Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 19th, 2010

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Yes, but undertaking a business plan does not exclude the collection of qualitative information that you have referred to. On the other hand, every decision that you make or every change that you propose leads to costs, long-term planning and an action plan. In order for this not to be meaningless, I am sure you will agree that much more extensive analyses have to be undertaken.

[Michelle d'Auray]

Mr. Chairman, with respect to human resources issues, a business case analysis can be done. Because of the time it takes to fill a position, it is more costly to replace an individual or temporarily fill a position than it is to fill a position when that position is empty. An individual can be found to replace another. That being said, cost-benefit is not the only criteria that we use in our performance analyses of the human resources management of organizations. For example, we have established service standards for human resources professionals in each department. Under a service standard, changes to the pay list have to be made within a given number of days.

We have therefore established quantitative standards whose purpose is to potentially reduce costs, but they do not necessarily flow from a business case analysis first. It could end up going there, but it is not automatically our starting point.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

When I read what we have been given today, I note that Ms. Cartwright tabled a document earlier that states that former senior staff were consulted. Earlier, we spoke about the issue of accountability, and current staff are accountable before us. Accountability is the affair of people currently in position.

I come back with my question. How much weight is given to the analyses carried out by current managers within your review exercise? When you tell me that internal audits of human resources in various major departments were not consulted and that you did consult managers, you do not provide the details.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

I have to interrupt you.

Ms. Cartwright, please be brief.

[Susan Cartwright]

We consulted the available documents on internal audits. When we consulted former public service employees, we wanted to obtain the historic context for some things, in order to understand why changes were made. The purpose was not at all to challenge the managers' responsibilities. We wanted a contemporary perspective as well as an historic perspective. We are very interested in current public service performance.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Thank you, Ms. Cartwright.

Mr. Shipley now has the floor.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and to the witnesses.

First of all, Madame d'Auray, in your comments you said:

We welcome the Auditor General's advice and recognize that while the PSMA has been fully implemented, there is still work to be done in a few areas and room for improvement.

Madam Fraser, I need to understand your comment a little more, that, “We also noted that the Secretariat had not fully developed a set of performance indicators”, which I understand are likely going to be different from the implementation.

Do you agree with the statement Ms. d'Auray made?

[Sheila Fraser]

I perhaps need to clarify, Chair, one of our recommendations, which was about performance indicators.

There have been many initiatives to reform human resource management over the past two decades. I think many observers would agree that they haven't all been successful, and I'm being generous. This modernization, this effort that went into changing this legislation, was a very significant one by the public service. There was a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of study that went into trying to address the issues that were evident.

I'll give you one example. People are asking about why the change was necessary. I think we did an audit in the late nineties that showed there were some 70,000 rules in human resource management. It was completely rules-bound, a very difficult system. The managers were not managing human resources and it was obvious that things needed to change. The government responded and went through this initiative.

It's really important that this work. It's really important that this initiative be successful. When we did the audit in 2005, which is when the act had just been adopted and implementation was about to begin, we said it was really important that government put in place indicators so they would know if they were achieving the objectives they had set out, largely because there had been other initiatives in the past that had never amounted to anything. The government at the time, in 2005, agreed that, yes, there should be indicators. Well, we have come along four years later and there isn't a complete set of indicators. We are concerned that with this legislative review that is coming, government needs to be able to tell parliamentarians what is working, what is not working, and how they are going to track the success or not of this legislation over time.

So that is our major preoccupation. We see that the things required under the legislation have been put in place, but are they getting the results that were intended? That is really what is the base, I think, of our recommendations in this report. We agree there are some indicators. We just think they need to be more comprehensive. The data may not have been tracked over time; there are indicators that have changed year to year. So how will government and Parliament know what the trend lines are and if the objectives are being attained?

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I think it's been, for the most part, a positive report, and I do commend you for that.

Madam d'Auray, this is important. We've obviously become rules-based as years go on, I guess. I think it kept changing and became very complex. Can you tell me, in terms of your department now, how many people you've had to add to your department to actually carry out the implementation of this program?

[Michelle d'Auray]

Thank you.

I think originally, since the piece of legislation was introduced at the secretariat, as a department we've probably had to add maybe three people, just for the implementation of the legislation per se.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I'm talking about how we got from then to now. I listened to Ms. Cartwright. Through her responsibility she's met with everybody present, past, and future, quite honestly, to try to come up with some sort of recommendation. I need some help to understand that we've not just built some sort of bureaucracy to help fill chairs for, quite honestly—I'm going to be honest with you—department people, deputy ministers, maybe, who actually, in my mind, should just be doing their jobs. I need to have the comfort that we actually have people who are actually doing their jobs, and I'm struggling with that when I read here that we've had to do all of this. I mean, look, you've met with over 500 different individuals and organizations. I find that staggering and a little bit disturbing.

[Michelle d'Auray]

If I may, Mr. Chair, the core public service or the core public administration has over 200,000 employees. In order for us, and for Ms. Cartwright, to get a sense of how deep were the changes and how they were felt, being able to consult or contact 500 people among the 200,000 is not a huge number of people to be in touch with.

I would say that the PSMA and the changes to the legislation that have been brought forward have in fact brought the level of responsibility of deputy heads to just manage, if I can put it that way, to be clearly stated. I would say that has in fact been the trend. It is a bit difficult, going back to our measurement issue, to measure that. How do you measure that? How can you ask the deputy heads today what has changed between the way we did it and the way it is done today? Well, you could ask how much time you spent on this and how much time you spend today. We're looking for proxies of measurement at this point.

The other element would be to look at our governance structures. How much time do we spend at the management table on human resources? I would say that it is about 100% more time than we used to spend. Again, it is very hard to put a quantitative.... It would be kind of a guesstimate. I don't think the public service has grown in relation to the implementation of these pieces of legislation. In fact, what it has done is give us flexibility.

I'll give you another example. We were completely ground down in grievance procedures, because that was the only way for people to complain. Under the legislation, we now practice--have not just put in place but practice—informal conflict resolution. If you look at the complaints that are taken to the public service tribunal, they are resolved even before they get to the tribunal, per se, to be heard. That, in fact, reduces a lot of time and effort. It actually deals with public service management as any other organization would, which is to manage and have interactions with people, as opposed to saying, “Did I file this? Check. Did I do this? Check.” That's what this piece of legislation was meant to do. It was to get out of that rules-based management and get into the management of people as people.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Allen.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

[Inaudible--Editor]...a rules-based system, but I would hazard a guess that you didn't mean you eliminated them all. What you meant was that we were overburdened with so many rules we couldn't function. I know you have a unionized workplace, and quite frankly we still have a whole pile of rules.

I'm quite astonished by the comment you made that you had to implement an informal piece, where those of us in the private sector actually have that stated in collective agreements that say the first step is talk, the second step is write. So I actually find that quite astounding. Nevertheless....

Looking through Madam Fraser's report, I still see some pieces in here that talk about managers who are saying some of the “cultural” changes, shall I call them.... I think those in the human resource field, and those of us who work in the other field, even though it's in human resources but from a different perspective, know that cultural shifts are difficult to do. Clearly there are still some of your managers indicating that it's slow, that it's not moving the way....

Now, it may well be their sense, or it may actually be a reality for them, but I wonder if you could comment as to what your feedback is from those managers who feel that it's slow. Are you getting that feedback, or do we need to...?

I know that my friend Mr. Shipley mentioned talking to 500. I would have said you needed to talk to 5,000, but that's because you want to have a cultural shift in your organization and not just implement another rule.

I'm wondering if you got that feedback or not from those particular folks.

[Michelle d'Auray]

Mr. Chair, I would say I get feedback from my managers on a regular basis about human resource management and issues, about how quickly or not quickly we're moving in certain areas. There are also some frustrations, I would say, with our information systems, of being able to get the information you need in a timely fashion in order to be able to make those decisions. So I would say, yes, we do hear on a very regular basis about how things could be improved.

The other aspect that we have not raised or discussed is the whole area of the human resource professionals or practitioners themselves. The change for them was and remains significant. You're quite right that I did not indicate that we have eliminated all rules. We have eliminated some, which was the point of this. But the human resource practitioners were, and still are to a large extent, living through the change of what it is to manage without necessarily having a rule book, and having to interact and wanting to interact with managers who want to staff and do the development of their employees and manage their employees in a way that they know there are still rules to respect but at the same time there are huge flexibilities.

When you've been rule-bound for many years, it is a very big shift. It's not just the deputy heads, the managers, the employees; it's also been a change for the human resource practitioners. They are now, I would say, at the point of making that shift completely. It's taken a while for that to happen.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

What I'm hearing, then, is the resistance from HR managers and HR professionals, which you would expect to see when you start to look at moving a culture. It wouldn't necessarily be on purpose, or something they were trying to do to undermine, but indeed there was a sense of the natural resistance of “You're stepping on my turf.”

How do we deal with that? How do we move that so they understand their importance in this overall system and we don't end up with folks who, simply by trying to protect the turf that they own, undermine the whole system of how we change the culture?

[Michelle d'Auray]

I'm glad you picked up on that, because it is not a question of resistance or undermining. I think it is a fundamental shift into how the practice is practised. I do believe we have made significant changes to the way in which we work with that community of professionals, to help them and to encourage that interaction in a very positive way.

So we are not meeting resistance. We are now working with them to give them the right set of tools. They're now almost as impatient, if I can put it that way, as the managers are. We've turned the tide.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Thank you, Madam d'Auray.

Mr. Dreeshen.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses as well for appearing here today.

It's great to hear that there is a shift and, as was mentioned earlier, a change in mindset for human resources, and that we're basing this on people-to-people negotiations versus rules. I think anybody who has ever been caught up in those situations understands how difficult they can be. Of course, when looking at the differences for grievance procedures, expanding on the informal conflict resolution becomes a key component.

I may ask you, Madame d'Auray, to respond to that in a moment, but I have a couple of other questions as well, and first I'd like to go to Madam Fraser.

You mentioned at the beginning that you didn't audit the impact of the legislation on human resource management. Could you expand on why that was? Secondly, I was hoping you could also, in your response, go over your findings with respect to the roles and responsibilities of deputy heads.

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you, Chair.

As we note in the audit, we really looked to see whether the legislation had been implemented, but we didn't look to the effects, for two reasons. One is that it's quite clear in the mandate of the Auditor General that we don't do effectiveness reviews; we would look to see what departments have done to assess effectiveness. The question of the performance indicators and whether they have the information is related to that.

As well, though, there's a recognition that these are still fairly early days in a very major shift. It would be more appropriate, I think, to wait for the work that is being done regarding the legislative review to see government's own processes and their assessment of what needs to be done and how successful it has been so far.

On the question of deputy ministers, one of the very positive things that we note in the report is that there has been a shift. We found that the deputy ministers are taking their responsibility for human resource management and are engaged in the human resource management. I think that is a very significant positive finding of the report.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you. And of course there has been that shift involving the deputy ministers and human resources, so perhaps, Madame d'Auray, I'll go back to you. Could you comment on what you mentioned earlier about that change in mindset?

The Auditor General mentioned that some managers aren't particularly clear on a few of the rules on hiring. Could you explain what the government is doing to address that particular issue?

[Michelle d'Auray]

With regard to deputy minister accountabilities and attention given to human resources, I would be remiss if I did not mention that one of the follow-on elements of the PSMA, if I can put it this way, has been the clerk's public service renewal program or initiative, because there we have started to synthesize some of the core elements that we need to continue to pay attention to and to refine: the areas that are essential to human resource management and the meeting of the PSMA objectives, but more importantly to an ongoing and solid performance on the part of human resource management.

I would say that of the four pillars we have in the PSMA, the most critical element, frankly, is integrated planning. It sounds just about as exciting as I can make it, but it's a critical element. We used to do, for a long time, a human resource plan and a business plan, and the two never matched, never met, were never discussed in the same room. We are now—I know it may sound amazing—matching and doing integrated human resource and business planning. It's integral to being able to have a staffing plan. If you don't know what you need in order to perform your business in three years' and five years' time, it's a little hard to have a staffing plan that says, here are the competencies, here are the areas that I need, here is the learning and development that I need to build into my organization or get the school to deliver for me in order for me to be able to meet the objectives that I have for two or three years out.

That integrated planning focus, I would say, has probably been the most important of all of the elements to which deputy heads are paying attention. It drives the managers, because the business plan is developed by managers, and it drives the human resource plan at the same time.

I'm sorry, I'm probably running on in my enthusiasm for integrated planning.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

No, but you did run over time.

Mr. Dreeshen probably wants to come back, and I will come back to him to let him finish up.

Mr. D'Amours.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. d'Auray, a little earlier I asked you to give us a list of indicators. I'd like to go a little further now. I would appreciate it if you could send the committee certain details, in the light of Ms. Fraser's comments. It was stated that some indicators were there but that others were being eliminated. It was difficult to follow. In truth, it's difficult to understand how concrete outcomes can be determined. It almost sounds like we're talking about the census! I would like you to indicate, in the document that you will be sending us, which indicators were established, which were removed and when those actions were decided on. I would truly appreciate it if you could provide the committee with those documents.

Furthermore, with respect to the time it takes to submit the annual report, my colleague, Mr. Bains, asked you the committee's first question. You replied that some things were required by law and were therefore a priority compared to other documents.

You said that the time periods were not acceptable but how will you establish priorities? It's all very well to say that you are not satisfied, but what will you do to change the situation?

[Michelle d'Auray]

Even though, once again, this may strike you as being rather basic, we have set deadlines and time periods for the various reports. In fact, these were prepared in different sectors and within different organizations. We have now consolidated all those responsibilities and functions within one body, the Treasury Board Secretariat. We have timelines and deadlines that allow us to submit reports within the expected time period. I admit that we are still somewhat behind on the overall report on human resources management but we are catching up.