Evidence of meeting #62 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was employees.
A video is available from Parliament.
5:35 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Thank you for allowing me to clarify that.
When we talk about the backlog, we're talking about the departments serviced by Miramichi, because that's what PSPC is responsible for.
5:35 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Yes, we know that, and there are 15,000 left. What's the other side of the coin for the outstanding backlog?
5:35 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
At Miramichi, they are the incoming transactions I was talking about. That's the equivalent of two months of work. The transaction pay—
5:35 p.m.
Conservative
5:35 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
On the non-Miramichi, the way we've done this is, over the summer we were in touch with the departments. We don't service them in terms of pay. They have their pay advisers in the departments. Just before the end of October, we did a last touch with 15 of the departments, which represent about 70%, and they were seeing no issues like ours. The CRA, being one of the big ones, was done by October 31, I believe.
5:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
That's time, just when it was getting good.
Mr. Fraser, welcome to our committee. We have five minutes for you, sir.
November 29th, 2016 / 5:35 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Before I begin, I would like to thank the witnesses for their presence here today.
There are a lot of dates being thrown around. I'm new to this committee for today.
One of the things that would really help me, even though I've been paying attention to this issue in the news and in my discussions with caucus colleagues, would be if you could walk us through the process that led us up to today. I think my colleague Madam Ratansi mentioned earlier that she wanted a picture of how things rolled out. You started to mention that the implementation of the pay modernization system began in 2009. A 50,000-foot overview of how this thing went would be very helpful to me and I think to Canadians as well.
5:35 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
The pay transformation initiatives had two components: the pay consolidation and the pay modernization. If we look at the consolidation, that decision to implement the gradual consolidation of pay services in Miramichi was made in December 2011. In 2012, in January, the first wave of workforce was adjusted, so about 125 people got their letter saying that they would be adjusted. The first wave of people were hired in Miramichi in March 2012. Then there was a second wave of people who were informed that they were affected back in September 2012, and a second wave of hiring in September 2013, and then there was a third wave in October 2014, for a hire in January 2015. At that point about 1,400 compensation advisers had been informed that their work would be affected and close to 500 had been hired in Miramichi. That's for the pay consolidation portion.
In terms of the modernization portion, that's the Phoenix portion and that actually covers 101 departments—sorry, I should have said the consolidation was for 46 departments. That's when the compensation staff went from 2,050 to about 1,320 overall. The departments that are not serviced by Miramichi kept their compensation advisers, and the consolidation for the 46 departments happened in Miramichi. Parallel to that you have the pay modernization, which is Phoenix, and the implementation and the rollout that we heard about, the waves one and two.
5:35 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Just changing gears for a moment, I know that a PSPC official told the committee that services related to contaminated sites are part of the optional services provided by PSPC to other federal departments. PSPC in the supplementary estimates is requesting $5.7 million for the federal contaminated sites action plan.
What kind of contaminated site services are we talking about here that PSPC provides to other federal departments and agencies?
5:40 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
On a fee-for-service basis, we do project management rather than having a number of government departments duplicate expertise in contaminated site management. We offer it on a fee-for-service basis, so that is design, contracting, and engineering. We've done some of the larger ones: Sydney tar ponds, Giant Mine in the Northwest Territories, and a large project going on in Victoria.
These two that are specific here are our own. One is the Esquimalt Graving Dock, and we ran into some challenges on a failed tender, actually. The other one is that we were going to decontaminate the land for the proposed site for the memorial to the victims of communism on Wellington Street, and that project is no longer going forward.
5:40 p.m.
Liberal
5:40 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
No, these figures are actually money that was given to us under the federal contaminated sites action plan. We have about $112 million and we're just carrying forward that work in this year.
5:40 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
To the extent that you're requested to assist with further contaminated sites in the future, presumably in the next round of supplementary estimates would you see an additional increase?
5:40 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
We will get some of our own money for our sites specifically. We would also continue to offer that service to other government departments as part of a broader plan.
5:40 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
I'll take this opportunity to say thank you to the witnesses. That's very helpful.
5:40 p.m.
Conservative
5:40 p.m.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
I would also like to welcome Mr. Fraser to our committee, even though it's somewhat intimidating to have someone taller than I am on the government side.
I want to return to the Phoenix pay system. There's been a lot of focus today on the backlog, but of course new problems crop up every day. I appreciate that the government has chosen to classify that as not meeting the service standard, as opposed to adding to the backlog.
I want to ask about this notion of the steady state that we're trying to get to and what that would look like. In that steady state, how many problems with payroll would be considered to be normal or acceptable?
5:40 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Again, we don't define the transactions as problems. If you have an acting and you put the transaction in, that's not a problem. That's a pay transaction we have to resolve. That's part of what we get—
5:40 p.m.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
How many unresolved transactions would be considered normal in the steady state we're trying to achieve?
5:40 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
If we look at the last few months, what we estimate right now are about 80,000 to 85,000 transactions a month, so requests for a pay action.
5:40 p.m.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
In this steady state, would the temporary pay centres be shut down, or would some of them continue to serve?
5:40 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
We'll have to evaluate that, because as I said, right now we know we can do 100,000 transactions a month, but that's with the satellites, and they were really important. The assessment we'll have to make is how efficient we will be when we get steady state and what we will need in terms of capacity.