PACC Committee Report

RECOMMENDATION 6:

That the Treasury Board Secretariat and individual departments strengthen the content of their accountability documents, notably their plans and priorities and performance reports to Parliament, with respect to human resource management matters, and that these reports contain information about results expected and achieved.

Meeting of 15 May 2001

This meeting focused on the Treasury Board’s management of human resources in the federal public service. Under the Financial Administration Act, the Treasury Board Secretariat is the employer of the federal civil service. It is responsible for the size, shape, allocation and the effective use of human resources in the public service. The Treasury Board has all the responsibilities for human resource management, except for appointments and recourse, which are the responsibility of the Public Service Commission. The Board has delegated many of its responsibilities to deputy ministers, under broad policy direction, but retains other key responsibilities for areas such as benefits, pensions, collective bargaining, and the establishment of classification systems.

Three specific issues were raised: the current regime for human resource management, the need for classification reform, and the need for improved reporting. The Treasury Board Secretariat plays an important part in the current regime, which is characterized as unduly complex, cumbersome and outdated. Such a regime requires a clarification of the respective roles, responsibilities and accountabilities of each participant. Although the Treasury Board Secretariat is responsible for the overall size and shape of the public service and does some general demographic analysis, it does not set overall targets for recruitment for the public service. Neither the Treasury Board Secretariat nor the Public Service Commission challenge departments on their recruitment plans or on their proposals for recruitment under the Post-Secondary Recruitment Program.

The current classification system is out of date, does not reflect the current nature of the work done in the public service, and is costly to administer. Action is needed to meet the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decisions, and to streamline the system. The challenge is daunting, the current initiative to create a new classification system is already ten years old, reflecting in part the complexity of the existing system. A modern classification system must reconcile many conflicting demands and constraints. The challenge is to balance all these competing demands and reform the classification system while staying within the existing legislative framework. Significant progress has been made in this area but much more still needs to be accomplished before proceeding to conversion. There are also issues of costs and funding that require further attention.

Parliament does not receive adequate reports on human resource management issues. As the employer of the public service, the Treasury Board Secretariat must monitor matters it has delegated. It must also ensure that emerging problems are identified and addressed and that the progress is reported to Parliament. It is essential that the government emphasize accountability and the reporting of results to Parliament.

Most of the Committee’s questions were about the complexity of the current human resource management regime of the public service. The current regime is very complex and cumbersome because it has to administer about 840 separate pay rates and 70,000 rules governing pay and benefits. Most of the administrative burden results from legislative additions to the human resource management framework and from regulatory policies and systems developed by the central agencies in interpreting and applying the legislation for areas such as official languages and staffing. All these legislative and regulatory additions have increased the complexity and associated costs of administering the human resource management regime in the core public service. The main thrust at reforming the regime consists of moving towards greater simplification of the classification system and pay rates.

The Treasury Board Secretariat has already taken certain steps to simplify rules and regulations, notably by reducing the number of job classifications from 70 to 29, but much still remains to be done. The central agency is now evaluating several options for replacing the current classification system. This leads the Committee to recommend:

RECOMMENDATION 7

That the Treasury Board Secretariat complete its review of options to replace the current universal classification system as quickly as possible and, once completed, present the results of its review to Parliament, together with the associated costs and benefits of implementing the new job classification system.

The Committee wondered if the core public service pay rate structure could also be simplified and enquired about possible alternative remuneration regimes. Mr. Claydon described some of the current initiatives already being implemented to address this issue such as linking public service executive pay to private sector executive remuneration and the use of terminable allowances to improve the remuneration for highly skilled occupational groups. The Committee enquired whether the Treasury Board Secretariat considered the option of replacing the current pay rate structure that is based on job classification and seniority by one that is based on merit. Mr. Claydon agreed that merit pay presents interesting potential. He told the Committee that such a system had been introduced on a test-case basis two years ago in the executive category and is currently under review. However, moving the current remuneration regime to one based on merit would still require further consultations with various bargaining agents. The Committee believes the notion of merit pay offers potential advantages over the existing remuneration system and needs to be further explored as one element in the reform of the human resource management regime, and thus it recommends:

RECOMMENDATION 8

That the Treasury Board Secretariat explore the feasibility of introducing a merit-based remuneration system to the human resource management regime and, once completed, present the results of its review to Parliament, together with the associated costs and benefits of implementing such a remuneration system.

The Treasury Board Secretariat has progressively moved away from a “command and control” philosophy to focus more on a “managing for results” approach. This approach has led to a greater delegation of powers and responsibilities to deputy ministers and to a streamlining of policies and systems. As a result of this delegation, the Secretariat has reduced its control over departmental actions by issuing broad policy guidelines instead of rules. But the Secretariat has also significantly less information about departmental performance. Over time, it has become increasingly more difficult to monitor departmental performance and provide information to Parliament on matters for which the Treasury Board Secretariat has legislative responsibilities. Performance reports to Parliament from both the Treasury Board Secretariat and individual departments provide very little information on how they carry out their responsibilities for human resource management. There is little information on their expectations for the coming year and subsequently on their achievements. The Committee views this state of affairs with great concern. The Secretariat has delegated responsibilities to departments and agencies without properly defining their respective accountabilities. Delegation of responsibility should not mean abdication of responsibility. Departments, agencies, and the Secretariat must be made aware of their respective specific responsibilities to report to Parliament. Thus the Committee recommends the following:

RECOMMENDATION 9

That the Treasury Board Secretariat ensures that all departments and agencies clearly understand their responsibilities and accountabilities with respect to reporting human resource management issues to Parliament. That Treasury Board Secretariat work with departments and agencies to ensure the proper reporting on the quality and effectiveness of human resource management regime to Parliament. 

The federal government is currently engaged in efforts to make the public service more representative of the population it serves. The President of the Treasury Board endorsed last year the action plan of the Task Force on the Participation of Visible Minorities in the Federal Public Service, also known as the Embracing Change in the Federal Public Service Action Plan. The Government is committed to meet the recruitment and promotion benchmarks for visible minorities and is now working with departments to monitor the progress of the initiative towards these goals. The Secretariat is currently collecting data from all departments and agencies in order to build up an overall picture of the actual progress of the initiative across the federal public service. The Committee was very interested about the current state of progress of this initiative and it enquired if the Secretariat was in possession of detailed departmental action plans. It learned that all departmental plans are expected to be submitted by the fall of 2001. This leads the Committee to recommend the following:

 RECOMMENDATION 10

That the Treasury Board Secretariat, once it has received all departmental action plans on recruiting and promoting visible minorities, prepare a summary report on the overall progress in the implementation of the Embracing Change Action Plan, and that it table the summary report to Parliament no later than 31 March 2002.

Meeting of 17 May 2001

The final meeting focused on the role played by the Clerk of the Privy Council in the reform of the human resource management regime. In an environment of highly competitive labour markets and more demanding workforce expectations, the federal public service needs to be flexible and adaptable enough to manage its human resources effectively and efficiently in order to attract, develop and retain highly skilled people. This requires fundamental reform of the legislative framework of the government’s human resources management regime. In light of this, the recent announcement of the formation of the Task Force on Modernizing Human Resources Management in the Public Service is viewed as an important and positive development. The Task Force is expected to produce a set of legislative proposals to be debated by Parliament in the fall of 2002.

The establishment of the Task Force is viewed as a major initiative by the government and is designed to lead to important legislative changes. Unlike the previous attempts at reform, there is a real possibility to make real progress, given the level of support at the political level as indicated in the 30 January 2001 Speech from the Throne and the recent commitment made by Mrs. Lucienne Robillard as Minister in charge for human resources management reform. With the very tight deadline to produce concrete proposals for reform, it is essential to ensure buy-in of all stakeholders in order to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

Mr. Cappe told the Committee that after many years of studies, reviews and consultations, the issues regarding the public service human resources management regime are now well known. Although some limited initiatives have already been implemented, thorough reform will require more fundamental amendments to the legislative framework. The modernization of the human resources management legislation will follow four basic principles:

·        First and foremost is the protection of merit, non-partisanship, representativeness and competence in the public service.

Second, management should be responsible for all aspects of human resources management.