Public Accounts Committee on June 14th, 2018

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

You mentioned that obviously these payroll specialists had been let go.

In February of 2016—and the Clerk of the Privy Council alluded to this—when the decision was made to go forward with Phoenix, there was no system to go back to, because obviously it was a manual system. They had been doing it manually and there were no more human resources to input the information manually.

Is that the case, Madam Lemay?

[Marie Lemay]

It was a very old system. The Auditor General had raised issues with the system that was there. There was a lot of manual process; that's correct.

When the rollout started, it was rolling to the new system from the known system. The only system that was there was for the data, for some data, but not for the transactions and the processes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Lefebvre.

We will now move to Mr. McCauley, please.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Great. Welcome back, everyone.

Gavin Liddy, in this very room two years ago in July, testified about Phoenix that they delayed laying people off because they knew the system wasn't ready.

Is there a reason why we couldn't have extended that even more?

[Marie Lemay]

If you remember, it was originally going to be September and November. Then it went to February and April, April being a pretty significant month in the world of government, so it was end of fiscal year. Any extension would have required departments to go back and ask for money for the following year, because they would all have needed it to rehire people. That's why.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

But Mr. Liddy testified that they delayed the layoffs because they knew it wasn't ready in September or October, and then he later testified that these people were still around. The question came up as to why we couldn't run two similar systems. He testified that some people had been transferred over to Miramichi, and the other people were getting ready to transfer but were still there.

We knew. The warning signs were out, because we saw the Gartner report that was published, and all of the other things were coming forward.

Was there a reason why we couldn't just delay further, as had been done before?

[Marie Lemay]

Yes.

The first delay—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Can you just be brief? I have a bunch of other questions. Sorry.

[Marie Lemay]

The first delay was based on recommendations from discussion with IBM, others, and the departments. There was a window to be able to delay to February and April. My understanding is that when the decision was made to launch in February, there were discussions with IBM. They agreed with the workarounds that were proposed, and the—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

So delaying the layoffs was the right thing to do in September, and we probably could have done it....

[Marie Lemay]

end of April was a significant date because there was no more money in departments to retain these people.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

However, if you read the testimony, you will see that several departments—Health Canada and several others—actually kept some of their full complement of staff to address some of the worries with Phoenix that had been identified, such as for people who do long shifts and for those on "five on, five off".

According to Mr. Liddy, it could have been possible.

Let me just move on quickly to your departmental plan. I want to get to your action plan as well. Your departmental plan shows 95% delivery of paycheques correctly and on time. We've heard before that's an aspirational target, not a real target, and I understand that. What is our real target on delivering these services to our public employees for this year, and what are we at right now? Last year, we were at 36% for the year.

What are we currently at for success, and what realistically can we get to?

[Marie Lemay]

Maybe I'll ask Mr. Linklater to answer that one.

[Les Linklater, Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

From the departmental report, we do have service standards across the board, in terms of our services. We do feel that we owe it to employees to be able to—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

What are we at now for delivering and what can we realistically get to? We've been told the number in your departmental plan is not an accurate or realistic number. What can we get to?

[Les Linklater]

With our last public dashboard, which was posted a week or so ago, we were meeting service standards 60% of the time.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

That's a good jump from last year, then.

[Les Linklater]

Yes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Seeing as we've gone from 36% to 60%, what do we hope to get to by the end of the year?

[Les Linklater]

I would like to see continuous improvement.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

We all would.

What will we get to? What's realistic?

[Les Linklater]

I think it's realistic to assume we should probably maintain 60%, if not improve.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

We went from 36% to 60% but we don't see anymore improvement, even with...?

[Les Linklater]

I would hope there would be more improvement, given the number of initiatives that are under way, but it would be impossible for me to quantify that number today.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

That's fair enough.

The $307 million, the stabilization plan for Phoenix—stabilization of future transformation—can you give us the breakdown of what that money is going to be used for? How much of it is going to be used just to maintain 60%? How much is for other projects within that place?