Government Operations Committee on Dec. 10th, 2013

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

Under the Public Service Employment Act, there are 200,000 public servants, but—

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Last year, then, for how many of them would the corrective measure have been, like, “Sorry, you're terminated”?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

In 2012-13 the commission revoked nine appointments. That's the term used under the law: those appointments were “revoked”. Those persons no longer had employment in the public service.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Okay. That's what I was trying to understand.

Out of 200,000 employees, you've only had nine that you've had to dismiss.

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

I should clarify that the jurisdiction of the commission only relates.... These are investigations that relate to the question of—

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Fraud.

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

No, fraud vis-à-vis an appointment process; there may have been other public servants who for different reasons had been let go from the public service.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

But that doesn't fall under the commission.

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

That's correct.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Okay. Got it.

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

So the nine just have to do with revocations of appointments, where the appointment process itself was somehow flawed.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

I'm glad you clarified that, because I found that extremely puzzling. I thought you either have a really great workforce or you...I don't know.

I want to go to your statement on your “non-partisan” public service. What do you mean by that? Are you saying that in the workplace they are not to display any leanings toward one party over another? Is it just a training that our public servants have so that...?

Can you maybe elaborate on that?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

The Public Service Commission's role vis-à-vis non-partisanship and the primary way we ensure non-partisan public service is to ensure that the appointment itself is based on merit and is free from political influence. So that's a big part of what we do.

We are also responsible for regulating political activities of public servants, and there are two main categories. If a public servant, for example, wants to be a candidate in an election, we have a regime in place such that the public servant must come to the commission and ask for permission. Depending on the nature of the election and the nature of their duties, they would normally take a leave of absence, and then in a federal election, if they were elected, they would resign from their position. For municipal elections, depending on their position and the nature of their duties, they may or may not take a leave of absence.

We also provide guidance to public servants. Public servants under the Public Service Employment Act do have a right to engage in political activities, provided that engagement does not impair their ability to conduct their job in a politically impartial manner. So for example, if you're a very senior public servant, what you could do would be extremely restricted. There are many public servants, for example, in administrative jobs, who do have rights and they may well be able to engage in political activities, because they are in positions that are not highly visible and the nature of their duties is such that they wouldn't put the impartiality of the public servant at risk.

Having said that, while at work and while carrying out their functions, all public servants must conduct their duties in a politically impartial manner.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you. I have to interrupt you here to yield the floor to Mr. Martin for five minutes.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Ms. Robinson. It's a pleasure to see you and your associates again.

I have been following and tracking the Public Service Commission for quite a few years now, and I welcome your annual report. It's very helpful for us to see trends and patterns as well as some themes and some problems that simply don't go away, which I can point to as well. You prefaced your remarks under hiring and staffing this year with the phrase that this was an unusual year in many ways, in that many were focusing on redeployment. I see that as a diplomatic way of saying there was pandemonium in the public service with all of the cutting and hacking and slashing that went on, and the problems that all of those create in terms of redeploying people who are declared surplus but who have a right to be re-employed elsewhere.

My question has to do with the second paragraph in which you say that with all of this redeployment going on, the actual overall population covered by the act declined by 5.4%. Can you tell me how many bodies that means, how many persons' jobs that 5.4% less than the previous year represents?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

Thank you for the question.

The population declined from around 211,000 to in the range of 200,000. Those are approximate numbers. I can ask one of my colleagues—

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

It was 11,000. No, that's plenty close enough for our purposes.

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

It was in the range of 10,000. That would be under the Public Service Employment Act.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Yes.

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

There are departments that are not under our act.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

So just doing the quick math at, say, a total cost of $100,000 per employee with salary and benefits, etc., that would be $1.1 billion cut from the public payroll. If you take $100,000 times 11,000 people—I think I've counted up the zeros—that would be $1.1 billion in savings, for all this cutting, hacking, and slashing that has gone on.

But on the other side of the coin, one of the recurring themes that you and your predecessor, Madame Barrados, have always brought to our attention is the overwhelming proliferation of contracting out and hiring temporary services because of the problem you identified—that it takes 5.5 months just to hire somebody. It took 4.5 months in 2011, and 5.5 months in 2012.

Government departments that are left short by cutbacks end up going to temporary help services. Can you tell me how much money the government is spending per year then on...? It's $459 million on managerial consulting. How much is being spent on temporary staff? Can you help me with that figure?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

Thank you for the question.

The commission does not have that information. Temporary help and contracting of agencies are under the responsibility, I believe, of Public Works, shared with Treasury Board policy. The commission does monitor the use of casual workers, but not temporary help in particular, because it's not under our jurisdiction.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

So you can't help us connect those dots. I thought it was one of the things that Madam Barrados raised with us a number of times, the use of Kelly Services' secretarial workers. These businesses are popping up all over Parliament Hill to provide temporary, low-paid services to do the work that was once done by a well-paid public servant who had benefits. This is not something that you track? Is it not something that you should be concerned about as a Public Service Commission?

[Anne-Marie Robinson]

The Public Service Commission works with departments to ensure that overall planning is in place, and I know that my predecessor, Madam Barrados, did do a special study on temporary help—

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

That's what it was.