Government Operations Committee on May 12th, 2016

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

It is left up to each department to ensure that transfer of knowledge exists.

[Christine Donoghue]

That's right. I think it is known across the system as best practices for deputies to do so. We also ensure knowledge transfer through our records.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Okay, great.

My next question is for Ms. Vreeswijk.

One of the risks I have identified in your RPPs is information management. It mentions that you may not have the network capacity in order to fulfill your strategic priorities. It mentions that you are working with SSC on a plan to enable this. Are you satisfied with Shared Services Canada's plan to meet your objectives?

[Wilma Vreeswijk]

Increasingly we are a technology-enabled school. Our learning platform is technology-enabled and we have recently released a more modern platform called GCcampus, and we're using that to do a large amount of the learning.

We had 270,000 public servants register for our online learning. When you have such a large technology-enabled dependency and you're trying to reach a large population—we do webcasts that reach thousands of public servants— it's really important that the bandwidth be there.

We are also trying to ensure that we're using the technology to reach into remote areas of the country, because that's where public servants work. The nature of that effort is that it's one that requires continuous renewal, and we work very closely with Shared Services Canada to have that. They have been an extraordinary partner for us and we really couldn't have done this transformation without their support. We meet with them about once every two weeks to make sure everything's working well, because the technology component is mission-critical for us.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I notice that, through the Canada School of Public Service, you teach leadership courses. What about inciting a culture of entrepreneurship in the way we often talk about a culture of “intrapreneurship” within the public service? Is there anything you're aligning with that? In other organizations they will create hackathons to solve specific problems. Are you inciting this with your school?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Could we have a brief answer, please, Madam?

[Wilma Vreeswijk]

Yes, a component of our curriculum is focused on transformation, and it includes change management, risk management, and transformation. For some of that, we have tapped into the private sector in terms of their learning, advice, and knowledge.

We also hold events to engage in conversation and discussions in and around innovation. Just last week we held a policy innovation session, which was webcast across the country and allowed for participation of public servants from across the country in a discussion of innovation and the prerequisites for innovation. It is definitely a core priority for us to support innovation and smart risk-taking among public servants.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Monsieur Blaney, go ahead for seven minutes, please.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to welcome the witnesses appearing before the committee today.

Thank you for articulating your priorities and reminding us of your core mandate.

We are carrying out a study on the major challenge of migrating to computer services at Shared Services Canada. I would like each of you to answer this question. How has Shared Services Canada helped you achieve your objective and fulfill your mandate? You may not have been prepared to answer this question, but I'm sure you will have something to say on the matter.

Shared Services Canada is a new implementation partner. Can you also tell me whether the migration has been challenging? We want to help Shared Services Canada fulfill its mandate. I'm happy to have you here, as you are clients, in a way.

Ms. Donoghue, you can answer first if you like.

[Christine Donoghue]

In our case, as well, technology is key to the fulfilment of our mandate. To be effective, we are conducting more and more tests and audits online. That online access gives all Canadians better access to audits by the public service.

Shared Services Canada has worked with us. We did a lot of work to modify our main server. Of course, the major challenge we are dealing with is not only attributable to Shared Services Canada. The systems used by departments are often outdated. We have to find the best tools and work in collaboration with Shared Services Canada to see what services it provides. The collaboration is excellent. There are clearly challenges, but there are just as many on our side as on the Shared Services Canada side. We are managing to come up with common solutions. Despite some delays that are due to the fact that we want to find good systems, we are successfully finding solutions that have served us well so far.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Do you work horizontally with all departments? Is it easier to work with some departments than with others? Are there disparities among the various federal agencies?

[Christine Donoghue]

I would not say that we have encountered difficulties or access problems with departments. In fact, the majority of departments use our systems at testing time. Everything is done over the Internet, which facilitates the transition to a common testing system. We do not have any problems as such.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

If I understand correctly, you still have your own server.

[Christine Donoghue]

We have a shared server since one of our objectives is to modernize and protect our servers. The server we use has been moved to Borden. Before the move, our server was used by Privy Council, the PMO and us.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Ms. Vreeswijk, would you like to add anything?

[Wilma Vreeswijk]

Our partnership with Shared Services Canada is very important because we depend on technology to deliver our learning products. The challenge for Shared Services Canada is that the demand for its products is growing. The more we produce, the more the demand increases because public servants are interested in learning. It is a challenge for them. We create a challenge for them.

Thus far, Shared Services Canada has responded very well to all our requests. We have a strong partnership. We were able to get WiFi to ensure that all our products are available in all regions of Canada. This was a major challenge because it is not always available to everyone in all parts of Canada. The partnership has gone very smoothly so far, though, and we are very pleased with it.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Thank you.

Since you work with a number of departments and agencies, you can certainly see an interest in some kind of integration. Do you think things will improve over time, facilitating the dissemination of your learning products?

Mr. Friday, what are your thoughts?

[Joe Friday]

It is a bit different being an independent commissioner. In my opinion, information security is essential in light of current and potential disclosures. We purchase our computer services from the Human Rights Commission. It is however absolutely essential for us to remain independent and to be able to protect all of our information.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

I have one minute left and I would like to ask you a question about another study by the committee.

The are three pillars: the budget, which operates by accrual accounting, the public accounts report, and the main estimates, which operate on a cash basis.

We are considering a shift to a cash-based system. Do you have an opinion on this? Would this pose a challenge?

Are you in favour of this, Ms. Vreeswijk?

[Wilma Vreeswijk]

That doesn't affect us very much because our budget is essentially for salaries. So it would not affect our agency as much as others.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

That's a good question but we're going to have to move on.

Madam Ashton, thank you for being here. Welcome to our committee.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Thank you, and my thanks to who are here today.

I want to pick up on a theme raised by one of my colleagues across. I'm curious to know about any work you're doing to attract millennials to the public service. We heard a strong directive from the Treasury Board president that he wants, and the government wants, millennials to come and work in the public service. We know that the average age of a federal public servant is now about 45, and the average age of new hires is 37. This is a problem. I'm wondering what you might be doing in your respective organizations to tackle this issue.

Perhaps we could start with you, Ms. Donoghue.

[Christine Donoghue]

The issue of the decrease in below 35 is being addressed through a lot of the discussions on recruitment across government. Part of that was brought forward by the commission raising a bit of a red flag to the concerns we had. The commission was the holder of the statistics to indicate that we were concerned that that age group was dropping within public service.

Because we hold a lot of statistics, we're now happy to say that it is slowly increasing as hiring is picking up. Maybe not increasing at the pace we would hope it should, except that what's happening is there is further discussion and more awareness is being drawn. I think what we've done is basically continue to develop the creation of pools of students, of people who are ready for hire and who are below 35. We do have, and make accessible, pools of prequalified people to have access to public service.

We do external outreach. We also do internal outreach to make people cognizant of this. We're working very closely with our colleagues in the chief human resource office to basically start determining what kind of internship programs we could be putting forward to attract millennials, attract talent.

The attraction itself is not necessarily difficult. We can recruit. It's the retention aspect. Are we offering them the right jobs? Can we retain them? That is also being reviewed as to how to do the proper on-boarding to ensure retention, so these people can see that there are amazing careers you can have in public service.

In universities we've changed our approach. We do a lot more promotion of the types of careers you can have, such as science, veterinary science, policy, so there's a lot more of that outreach aspect. We are attracting that talent. We need to be better at it, though. Part of it is to make ourselves a more attractive employer.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Perfect.

Perhaps before I go to you, Ms. Vreeswijk, and because you mentioned it as well, Ms. Donoghue, in discussions around attracting millennials, obviously some of the recurring themes are the need to clamp down on outsourcing of federal government jobs, the need to deal with the two-tier workplaces that have developed in certain sectors in the public service and, obviously, an increased reliance on temp agencies in hiring public servants, hiring young people for jobs that rarely turn into permanent employment, leading to the revolving door of contract work.

While I appreciate work is being done in terms of outreach and recruitment, is your organization and, perhaps, the school as well, hearing those concerns? It's certainly what we're hearing in the media, and those of us who have peers who are struggling to find gainful employment with the federal government. I'm wondering if you see those areas as something that need to be tackled.

Again, the outsourcing, the two-tier jobs, and also the emergence of the industry of unpaid internships, which is very prevalent in the private sector but unfortunately creeps in everywhere, I'm wondering if you could speak to those areas.

[Christine Donoghue]

Student hires have increased quite a bit. We've actually increased them by 7.3% since the numbers of 2013-14. It is indicating that an increase is happening in student hiring, which is basically giving us that pool toward permanent hires.

When we talk about temporary hires, temporary help, or casual hires, those are actually decreasing. There are more indeterminate appointments happening in the system proportional to casual or term employment. Basically, part of these indeterminate hires are millennials, so we are not compensating, basically, indeterminate positions by terms of casuals. It means that we're going back to the permanent hire.

Terms and casuals are there for a reason, which are temporary opportunities, in order to assess. A lot of terms and casuals in the past were used because we were in a bit of a flux situation. Now that there's a little bit more of a sustained approach, departments are feeling more and more comfortable to move forward to do the indeterminate hire, and we're seeing an increase of younger people being hired.