Government Operations Committee on May 4th, 2017

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Well, for 30 seconds I'd like to ask.... Thank you. We will go on.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Erin Weir]

Thank you. We'll now go to Mr. Drouin for five minutes.

I'll again turn the chair over to Madam Ratansi.

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

Thank you, Mr. Vice-Chair.

I'm sorry, Mr. Clarke. You and I are in our early thirties, but we could still not be part of the prime minister's youth council.

I have questions for you, Ms. Vreeswijk, with regard to the Canada School of Public Service. I'm just wondering if you're thinking about the challenges of the future.

I was reading a report by the World Economic Forum, which says that 65% of children in primary school will work in jobs that don't even exist today, which leads me to this. As you're planning ahead, how does what future jobs are going to look like impact your organization? Do you constantly think about that and how to make sure people access your services? You've mentioned that 169,000 access the platform, but have they gone through some sort of course or do they just access the platform?

[Wilma Vreeswijk]

In terms of the first question, the public service, just like any other organization, has to be aware of what the trends are and the advances and the pace of change that is happening from a technological, communications, etc., perspective.

We do hold the 300 learning events, which I referred to at the beginning. That is a very dynamic platform that allows us to bring in a whole range of different speakers. Some are from within the public service, but many are from outside to ensure that we are as aware as other organizations are of the trends and the changes that are affecting the labour market and the country as a whole, and that have global effects as well.

We take that role very seriously to ensure that the public service continues to grow and develop. That's very important for all workforces, whether you're in the private or public sector. That is part of what we do.

I was asked the question of how the online platform will change. Part of that is continuously ensuring that the programs we provide reflect the changes that are happening in society overall.

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

That's great.

Another report I was reading says that over the past 30 years we've spent a lot of time developing talent management at the senior level, but not so much within the lower levels. Are you spending more time with some of the lower levels of the public service to ensure that they have access to leadership courses as well?

[Wilma Vreeswijk]

Yes. The Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer administers the performance management and talent management programs. It does run through all the executive ranks.

As the service provider on learning, we have training for people throughout their careers. When people come into the public service, there is public service orientation. As they advance, we will provide training for them. When they enter ranks of the supervisors, the managers, or the executives, at each stage we will provide the training so that they have a clear understanding of what their obligations, their roles, and the expectations are at the more senior level. It is a continuous process.

Speaking as a deputy—and I've had experience in a number of other departments—I can tell you that we meet a couple of times a year and do performance management and talent management through our organizations as a whole.

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

That's great.

In your opening remarks, you mentioned that our programming helps support public servants in delivering on government priorities. One of the items is diversity and inclusion. Can you talk to me about that? What is it that you do with regard to diversity and inclusion?

[Wilma Vreeswijk]

We've integrated the government priorities into our learning program, so diversity and inclusion as a key government priority is reflected there. We've integrated it into our management and executive development programs to ensure people are aware of what the obligations are.

More than that, more than seeing this from an employment equity perspective, we have events where we have discussions in terms of what diversity means, how you go from understanding the reality of diversity, and how you ensure that we create an inclusive public service. Whether it's the values and ethics training, respectful workplaces.... In fact, I can tell you that respectful workplaces is one of the most important parts of our curriculum, and public service has responded incredibly well. They take that course.

I'll turn to Jean-François. He can perhaps you tell the number, but it is there.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

I'm sorry, but we don't have much time, and anyway, the time is up. Thank you so much.

We now go to three minutes, and because I don't want to be a jack-in-the-box again, you'll sit there, Mr. Weir, and I'll continue.

Three minutes, Mr. Weir.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Friday, your departmental plan mentions a continued use of LEAN to review processes. That approach has been quite controversial in the Saskatchewan public service, partly because it involved flying in Japanese senseis—which I assume your office is not doing—but more fundamentally because it's a process that was developed by Toyota for manufacturing and was often deemed inappropriate for human service. It involved cutting corners and reducing the time that officials were spending with people who needed help.

I wonder if you could speak to how LEAN is being used in your office.

[Joe Friday]

Thank you very much.

First of all, we're using some local expertise, so we're not flying in experts to provide us with the information and guidance we're looking for.

I guess I could describe it as a facilitated review by members of my office about their own processes and the procedures and identifying barriers to efficiency and effectiveness. That goes to everything from timeliness to the nature of the work we do. There have been some very interesting opportunities for us to look at our overall goals and the shared understanding of the mandate that has been given to us under the act.

For example, when we were looking at our internal case analysis, one of the outcomes of the LEAN project was a group meeting among case analysts with their manager as soon as a reprisal file comes in, so that there could be a discussion of issues such as consistency, for example, and fairness and effectiveness. The LEAN project has not resulted in us cutting corners per se. Given that I have flexibility or room in my budget, what we are doing is hiring more people to support core operations, rather than looking to cut people from the investigative and intake process.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Certainly timeliness is very important, but I'm wondering, in implementing LEAN, how you balance the focus on saving time and doing things as efficiently as possible versus taking the time to really speak to whistle-blowers. They have often been through very harrowing experiences and are really in need of help and support.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you, Mr. Weir, but the answer may be given to somebody else, if Mr. Peterson is interested.

We've come to the end of the first round. Now we go to the second round, beginning with Mr. Peterson.

You have seven minutes.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, everyone, for being here today with your insights.

Mr. Friday, you explicitly mentioned in your comments, and I think Madam Maheu might have mentioned this fact a bit in one of her answers, the problem with recruitment and retention. I'm not sure if they have the same problem at the school of public policy when it comes to staffing.

We don't see any requests for new resources to address that problem. Is it a problem that can be addressed by investing funds, is it a cultural issue, or are there other causes for this problem?

[Joe Friday]

I can speak to our own specific experience. One of the issues we face as a micro-organization of 30 people is that there are very few opportunities for advancement. We have tried to provide as much diversification of experience as possible. For example, we created hybrid positions this year. Someone can work on a policy initiative and at the same time help with an overflow of case analyses. Having said that, there are only so many places a person can move internally, in our case.

Another factor that's facing us specifically is the fact that we're looking for a specific skill set that I think there's generally a shortage of within the federal public sector, and that is for skilled administrative investigation. I know that a number of organizations are battling over the same limited resources. For example, a few years ago we created what I think was the first standing list of pre-qualified administrative investigators that we could dip into.

Specific to PSIC, with the kind of work we do and dealing with the issues we deal with, to follow up on Mr. Weir's question, it can be very tiring and very difficult. We do provide training in dealing with difficult people. We have a mental health strategy in place. But there is, to a certain extent in the work we do in our office, sort of a natural time limitation.

I'll turn it over to my other colleagues at the table, if they have something they'd like to add.

[Chantal Maheu]

I think every organization faces different challenges in terms of retention and recruitment, but those are priorities of the clerk in general for the public service. If we take the micro-organization and then the general public service, in part because of expected retirements and the need to ensure knowledge transfer to the next generation of recruitment, but also in terms of having a skill set that's needed for the next 50 years and that may be different from what we needed 50 years ago, earlier when we spoke about PCO staffing we were really referring to increased capacity and increased new functions that required us to do staffing. Those processes take time in terms of finding the right talent that we need for jobs.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Friday, I want to talk about a particular line item you have in your estimates. It deals with the contributions for access to legal advice under the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act. I see that your estimate is a nice round number. What analysis do you do to come up with that number? Do you base it on the number of cases that you predict and then divide it by the $1,500 maximum amount? What process do you use to get to that number?

[Joe Friday]

For the record, it's $1,500 up to $3,000, so $3,000 would be the maximum amount.

The act requires that we create a grants and contributions program to provide access to legal advice. My understanding is that it was an estimate based on general caseloads when we first created the grants and contributions program a few years ago. It varies from year to year. I think this year it will be closer to the $30,000 than the $20,000 that we actually spent in 2016-17.

We identified the $40,000 as being what we thought was a safe and reasonable prediction. My understanding is that we can change that number in the future if we have to, but the grants and contributions program as “registered”, if I can use that word, with Treasury Board is currently set for $40,000. We have not been over $40,000 yet.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Okay. I raised that just because we heard from witnesses on that study that the amount of legal support available is an obstacle sometimes for people participating in the—

[Joe Friday]

Yes, and one of my recommendations that I tabled before this committee is to actually increase that amount.

I can also tell you that in every notice of investigation we remind or advise people of the availability of access to legal advice, and also that funding is available not only to whistle-blowers but to witnesses and people alleged to have committed wrongdoing or reprisal.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you for that.

How much time do I have, Madam Chair? Two minutes? Okay.

I have a couple of questions for you, Ms. Vreeswijk. I note that you've achieved some savings over the past fiscal year, and obviously some significant savings, and we thank you for that. Do you see that trend continuing? Or is this where we're going to be for the next little while?

[Wilma Vreeswijk]

The savings actually reflect year-over-year reductions that have gone on for about five years. The amount that the school has accessed in terms of funding has been on a downward trend for a number of years.

Where we're focused is on ensuring that while the funding is coming down our learning platform is as efficient as possible. That's why we've moved to a technology-enabled learning. Even for the learning events we hold, we webcast across the country so that public servants in all regions can access them. What we've done is on a per public servant basis; our numbers have come down because our platform is so much more efficient than it was.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

You have 30 seconds.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

I'll leave you with a comment.

I understand that Mr. Friday has not an issue but an ongoing concern with training his employees or public servants about whistle-blower legislation. You say that you don't explicitly train for that. Is that something you would consider doing?

[Wilma Vreeswijk]

I was thinking about this afterwards. Other parliamentary agents have come to us to support training in their area, and we do support the Information Commissioner in training ATIP officers. We're quite happy to support Mr. Friday in terms of the execution of his mandate.