Government Operations Committee on June 5th, 2014

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Could you be a little bit more specific about what they'll contain?

[Wayne Wouters]

Essentially what each department will determine first are what are the priorities of the department. So as the deputy of PCO, I will lay out what I think are three or four key priorities and I would expect some of those priorities to be cascaded down to the employees in my department.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

One of the things that these will contain is a grade from one to five. I think you've confirmed that. I wonder what are the potential consequences if an employee receives low ratings?

[Wayne Wouters]

Again, it depends on the individual. We expect that the bell curve will be achieved, whereby essentially most of the individuals will get threes. If it's a high performer, we will want to focus on the high performer for purposes of succession planning, and determine if the individual perhaps needs even broader experience to be promoted. If the individual is below average, below a successful level, then we'll want to find—

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Traditionally this evaluation process has been a personal process between the employee and the employer. There have been meetings to negotiate that performance and how that performance is worded. Does that kind of collaboration cease?

[Wayne Wouters]

No, in fact that's an important aspect of this particular system. Collaboration must begin with a dialogue at the start of the year on those expectations to ensure that the employee fully understands what those expectations are. Often best practices have a conversation halfway through the year where the manager will sit down with the employee, again in a dialogue, to say—

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Thanks for the confirmation. I don't have a lot of time. Five minutes is really short and I have quite a few questions, so sorry about interrupting you.

I'm a little bit worried about who will have access to these performance evaluations. Can you tell me how they're going to be accessed, who can access them, and whether or not employees will have a say in who accesses them?

[Janice Charette, Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council and Associate Secretary to the Cabinet, Privy Council Office]

Perhaps, Mr. Chair, I can try to get into some of the detail of how we're rolling it out. This is a brand new directive that came into place as of April 1 of this year. I think we're in our first year, our pilot year, of how this is going to go with a standardized approach across the whole public service. I think, as the clerk said, that for us the most important part of this is the conversation between employees and their managers.

In terms of the actual documentation, and the forms, and who can have access to them—

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

You can understand how people get worried about this being a pilot project and some of the criteria seeming, a little bit, to have been invented on the side of a table. I wonder what front-end consultation has gone on with the public service unions on this new process. Have you sat with the public service union partners around a table to talk about how this is going to fold out?

[Janice Charette]

In our system we have a deputy minister who's known as the chief human resources officer. That position is within the Treasury Board Secretariat portfolio and the chief human resources officer is really our lead in our relationship with the bargaining agents. So the CHRO, our acronym, has been having these consultations with the bargaining agents, but I'd add in addition to that—

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

On this specific issue?

[Janice Charette]

—in terms of the role of the performance management regime, and in addition within individual departments. For example in the Privy Council Office, I co-chair with the bargaining agent our National Labour Management Consultation Committee. We had a session at one of our recent meetings, which are held two or three times a year, where we actually had a conversation about how this is going to roll out in PCO and what the process was going to be, and what individual employees can expect, because I think your point is that we have to make sure that employees feel comfortable in this new regime.

There have been training workshops held for employees as well as for managers so that they know what to expect. It is being done in a standardized way. It isn't being invented, it is actually being done in a very highly professional way, which I think is reinforcing the kind of good behaviour and good performance that all public servants want to give in their jobs.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

I am sorry, but I must interrupt you. Thank you.

Mr. O'Connor now has the floor for five minutes.

[Gordon O'Connor, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, CPC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Wouters, and Ms. Charette.

I'm going to get down to a more specific issue. The crossing at Windsor-Detroit, I think, is the biggest crossing that we have between ourselves and the United States. I understand that we're investing in a bridge there and I've heard of other problems from the federal government. I wonder if you could just clarify for me what the situation is with that crossing.

[Wayne Wouters]

Mr. Chairman, I'm happy to be here to talk about my report to the public service.

This was not a subject that I was asked to comment on, but if the committee is willing, we're prepared to follow up on it and see if we can find a response to that point.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you for the reminder.

I would ask committee members to focus as much as possible on the report, as that is what our witnesses are prepared to speak to.

[Gordon O'Connor]

That's fine.

From 2006 upward, we increased the public service by I think 31,000 or 32,000. In the last few years there have been reductions of the public service.

Can you tell me where we are now in the reduction process? How many jobs have been reduced through attrition or whatever?

[Wayne Wouters]

Actually, what we did as a result of the last deficit reduction exercise, which we call DRAP, was to reduce the number of positions by over 19,000. I believe the number is 19,200.

We're well on track to achieve that. We're probably around 3,000 short of our target, so it's around 16,000. I have to say that we've been able to deal with about 9,000 of those positions through attrition. For many others, we've been able to find other employment for the public servants.

Overall, I think we've managed this very, very well by directly dealing with those affected, either allowing them to retire or leave the public service, or find other jobs within the public service.

So that's where we are right now.

[Gordon O'Connor]

When I was in the military, I think we went through three management systems while I was there. It always seemed that every few years we'd come up with a new management system.

Essentially you've come up with a new management system, and I'm wondering, what's the likelihood that it's actually going to be implemented?

[Wayne Wouters]

Thank you for that comment.

Yes, we are coming up with a new management system. I think it's been evolving over the last three to four years.

I guess would make a few comments on this. If you look at the public service of Canada, the structure of the Government of Canada, we have been essentially built up department by department over the last 50 years. We adopted technology in each department, in each agency, and through that, everyone developed their own system. We had separate HR systems, separate finance systems, and separate procurement systems, with 65 different e-mail systems. Not only did we build them up in each department, but because of the vast geography of this country, we had to build that out across the country.

You know, that all worked; technology was the adapter, the enabler. But I think what we see now in organizations, in the private sector and in other governments, is that it's not as efficient as it can be. Many of these functions are repetitive functions. Take accounts payable as an example. Do we need every department to have an accounts payable shop when you can actually bring this together? Technology allows us to do this.

I think the overall management objective here is to begin to consolidate. First, standardize so that we don't have all these different IT systems. We should have one HR IT system. We should have one finance IT system. We are now standardizing so that we will have one.

Once you can standardize, then you can consolidate those repetitive functions. Your strategic HR people always have to stay in the departments. You need those strategic people. But pay, for example, has already been consolidated. We've modernized our pay system. It was a 40-year-old system. We now have a new pay system, because you know what? When people don't get paid, they're not happy. That was beginning to happen with our old system.

Not only did we change the system, but we also consolidated all of the pay advisory functions in New Brunswick. They're in New Brunswick, in Miramichi. We did the same with pensions. We now have a new pension system, and we've brought the pension advisers into Shediac, New Brunswick. Those are great jobs in that part of the region. We have people who want to work there and who stay there.

And guess what? It creates economies of scale in providing advice to employees who want advice on their pensions. By consolidating, you take advantage of economies of scale. It's more effective, it's more efficient, and I think that is the model we're driving at.

Yes, we are implementing it. We've completed our pay modernization. We've completed pension and we've pretty well completed pay. The other area is Shared Services Canada, which is bringing together all our e-mail and our data centres. Do you know that we have over 400 data centres, as we call them? I probably have a data centre; I have a server in my office. We think we can get down to six or seven. Again, it's consolidation and standardization of some of that back office, which will allow us to be more effective and efficient.

I could talk about the management structure around the front office as well, delivering services to Canadians and making it less complicated for them to deal with their government.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you.

[Wayne Wouters]

So, yes, it is a different management model.

The other point I would make is that this is not rocket science. Many organizations have done it before. It's not that we're breaking new ground in every area. We're learning a lot as we do it, but we think we can manage the risks. When you were in the Treasury Board, you heard a lot about IT projects going wrong. Let me tell you that we learned a lot about that. I think we can manage major IT projects as well as any organization in Canada. We know where to put the off-ramps, we know how to look at this, because a lot of this is IT-enabled. You've got to have that capacity and knowledge to manage IT to make this happen, and we feel we're pretty good at that now.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you, Mr. Wouters.

Mr. Byrne now has the floor for five minutes.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

An issue of integrity of the staffing function within the public service was recently put under the microscope at a partner set of federal agencies, ACOA and ECBC. This situation dates back to as early as 2010, and potentially even earlier. Certain staffing decisions came up seriously wanting and short—clearly short of the integrity function of the public service. This determination was not made by me, but by the Public Service Commission and the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner working independently of each other.

What makes the situation particularly troublesome is that the situation was not a single isolated event, by the evidence, but a serial one, and one with clear political overtones. In 2011, ACOA P.E.I. was investigated by the Public Service Commission. In the longest investigation ever conducted by the Public Service Commission, it was found that a regional director general and a director general for ACOA P.E.I., Kevin MacAdam and Shawn Masterson, were hired through failings in the hiring process.

The Public Service Commission issued reports that called for the revoking of their appointments. As a result, reprimands were issued to Pat Dorsey and Kent Estabrooks, and I understand that even the president of ACOA lost his ability to hire for three years. Kevin MacAdam and Kent Estabrooks and Pat Dorsey filed judicial reviews of the situation and lost.

More recently—and this is where the serial component comes in—the VP of the Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation, John Lynn, was part of the hiring of Nancy Baker, Ken Langley, Rob MacLean, and Allan Murphy.

Mr. Wouters, Nancy Baker and Ken Langley have since retired or are now in joint political staff within the current government, but Rob MacLean and Allan Murphy are rolled into the public service. They maintain their roles within ECBC because they were investigated by the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner not by the Public Service Commission, because the Public Service Commission had no power over ECBC, as a crown corporation. They're still there and they're about to become part of the public service because ECBC is about to be dismantled and rolled into ACOA.

Do you have any thoughts as to how the hiring process related to two public servants, who would otherwise be dismissed or their appointments revoked? Should Rob MacLean and Allan Murphy now be rolled into the public service?

[Wayne Wouters]

First, the Public Service Integrity Commissioner undertook an investigation of Mr. Lynn, and as you know, the appointment of Mr. Lynn was terminated by the minister on May 27. As far as other employees are concerned, I'm not prepared to comment on that for privacy reasons.