the purposes of our reporting to government on the use of our financial authorities through the FAA, yes, I do report through a minister, and I am of course required to follow all the same guidelines from Treasury Board around how we manage our contracting expenses, etc.

But for the purposes of exercising our oversight functions, I do so independently from government. While our report is tabled in Parliament by the Minister of Heritage, he does not directly intervene in that report in any way. It is done independently by the commission. I believe the systems are set up to support the system functioning in that way.

I would go back, again, to when I referred to how some aspects of the commission have been strengthened. Since 2005 the appointment of the president of the commission has been done through the parliamentary process, and I believe that only Parliament can dismiss me, the president of the commission. So I think that made it in some ways like the other agents of Parliament who also have that protection.

So I believe I function independently when it comes to substantively reporting on our oversight activities, and I have not experienced any interference in the time I've been in this office.