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Mr. Chair and honourable members, I would like to thank you for this opportunity to meet with your committee to discuss the 2007-2008 annual report of the Public Service Commission of Canada that was tabled on December 2. Two audits and a report on investigations were also tabled at that time and the Public Service Commission also released three studies including a study on mobility of public servants.
As you are aware, the Public Service Commission is an independent agency which reports to Parliament. Our authority comes from the Public Service Employment Act, which mandates us to safeguard the integrity of the public service staffing system and the political neutrality of the public service. We develop policies and guidelines to ensure that appointments are made according to the merit principle and respect the values of fairness, transparency, access and representativeness. We conduct audits and investigations to confirm the effectiveness of this staffing system and its impartiality in order to make improvements. The Commission also recruits talented Canadians to the public service, drawn from across the country. We provide staffing and assessment services to departments and agencies on a discretionary basis.
[English]
I'm here today with Donald Lemaire, senior vice-president of policy, and Terry Hunt, director general of government-wide audit and evaluations in the audit, evaluation and studies branch. While my comments will focus on our annual report and the issue of mobility, we are also looking forward to returning to this committee to discuss our estimates, including our plans and priorities, which we table next month, as well as the results of the horizontal strategic review of human resources management, which were included in Budget 2009, and the results of the independent review of our oversight activities that will be released shortly.
Our report covers the second year of operation under the Public Service Employment Act, or PSEA. The legislation covered 82 organizations with more than 195,000 employees. This represents a 4.1% increase in the population of the public service over the previous year. It was a very active year for departments and agencies, with more staffing actions and more permanent hires. We continue to see significant interest in the public service and its jobs. More than a quarter of a million individuals sent in about one million applications to jobs.gc.ca—an average of 90 applications per posting.
The federal public service can now be described as functionally operating under a fully established delegated staffing system, with deputy heads in charge of and accountable for staffing processes. Overall, the performance of the staffing system is assessed as “acceptable” this year, with few examples of management excellence and some areas that require attention. Generally speaking, the core values of merit and non-partisanship are being respected, but ongoing vigilance is required. There is room for improvement in making the system fairer and more accessible, transparent, and representative.
There is still a requirement for improvement in human resource planning, with about 50% of departments and agencies assessed as less than fully acceptable. Stronger human resource planning is generally associated with improved outcomes. More concrete and precise staffing strategies with measurable targets are central to producing a more effective and responsive staffing function across the public service.
In one of our audits, the PSC reviewed the staffing of the executive cadre, the EXs, during 2006. This was the first year in the implementation of delegated EX staffing. Executive appointments should be made with particular care, since their leadership and responsibilities impact employees, the organization, and the reputation of the public service. We found that the executive appointment processes, for the most part, respected merit. With regard to the application of PSC and other policies, here significant improvement is required.
We found instances where merit was not respected, where there was an appearance of preferential treatment, and where key assessment documents were lacking. Out of the 348 appointments reviewed, half were satisfactory; others needed improvement. Forty-seven cases, 13.5%, were found to be unsatisfactory. We will further examine the unsatisfactory files to determine the need for any additional corrective action. We expect to see improvements as we move beyond the initial implementation, and we plan to do a follow-up audit in two years.
The capacity of the human resources community continues to be a concern. The increased workload generated by increased staffing activities and the implementation of a fully delegated system have stretched the capacity of the HR specialists who provide critical guidance and support to managers. In addition to increased workload, the capacity of the HR community has been challenged by a very high level of turnover. In our study on the mobility of public servants between 1997 and 2008, we noted a particularly high rate of movement in the HR community as well as a significant decline in the number of years spent at one level before promotion to the next.
The rate of movement of the personnel administration groups, or PEs, to which HR specialists belong, reached 74% in 2007-08. This was the highest rate of movement observed over the 11-year study period. The executives, the EXs, also had one of the higher rates of mobility in 2007-08, at 55%.
Our study found that mobility in the overall public service increased from 30% in 2004-05 to 42% in 2007-08. Both public service growth and retirements influenced movement patterns. Between March 1999 and March 2008, the indeterminate workforce grew by 36%, and there were many more indeterminate appointments in 2007-08 than at any other time in the study period.
At the same time, retirements almost quadrupled over the study period. More than 34,000 public servants retired over the last 11 years. About 68% of these employees retired in the last five years. While retirements increased for all groups studied, they were more pronounced, and accounted for most separations, in the PE--the HR people--and the EX groups.
The national capital region consistently had a higher rate of employee movement than the regions. We observed little movement between the national capital region and the other regions over the study period. With the exception of central agencies, we noted little movement between organizations. Small and medium-sized organizations demonstrated higher inter-organizational movement than their larger counterparts. Some high-movement occupational groups are increasingly moving between departments and agencies.
Significantly high mobility can have a negative impact on operational efficiency and effectiveness. The findings of this study reinforce the need for HR planning to take into account the nature and scope of employee movement. They also underline the importance of developing recruitment, retention, and succession strategies for certain occupational groups and functional communities.
[Translation]
In last year's annual report, the PSC raised concerns about the declining proportion of new employees to the public service drawn from visible minority groups. However, recent changes to the PSC database of applicant information have provided further information suggesting that appointments of visible minorities to the public service may have been underestimated.
We believe that there were more visible minorities candidates appointed then previously reported. We are now working with other key partners to address this important issue. This committee may be interested in further examining the issue of representativeness and the challenges related to its measurement, particularly the aspect of self-identification.
To increase the representation of visible minorities in the executive ranks, the PSC launched a second external appointment process to establish a pool of qualified candidates at the EX-1 level. We are building on the success of the first collective staffing process, which demonstrated that special, focused efforts are effective. We have created a pool of 30 visible minority candidates and we are now working with departments and agencies to place them into executive positions.
Through these initiatives, the Public Service Commission is helping federal organizations build a public service that better reflects our increasingly diverse society.
[English]
Providing access is also an important guiding value in the PSCA. The PSC is moving forward with its national area of selection policy. In April 2007, the PSC expanded the requirement to use national area of selection for officer-level jobs open to the public from the national capital region to include all regions of the country.
This requirement was expanded in December 2008 to externally advertise non-officer-level jobs, including clerical and secretarial jobs. As a result, all Canadians, regardless of where they live or work, are now able to apply for the vast majority of federal public service jobs that are open to the public. We expect this expansion will lead to a higher number of applications.
The PSC also worked with other federal organizations to enact legislation ensuring that Canadian Forces reservists could return to their public service jobs once their leave of absence for training or other volunteer service has expired. During this reporting period, the PSC made 138 appointments of medically released Canadian Forces members from its priority list.
We are now working to extend priority entitlement to the spouses of Canadian Forces members, Royal Canadian Mounted Police members, and public service employees who die in the service of Canada.
I would now like to elaborate on investigations, which play an important part in our oversight activities.
The PSC commenced eight investigations concerning allegations of fraud in appointment processes. In three of the four investigations completed, the allegations were founded. We also completed 17 investigations into improper political activities, and in 16 cases, employees were found to have acted contrary to the PSCA.
The Public Service Commission carefully considered whether to name the individuals involved, bearing in mind the public interest as well as privacy considerations. This was done on a case-by-case basis. Cases where names were disclosed are contained in the report on investigations. We are not able to disclose summaries on two individuals because their cases are currently under judicial review.
In concluding my remarks, I am reminded that we are still in the early years of putting in place the most comprehensive HR reforms in the federal public service in the past three and a half decades. Progress has been made, and it is important that we sustain this momentum, despite the things that take away our focus and attention, to safeguard the values that are the foundation of a professional and non-partisan public service.
Thank you. Merci. We are happy to take your questions.
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I'll give you some of my thoughts on this, and members may want to pose other questions.
If we take the current size of the public service--we accept that, and that's subject to debate obviously--at the rate of retirements we have to have an inflow of about 8,500 to 9,000 people to maintain its current size. That is because we had a big expansion in the public service during the seventies, and those people are now the baby boomers, are now coming to retirement age, and retiring.
The public service has traditionally not had a high level of departures. The level of departures for all reasons, including being relieved of your duties, retirement, going to other jobs, has always run around 2%, less than 2% sometimes, and now we're seeing departures that are around 5%. For any private sector organization this is still extremely low. The public service is not used to that, so there's been a significant increase in departures.
We have an aging workforce. We have more departures than we've seen, and if we maintain the size, we have to bring people in. A number of issues arise from that. Obviously the people who are intending to leave at the end of their careers are at the senior levels. We bring them in at the bottom. So have we got the training and development to get people to the right place quickly enough? Big set of questions.
We also have a lot of interest in the public service, so I disagree with the comment that it's not attractive. When you have a million applications for 5,000 postings, a lot of people are interested. The real issue is have we got the right set of skills for the people we're looking for? This is where I think there is also a significant challenge. We have some areas of shortage, so we know what they are, but we also have developed some very bad habits in the public service.
Hiring people from casual employment into the indeterminate workforce, the permanent workforce, is not the best way to get talent. You have to be prepared to hire people directly into your permanent workforce. You don't bring them on as casual; you don't bring them on as terms, because you're not then going to get that pool of people. So a number of bad habits have been created. We have to bring in the numbers. We have to train them and we have to make sure we do the proper matching. So it is a set of challenges, given the size of the public service.
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I'll comment on the economy and the change in the economy.
We have an issue with dealing with high volumes of applications and dealing with the applications fairly. We have an issue of making sure that all regions get equal access. We have issues of language in these jobs. And I expect that all those issues would become more acute as the public service jobs have an element of security that other jobs don't have, so I expect more applications. I expect more challenge. I expect we'll have a lot more challenge in managing that system.
Terry Hunt is the director general responsible for the EX audit. We set up a series of criteria determining whether this was good enough. I'll ask him to expand on that. Satisfactory was good enough. We're not looking for perfection.
When we were looking at the others and you weren't good enough, it meant that there was a major problem.
If you were unsatisfactory, our 47 cases, you're required to say what you need in a meritorious appointment. One of those criteria weren't met, so you didn't meet the test, so that's unsatisfactory.
When they looked at the files, if it looked as if the whole system was set up to get a favoured person, that was not a fair process. That was unsatisfactory.
If you looked at a file and there was absolutely no sign that anything was assessed, it looked as if a miracle occurred and this person was named, you could not--it was just empty: unsatisfactory.
In the middle, where we're saying this really needs to improve, we looked at the compliance with the legislation and the directives. But it means if you are asked to assess somebody's skills, we expect to see there's some kind of assessment. So there was a big set of problems.
The areas where we had the largest set of problems were those areas called “unadvertised”. The new legislation allows managers to appoint people through a competitive process and it allows appointments unadvertised; you don't compete the process. Those we expect to be used judiciously. We expect managers to have a good reason why they go unadvertised. What would be a good reason? If you have a critical shortage area--there are not many people with those skills, you've tried before, you've looked extensively, and you now have someone--that would make sense for me to have that be unadvertised.
Frankly, if you're hiring administrative support, I don't see that there's a good reason for going unadvertised. So we have a lot of issues with the unadvertised, and those we would put in the area of unsatisfactory.
Terry, did you want to add to that?
Thank you, Madam Barrados, for being here this morning. I appreciate your testimony this morning.
I'm one of the few committee members who has returned from the last Parliament and who has had the opportunity to hear previous reports. So I appreciate that you've come with the same candour you had in your previous testimony. We appreciate that, as a committee.
In terms of your report, there are a number of different things that jumped out at me. As a matter of fact, my pages are covered in ink now as I make a note every time I hear something that is of concern. As you know, I've been quite concerned about the turnover rate, specifically, which I believe undermines the ability of the public service to do their job effectively.
As you stated in your report this morning, you indicated that the total number of the employees you oversee has increased 4.1% over the previous year. Of course, that is a concern to many of us, especially as we're not seeing the population of our country increasing at that rate, and we're certainly not seeing the ability of government to sustain that type of increase over the long term.
I'm wondering if you might be able to tell us specifically, or generally, what departments saw the largest increases in terms of total numbers, or maybe if it was an increase of 4.1% across the board, or if there were specific departments that saw other increases, or increases that maybe would come with an explanation.
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I was anticipating that kind of question, so we actually did put a table in our report. That's the big brick. It's table 44, where we actually compared the population numbers by department in March 2007 and at year-end 2008. When you run your eye down those percentages, you have to be very careful, because you have some big percentage increases.
It's on pages 154 and 155 in the English version.
You have some big percentage increases, but of course when you have a very small organization, it doesn't involve many people.
In a way, some of it is not really surprising in terms of where we've seen growth. I would just point to some departments. We've seen growth in places like the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, where there was 14% growth. That's on a fairly large base. That kind of growth was related directly to the crisis we had with passports; we had a real problem with getting people their passports in time, so you saw growth in that area.
In some of the other departments, such as the Department of Health, you had some growth, in that case 6%, which is above average.
I'm ignoring all of the little guys. One that's notable is the Office of Indian Residential Schools Resolution, where we had a 45% growth rate, but it was a new organization.
You will see some declines, but the details are there in the table.
There was growth in the Public Health Agency of Canada, and at Public Safety, where there was 15% growth—
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I guess the question leads us to the next point, and that's if there is a concern on your part about the pressures on the entire system from increases of this magnitude, at 4.1%, which obviously is not huge but does put pressures on the system in terms of training, and even in terms of the payroll for personnel from top to bottom, and on the mechanics of government as you consider replacing existing people who are leaving, for whatever reason, in escalating numbers.
I guess you do, in large part, have a plan as to how you are going to address this, but I guess this leads to the bigger issue, which is that we have people today in jobs that they didn't have last year and the year before, when we had turnover of similar rates.
My concern continues to be about this continued movement. I know that you state in the report that significantly high mobility can have negative impacts on operational efficiency and effectiveness. I would suggest that it has destructive effects on many of these different departments, especially when we see the large movements. I am thinking specifically of the HR departments.
I know that we are all in this together and that we're working toward a solution, but is there anything that we on the legislative side can do to be of some assistance to you, as you look to address the high turnover rates and the high numbers of people who are moving from one position to another within government? I am not sure how we can work to address some of these things, but I have anecdotal evidence, even from my own constituency, where people are increasingly frustrated when they call a department and are dealing with one individual, and then the next time they call they're dealing with somebody else, and the next time it's somebody else. I know even from my own member of Parliament office that this seems to be a recurring frustration. I am just thinking that if this is something we're experiencing and hearing about from others, then when we see these numbers we know it's government-wide.
We have a real problem on our hands. We have a civil service that is doing its best to try to address the needs of Canadians, but on the flip side, it is a pretty unfortunate environment in which civil servants are trying to do this, a situation where the corporate memory is just being wiped out time and time again.
I don't know what we can do. I know there are suggestions, but I'm not sure if there are some suggestions you have as to where we as a committee might go to assist you, or if you feel that in time we'll get a handle on it. I know that you have been working aggressively on this front, but I'm not sure if there's anything that we might be able to do to assist you in your efforts.
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It's a good question. Can I just make a couple of comments?
The growth in the public service is not something the Public Service Commission does; that is a government decision. When estimates are reviewed, that's the obvious place to ask questions about the growth and increases in budget. Do they mean increases in people? Are you going to hire people or are you going to contract? Those are really government and then parliamentary decisions. We at the commission are making the observation on how the system is working and how the staffing system is working.
We have a preoccupation about the staffing system, and I agree that if we spend a lot of time looking at the numbers.... And there is not “one fix for everything”. We looked at different occupational groups, at different settings, and at the dynamic of what was going on in those occupational groups. One general statement doesn't apply to everything.
It is obvious to me that this whole system has to be better managed. I think there is an obligation on the employer, the new CHRO, to deal with this in terms of how it is managed.
We now have a system in which, for some occupational groups—look at one of the charts we have on the table, for the ESs—they've all moved within a year; none of them is in the same job. Some of this could be because the job has been re-labelled: it could be that they're doing the same job but it has a different title—and that is the only way we can judge it.
That's a very hard system to manage. It's very hard for providing service and for providing any kind of continuity. But people are staying in the public service. We have people leaving, but not in great numbers; they're staying in the public service.
So I think it's a big management issue. When members of Parliament review estimates and have managers in front of them, asking them how they manage this would be helpful. We keep on about the planning, but planning means not just having a plan; it means looking at your workforce, at the different components of your workforce, and having a strategy for how you are going to replace and renew those different components.
It is also very important for public service managers to work at really actively engaging their employees and having the conversations with their employees because they stay in the public service; they just go and work for another department.
It's a system that has resulted in some sectors and some places having too much movement—what I call classification creep. You see the classification levels going up, which doesn't seem appropriate. In some places, for some groups, I think we've gone through the big retirement, and you see others for which it's going to come. The AS group, you can see, is older; it's going to come. ESs and PEs have done it, and they're now newer.
Ms. Barrados, I have been listening to you very carefully from the start. I must say that I have some serious issues with your comments. With regard to the new process, you stated in your presentation, among other things, that planning in 50% of departments and organizations had been assessed as less than fully acceptable. So you are telling us that 50% of departments and government organizations are unable to fill positions by themselves, or to do the kind of planning that will help them deal with human resources development.
What worries me is that, on June 15, 2006, you said more or less same thing before this committee, as you did once again on November 19, 2007.
Have things changed at all, or has the situation deteriorated since the process was established? Has the Public Service Commission established a planning process to train and support managers in their recruitment activities, and to provide directions, concrete directions tor departments and organizations in staffing and recruitment?
I did take the time to look at the report, even though it is a very thick and we only received it at the very last minute. However, I saw nothing in your studies on staff training. If we are to retain staff in departments and ensure that they are promoted and paid better, we must have a training plan in place. In your reports, I saw no concrete assessments of individual departmental staff training plans. I don't know if that is one of the roles of the PSC, but I think it most likely is. In my opinion, one key aspect of retaining staff is training. We have to provide training to staff members who want to go further, and give them the opportunity to benefit from a sound training plan that enables them to progress within the system.
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I'm always embarrassed when I have to go before a parliamentary committee and say that I'm not so sure that what I was telling you last year is really right, which is what the case is here. I'll try to give you a not-too-technical explanation.
The way we get the number of how many visible minorities we have in the public service and how many we have hired is by asking public servants to fill in a self-declaration form. This is a form that in some departments is automated and in some departments is not automated. Some people are fairly systematic about it and some are not. So there are some real questions about the integrity of this data and how people fill in this form.
We have been using that number. It is collected by the employer, we take all these forms that are filled in, we match the form with all the appointments, and we say you hired so many visible minorities.
I went before Parliament last year saying I'm really worried at the rate of hiring, because the rate of hiring is dropping off, and we're not going to have a representative public service.
In the meantime, we are getting better in our information systems, we're beginning to automate more, and we have an application system. All people who apply to an advertised job in the Government of Canada have to come through the jobs website and apply with the Public Service Commission. They are asked whether they are a member of a visible minority group—so this is self-identification. They are led through the application form—and you have to deal with this section of the application form; otherwise your application doesn't go in.
We took those numbers and matched them up with the applications and asked, what does it look like? We're doing a lot better, by that method, than we are by the other method.
Now, I have some problems. I have a whole system that's set up working one way; I have another estimate; there are requirements under the Employment Equity Act. I have the Human Rights Commission working one way; I'm only working with advertised processes—I'm not covering the unadvertised, which I talked about earlier.
I still estimate that we're doing a lot better than we've been saying. I would love to be able to give you a number.
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I'll try to deal with your questions quickly.
Is the phenomenon of turnover a function of the retirements? The answer is yes. We are right in it; it's not a matter of coming retirements. Some of the groups have actually had large numbers of people retiring already. With some groups, you see the wave coming. There are different estimates. It depends on how people make individual decisions, but we'll be out of it by 2012 or 2014. So you're absolutely correct that we're in it now. My concern is that the consequence of the departures has encouraged this huge turn in the system and that's what has to be managed.
Your second question is about how we can ratchet down the classification creep. This is not an area that is the responsibility of the commission. This is the employer's responsibility. However, any manager can reorganize and reclassify the jobs. You do have to protect the levels of the people who are in the jobs--they would be red circled--but it is possible.... There is a difficulty with the classification system--and this comes from my auditor general days. There have been some major attempts at reforming the system and they were not carried through--a universal classification system--and then the approach has been more of a modular one, which means that in some parts of the system there's a revised standard, while in other parts of the system there is not a good standard, so it is not a very robust system.
The third area that you asked about is what this committee can do for me. The Public Service Commission was established 100 years ago to be at arm's length from the ministers. That means that I don't have a go-to minister; I don't have a way into any of the formal processes. I'm much more on the outside. I'm nominated by Parliament; my boss is Parliament; I can only be fired by Parliament. It's pretty clear who my boss is, so I do need the support and the attention of the committee.
I would say that there are three areas that are really important to me at this moment . One is my estimates. As we are going through budget reviews, we have gone through the horizontal review and we have taken our share of cuts, so that when I have the opportunity to discuss my estimates, there is a satisfaction that we are in a position to continue to carry out our work. It also gives me a forum to raise any issues I may have in terms of the budget process.
The second thing that is very important to me is that this committee continues to take an interest in the work of my office. I find today's discussion very gratifying because we have been given a very unique responsibility. We have an executive authority, but we have the independence of the Auditor General. So we have order powers, corrective powers, and executive powers, but we have great independence. There has to be an oversight of our work. I think my staff and I are very responsible, but I think the committee always has to be on the alert that we may not be doing quite what Parliament wants. The general interest in our work and looking for us to input into your work is extremely important.
The one issue in which I may need immediate attention from the committee is if I'm not making progress in getting this visible minority number down. We really can't work in an environment where we have this incredible miscommunication about the numbers. This may involve calling different players and having the committee provide some direction and guidance.
I know you asked for three, but I'm going to sneak in a fourth because it's not immediate. The statutory review of the legislation is supposed to be five years after it came into force. That is December 2010, which means we are beginning to work on that statutory review. If the committee is interested at some point—it could be in the context of some of the others—to have some discussion about what work we are beginning to do to prepare for the statutory review, that would be most welcome, but it is not one of those immediate things. It's a little longer term.
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That's great. Thank you very much.
I see general satisfaction around the table, so if there are no further necessary interventions, we'll conclude this part of the meeting.
I'll thank Ms. Barrados, Mr. Lemaire, Mr. Hunt, and the others for attending. Thank you very much. You're now free to leave the room.
Colleagues, we will continue in open meeting just to deal with some future committee business.
The clerk and research have, as we discussed earlier, arranged future meetings so that Thursday of this week, we will be taking up the issue of small and medium enterprises, SMEs. We have the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the Department of Public Works, and the Canadian Business Information Technology Network, sometimes known as CABiNET. They have a window on the procurement of information technology from small enterprises. We will continue with that issue in the following week.
The real question comes up a week Thursday, as we attempt to sink our teeth into the stimulus package issue. I'm of the view that we should not be passive. We should be active, as we initially discussed. I know that the finance committee is reviewing the stimulus package as it relates to Bill C-10. It is there now, and there's nothing we can do about the stimulus contained in Bill C-10. The finance committee, of course, is looking at that, and the roll-out could not possibly occur until the Senate has passed that legislation and we've passed it ourselves. However, there are infrastructure moneys contained within current fiscal year budgets, and I think there are some very legitimate questions that should be asked, and I think the two ministers involved in that...the principal minister would be the minister responsible for infrastructure, whom I believe to be the Minister of Transport.
We've had contact with the office of the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, but in the absence of a committee bestowing an invitation, the minister wouldn't want to devote the time to us. I'm inviting members here to provide a firm invitation to the minister. If the minister declined—and I'm sure he would only do it for good reason—we would be in a position to summon the deputy minister on the same issues, who, one would assume, would be just as informed as the minister on these processes. I'm asking members to consider that and in fact to adopt that course, but there may be some discussion on this from members.
So I'll recognize Mr. Warkentin, who had a comment.