RETENTION AND COMPENSATION ISSUES IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE
The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance
Chair : The Honourable Terrance R. Stratton
Deputy Chair : The Honourable Anne C. Cools
First Session : Thirty-Sixth Parliament
February 1999
SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS
RECOMMENDATION 1
That the federal government undertakes a detailed review of the potential succession needs within the federal Public Service.
RECOMMENDATION 2
The federal government needs to introduce measures to ensure that the country is able to replace its retiring Public Service employees.
RECOMMENDATION 3
The federal government needs to give its negotiators a mandate to solve the problems of inadequate compensation and unsatisfactory working conditions.
RECOMMENDATION 4
That the Prime Minister and government ministers publicly recognise the value of the services provided by federal public employees and recognise that these services are pivotal to Canada’s future.
RECOMMENDATION 5
The government needs to make a greater effort to ensure that the disruptions resulting from re-organisation or program changes do not result in a demoralisation of its workforce.
MEMBERSHIP OF THE COMMITTEE
The Honourable Senator Terrance R. Stratton, Chair
The Honourable Senator Anne C. Cools, Deputy Chair
And
The Honourable Senators
| Bolduc | Johnstone |
| Carstairs, P.C. | Lavoie-Roux |
| Eyton | *Linch-Staunton (or Kinsella) |
| Ferretti Barth | Mahovlich |
| Fraser | Moore |
| *Graham, P.C. (or Carstairs, P.C.) | St. Germain, P.C. |
*Ex officio Members
Other Senators who have participated in this study
Callbeck |
Robichaud (Saint-Louis-de-Kent) |
Forest |
Sparrow |
Poulin |
ORDERS OF REFERENCE
Extract from the Journals of the Senate of Thursday, October 9 1997:
The Honourable Senator Carstairs moved, seconded by the Honourable Senator Stanbury:
That the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance be authorized to examine and report upon the expenditures set out in the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1998, with the exception of Parliamentary Vote 10 and Privy Council Vote 25.
After debate,
The question being put on the motion, it was adopted.
Paul C. Bélisle
Clerk of the Senate
_________________________
Extract from the Journals of the Senate of Wednesday, March 18, 1998:
The Honourable Senator Castairs moved, seconded by the Honourable Senator Johnstone:
That the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance be authorized to examine and report upon the expenditures set out in the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1999, with the exception of Parliament Vote 10 and Privy Council Vote 25.
The question being put on the motion, it was adopted.
Paul C. Bélisle
Clerk of the Senate
INTRODUCTION
In the fall of 1997, Members of the Senate Standing Committee on National Finance were concerned about reports that a critical number of senior employees were leaving the federal Public Service. Press reports suggested that the rate of departures among senior managers was reducing the government’s capacity to formulate policy and could eventually affect its ability to deliver services to Canadians. Such a situation, coming so soon after the upheavals associated with the Program Review exercise, was a worrisome development in the view of the Members of the Committee.
That the government also shared this concern was evident from the steps that it took to assess the situation and to deal with it. Early in 1997, the Treasury Board Secretariat and the Public Service Commission asked the Public Management Research Centre to conduct focus groups with current and former Public Service executives to solicit their feelings on their work environment, compensation packages and any future career plans they may have. The study identified several areas of concern involving both monetary and non-monetary matters. Although pay levels were a concern of senior managers, they were also troubled by the public perception of the value of the work that they performed. They were also dissatisfied with the responsibilities that they assumed relative to their ability and authority to deal with workplace challenges. Whether because of the findings of the Public Management Research Centre, or because of the deteriorating situation, the government decided to establish an Advisory Committee on Senior Level Retention and Compensation. During its three-year mandate, the Advisory Committee is to provide independent advice and recommendations to the President of the Treasury Board Secretariat concerning senior management in the federal Public Service. It will also address several concerns of the government involving the development of long-term strategies for managing the human resource needs of senior staff. Particular areas identified in its mandate include human resource policies and programmes, terms and conditions of employment, classification and compensation issues including rates of pay, rewards and recognition. These two actions clearly indicate that the government was worried about developments in the senior levels of the Public Service. This was not the government’s only concern about the morale of its employees.
In her Fourth Report to the Prime Minister, the Clerk of the Privy Council noted that a "quiet crisis" loomed ahead for the nation. She had found growing evidence that it could become increasingly difficult to retain, motivate and attract people essential to the work of the Public Service over the coming decades. In her words:
"There is a "quiet crisis" under way in the Public Service today. It is quiet because few people are aware of the crisis and even fewer people have started to do something about it."
In order to deal with this problem the government implemented a program known as "La Relève." The program aims to build a modern and vibrant Public Service by re-establishing a sense of pride among the employees and by developing human resource competencies throughout the federal public sector. For instance, the Policy Research Initiative (PRI) attempts to broaden the perspective of policy analyst through improved dialogue among government policy researchers and between public and private sector analyst. It aims to reverse the effects of Program Review without negating the benefits of the downsizing.
The Senate Standing Committee on National Finance has a long history of interest in Public Service management issues. To its Members, it seemed that the Public Service was indeed undergoing significant stresses at all levels of employment and that an examination of the problem might provide useful information to the government. The problem merited the attention of Parliament, and therefore, in the course of its regular review of the Estimates for 1998-1999, the Committee initiated a series of hearings into the retention and recruitment issues within the federal Public Service.
EMPLOYMENT ISSUES IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE
The factors that affect an employee’s view of his job or career are many and varied. During the hearings the Committee heard many opinions on the factors that have affected public servants in recent years. The Committee also examined recent developments that if left unchecked will seriously hinder the government’s ability to formulate policy and to deliver services to Canadians. Currently, Canada enjoys one of the best Public Services in the world. It is generally considered to be effective, modern and non-partisan, qualities that many Canadians may take for granted. If the country is to retain this level of service it will have to address a number of outstanding issues. In particular it will have to assure itself that it can attract new recruits into the Public Service and it must be able to retain its most experienced employees.
Over the course of the Committee’s inquiry into conditions in the Public Service it was possible to identify a number of factors that affect the recruitment and retention of employees in the Public Service. First, there is a serious demographic problem that threatens the quality of services that Canadians have come to expect from their government. In simple terms the Public Service is ageing rapidly, and there is concern that not enough has been done to ensure that experienced employees will replace those that are retiring.
Second, there is a morale problem that stems from general criticism aimed at the Public Service by the media and the politicians during the nineties. After this public onslaught on the value of public employees, the government, as part of its fiscal policy, began to systematically dismantle large parts of its infrastructure and to lay off workers through buy-outs and early retirement packages. While the government was successful in achieving some degree of fiscal stability, the Program Review exercise had a devastating effect on the self-esteem of employees in the Public Service.
Finally, there is a monetary concern related to the 6 year pay freeze, and the relatively low pay offers made by the government now that negotiations with employees have resumed. The government compensation policy may be undermined by the apparent uneven treatment of different levels of employees. All of these factors as well as others bear on the ability of the government to attract new recruits and to retain experienced employees.
DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE
Since 1992, cuts in recruitment levels and retirement incentive packages have combined to create a Public Service that is underrepresented among young persons and among persons above 50 years of age. The government will have to find a way to recruit more young persons and to encourage older workers with experience to remain with the Public Service beyond the normal retirement age.
Canada’s Public service is getting old and is about to retire. The demographic evidence shows that about 90% of senior level executives in the Public Service will be eligible for retirement benefits by the year 2005. The proportion of executives that could retire from the public service in a ten-year period, without a penalty, stood at 51% in 1992. The same group accounted for 70% of employees in 1997. While they may not retire, the possibility exists that the Public Service could suffer a major loss of senior employees. Among the junior levels, 70% of employees are approaching retirement. This presents Canadians with a startling proportion of employees that are eligible to retire early in the new millennium, and who are currently predisposed to doing so. The current Public Service pension system provides no financial incentive for employees to remain after the age of 55.
Exacerbating the problem are the recent practices of Program Review which did not take this eventuality into account when the Public Service workforce was cut back. Older employees are underrepresented at this time because the massive downsizing created incentives to make it easier for workers in their 50s to leave without pension penalties. Furthermore, since the selection of eligible employees was achieved on a voluntary basis, many that left were among the best employees. There may not have been adequate consideration given to retaining the most effective and experienced employees.
The loss of so many experienced employees in so short a period of time is a matter of grave concern. Already the Office of the Auditor General has noted that the government is currently experiencing significant problems with some programs because of staff shortages. In particular it is not always able to get experienced workers to replace those that are leaving. With an increasing number of persons having less experience filling these vacancies, the Auditor General is fearful that the quality of service could suffer. He is concerned that the new recruits into the upper levels of management will not have been given sufficient opportunity to develop the kind of vision, versatility, experience and expertise required at the uppermost levels.
Another worrisome aspect of the demographic profile of the Public Service is in that there are not enough young employees. The entire Service is getting older and that is a concern. Young employees are absent because the Public Sector has not recruited for almost 10 years. Some witnesses expressed concern that the government would not be able to attract young persons because of a negative connotation associated with public service employment. According to this view, the best and the brightest of our college and university graduates no longer want to consider a career in the Public Service.
If action is not taken soon, the Public Service is increasingly at risk of not only losing the talent that it has developed for future needs but also of losing existing talent to early departures and to the private sector. Years of wage and recruitment freezes, downsizing, voluntary departures and the aging of the public service are causing a serious demographic imbalance within the Public Service.
The Committee believes that the federal government should be concerned both about the lack of youthful employees and the accelerated loss of experienced workers. The Committee therefor recommends:
RECOMMENDATION 1
That the federal government undertakes a detailed review of the potential succession needs within the federal Public Service.
RECOMMENDATION 2
The federal government needs to introduce measures to ensure that the country is able to replace its retiring Public Service employees.
MORALE PROBLEMS IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE
In the early 1990s an almost constant stream of criticism was aimed at those who made a career commitment to serve the public interest. At that time, there were few who spoke in defence of such a career choice. That kind of criticism will erode the essence of why people chose to work in the Public Service, which is their sense that it is a respectable career. While Public Service employees, especially at the senior levels, do not expect to be paid at the same level as their private sector counterparts they want to receive some recognition that the work that is being done has social merit. The constant attacks on the Public Service in Parliament and in the media have undermined the self-confidence of many public service employees. This sense of doing something for the public good has been lost. To constantly berate employees, as was the case in recent years for the Public Service, is very destructive to an organization’s ability to retain a quality workforce. Unfortunately, much of the criticism was misdirected as it should have focussed upon the inefficiencies of the program delivery mechanisms and not on the persons charged with implementing these initiatives. The success of alternative delivery mechanisms adopted during the Program Review is indicative of the inappropriateness of earlier approaches to program delivery.
After such a period of sustained criticism it is difficult to imagine how employees might remain confident or retain their self-esteem during a period of wage freeze and massive downsizing. There is widespread agreement about the success of Program Review in bringing fiscal stability to government expenditures. There is also general agreement that the workforce reductions were well handled with a minimum of disruptions to government services. Generally, employees who left with departure incentives were treated in a humane and sensitive manner, and in many cases they were provided with transition support mechanisms. Less clear is the impact of the exercise on those who remained and on the cost of rebuilding the Public Service.
The reasons for the problems in the Public Service are many, but the recent downsizing of the workforce has undoubtedly placed a great deal of stress on the organization. As a result of the Program Review exercise, total program spending will decline from about $120.6 billion in 1993-94 to a current forecast of about $103.4 for fiscal 1998-99. It encompasses a significant decrease in the size of government, approximately 20% by the end of the exercise. In manpower terms, the Public Service will have decreased by approximately 39,000 persons. Total employment in the public sector will have fallen from about 230,000 to approximately 195,000 persons. At the end of the exercise as many as 55,000 persons may be eliminated from the federal workforce. Of course not all of these persons became unemployed many were transferred to the private sector companies that are now providing these services.
It is difficult to imagine how any organization, public or private, could manage downsizing of this magnitude without experiencing some consequences. For the employees that remained, it has been a period of tremendous stress, with a growing workload, increasing demands and more pressure. One consequence may be a reduced commitment on the part of employees to the public interest. These employees have seen valued and experienced colleagues declared surplus and have seen them leave the Public Service. This expertise has not necessarily been replaced, and important programs have suffered. For instance the Committee was informed that there are serious shortages of armed force pilots, Revenue Canada auditors and senior scientific personnel. A greater than usual number of Public Servants may be dissatisfied with their employment conditions.
Dissatisfaction with Public Service careers is serious enough among senior executives that the Advisory Committee perceived it as the key issue threatening the quality of the federal Public Service. The committee was very concerned that over time Canada might suffer serious erosion in the level of quality in government services to which Canadians have grown accustomed.
The widespread criticism of public servants in the 1990s, followed by this massive dismantling of the Public Service, has shaken the federal employees’ self-esteem and may be leading to a reduced commitment, on their part, to the Service. It certainly has made their commitment to the public interest more fragile. It is easy to understand how the earlier attacks might begin to sow doubts in the minds of any employee.
The downsizing of the Public Service has also had an effect on the quality of the senior managers. Just when we most need people with diverse experience who have been exposed to a broad cross section of issues, interdepartmental mobility is at an all-time low. And, because we have been downsizing, there has been very limited upward mobility. Senior level professionals and managers have been occupying their positions for increasing lengths of time, because there is limited opportunity for promotion and advancement.
COMPENSATION ISSUES IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE
Compensation issues are probably the single most important factors that bear on the recruitment and retention of Public Service employees. While many factors affect job satisfaction levels, prolonged inadequacy in compensation levels, coupled with strong external opportunities will lead to increase departures from the Public Service. Although government officials tended to downplay the relative importance of compensation adequacy in the current malaise affecting the Public Service, other witnesses spoke very forcefully in favour of increasing the competitiveness of the government salary and wage levels.
Competitive compensation is a prerequisite to the successful application of recruitment and retention strategies in the Public Service. The current situation with respect to compensation makes it difficult for the government to retain employees. To begin with, private-sector wage settlements increased by 15% since 1991, while Public Service employees received a single 3% increase during that same period of time. During the wage-freeze period, (roughly 1991 to 1997) the compounded Consumer Price Index rose 15.3%, compounded average weekly earnings rose 18.2%, and compounded private-sector wage settlements rose 15.2%. These are indicators of what the public servants lost against inflation and against the average weekly earnings of other employees. Furthermore, while private sector compensation is expected to increase between 2.6% and 3.6% to 1999, the public sector is expected to receive increases of less than 2.5%.
Such poor compensation growth in recent years is the reason that several witnesses called for immediate action. The Public Service Alliance of Canada, which represents the junior ranks of the Service and the Professional Institute of Public Service, which represents professionals, were adamant that compensation issues need to be addressed before any other impediments to job satisfaction can be dealt with effectively. In a sense, the Advisory Committee on Senior Level Retention and Compensation also arrived at this conclusion as it felt obligated to issue an interim report that recommended immediate and significant salary increases. Finally, the witnesses from the Department of National Defence made repeated calls for higher compensation, particularly among the military staff, which has been addressed recently.
Compensation problems arise primarily because the wage freeze was in force for such a prolonged period and because the government has set a ceiling on acceptable settlements. As is the case with such a device, the ceiling has become a floor. Most settlements have come in at the 2% per annum rate, while in occupational areas where there exist strong alternative employment opportunities, settlements above the stipulated maximum have been received.
Another problem arising from the relatively low wage levels is that they have led to private sector raiding of the Public Service. There has been a strong effort on the part of the private sector to recruit the best people in the Public Sector. The private sector is capable of offering substantially higher salaries at a time when the government is trying to hold a line on its own wage bill.
RECRUITMENT INTO THE PUBLIC SERVICE
Claims were made that the recruitment of new graduates into the Public Service would become increasingly difficult because such a career is unattractive to young persons. The evidence received by the Committee would suggest otherwise. It appears that the government continues to attract the interest of large numbers of college and university graduates. For example, in 1997 the Public Service Commission received over 9,000 applications for the approximately 850 permanent jobs for which the Commission recruited on Canadian campuses. Furthermore, the quality of the applications for government jobs is exceptional as very highly qualified individuals continue to show an interest in government employment.
However, this does not mean that there is no recruitment problem. Because of the demographic problem discussed above, the government’s requirements are increasingly for experienced knowledge-based professionals. The recruitment of these individuals does pose a problem in tight markets. Government compensation offers are adjusted more slowly than those of private sector employers do. Consequently it is difficult in some cases to attract any new recruits, regardless of their quality. Furthermore, it is more likely that the government’s relatively low compensation policy will lead it to lose employees. As the representative of PIPS noted: "…the Public Service is increasingly becoming the finishing school for other employers." PIPS also believes that recruitment strategies, however sophisticated, will not work without resolving the fundamental issues that cause the negative working environment.
This negative environment might arise from increased workloads, diminished resources, low self-esteem, etc. More than likely it is linked to the fact that wages have been frozen for five of the past six years. The reduction of one’s standard of living has a powerful effect on self-esteem and morale, and the importance of this effect in the current malaise of the Public Service should not be ignored.
EMPLOYEE RETENTION IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE
Both the Clerk of the Privy Council and the Chief of the Defence Staff maintain that recruitment is not a problem. Retaining the staff, that you have trained and invested in, is a problem.
This is a more conventional retention and recruitment problem. People are not leaving because of the incentives they were offered, or because they are unusually dissatisfied with their jobs, but because of the offers they are receiving from the private sector. It is market forces that are drawing them (whether they are auditors at National Revenue or officers at National Defence) away from federal employment towards private sector employers.
The inability of the government to hold onto its employees is a serious matter. It has led to the loss some of its most experienced employees to retirement. It has lost corporate knowledge and experience that will take some time and effort to replace.
GOVERNMENT ACTIONS
The government has reacted to the problems discussed above in different ways. For the senior executive levels it accepted the recommendations of the First Report of the Advisory Committee on Senior Level Retention and Compensation. It will provide significant salary increases to its senior level managers. It has also initiated several programs to develop the necessary pool of qualified and experienced managers. It hopes that this initiative will minimise any adverse effects that might arise if a large proportion of its senior managers chose to retire at an early age.
The central recommendation of the Advisory Committee is to create a new compensation structure for senior public servants. This will result in an increase in the job rate of 4% at the lower level and 19% at the upper end of the scale. The new structure will also contain a variable component, or merit pay which the Advisory Committee calls "pay at risk." This latter component is the least developed notion, and consequently, is expected to take longer to implement. The government, which intends to implement all recommendations by March 2002, expects them to cost about $68 million.
The government accepted the Advisory Committee’s recommendation that an immediate pay increase was required to stem the flow of senior mangers to the private sector. The size of the increase was determined by the Advisory Committee’s comparison of senior public service salaries with other senior level managers in the private and public sector. This analysis on comparable pay scales led it to recommend relatively large pay increases for certain management levels.
The Senate Committee was very interested in the proposal for a form of merit pay that is referred to as "pay-at-risk." Unfortunately, the Advisory Committee did not spell out in sufficient details how this pay-at-risk portion of senior management compensation would be determined. Consequently, the government did not have a system proposal in place for consideration by the Committee at the time of its hearings.
It is the views of the Senate Committee that this matter of incentive pay is of real significance and will warrant further review by the Committee at a later date. We will also be reviewing other aspects of the Advisory Committee’s ongoing work.
Although pay levels have been increased the Minister believes that it will be much more important in the coming years to re-establish a sound reputation for public service careers and to rebuild the self-esteem of government employees. To some extent this is the objective of the La Relève Program.
La Relève, is a government-wide initiative designed to renew the Public Service. It reflects a renewed energy and sincere focus on valuing and developing people. Recruitment, retention and renewal are key issues. The initiative attempts to remove the uncertainty in the Public Service that resulted from the downsizing. It is designed in part as a means of re-establishing stability in the work environment of federal employees.
La Relève is also designed to promote diversity of experience and interdepartmental mobility. The Public Service will need to ensure that its employees, particularly at senior levels obtain the diversity of experience and the competencies that will be needed in the future in order to provide integrated services and integrated policy development.
The government needs to move urgently to promote interdepartmental mobility and to provide for the diversity of experience that will be required. Three groups in particular will need immediate attention. They include the Assistant Deputy Ministers and the EX community, (about 3,500 persons), which are the leaders in the Public Service. There is also a pressing need to achieve a greater degree of diversity of experience within the policy formulation community, because of the very nature of its work.
The objective of the new government management programs is to expand the pool of qualified candidates. These are persons who are prepared to make the personal sacrifice of time and effort to gain the experience and skills they will need to take over the most senior ranks of the public service in the future.
Policy analysts need to be exposed to the broadest range of issues, as policy formulation is more complex today than it used to be. Policy is no longer made in one department. For example, 19 departments are involved in international trade. To bring together that many perspectives takes time and practice. Policy development is a difficult skill to acquire.
Significant challenges to the managers of the Public Service include dealing with the aging Public Service; increasing the mobility of managers within the service; and identifying the emerging skills and competencies requirements of managers.
While both the Advisory Committee and the Public Service Commission identified a need for a concerted and highly targeted recruitment effort in order to attract experienced individuals into the Public Service, there are also initiatives to develop the required talent within government ranks. For instance the Public Service Commission has also implemented corporate development programs like the Management Trainee Program, which fast tracks high quality recruits to the middle management level through a combination of learning on assignment and more formal learning.
The government’s management programs are necessary to address a potential promotion/succession problem at the highest levels. For example, 170 potential vacancies could arise in assistant deputy minister posts over the next four years. Two major initiatives have been develop to create talent pools for replenishing the Executive category: the Assistant Deputy Minister Prequalification Process and the Accelerated Executive Development Program.
The first program exist to identify people who are ready to be assistant deputy ministers and might have had a natural opportunity in a growing public service. This list of individuals is referred to as the pre-qualified pool. After a round of testing and evaluation, the qualified persons are identified as capable of moving into the executive level. When there is a vacancy, or when work needs to be done for which a person at that level is qualified, the person is taken out of the pool and made an assistant deputy minister to do the work.
The other program, the Accelerated Executive Development Program, is designed to accelerate the development of executives up to, but not into, the assistant deputy minister level. This prepares the government for the worst case scenario that if everybody, who could retire, did retire.
Other initiatives of the government include an attempt to develop an inventory of the policy data available in the Government of Canada and to identify areas for improvement in the government’s ability to formulate policy. It has also sought to pinpoint possible future policy issues for which policy analyst are not equipped, and to develop a system of external contacts that will allows the Public Service to build linkages with leaders in various fields. Every department is now working closely with a number of universities and leaders in their field. At the corporate level this exposure of policy development to basically everyone in the country who has an interest in it should result in a more effective exchange of information.
CONCLUDING COMMENTS
The Public Service of Canada is a vital part of the infrastructure of this country and it is needed to sustain and advance the social and economic well being of Canadians. The people who deliver the programs and provide advice to the government work in an institution that is in need of urgent attention. However, problems will persist and worsen if action is not taken immediately.
The work pyramid for the federal workforce illustrated three problems: insufficient young employees training to take over in the years ahead; insufficient older employees to provide experience; and too many employees at all levels that are rapidly approaching retirement. The federal government has a succession plan problem. To solve its problem, the Public Service will need external recruitment, and it will need to create incentives for workers to stay with the Public Service beyond their normal retirement age.
In order to provide top quality service to Canadians, the government must be able to attract, retain and motivate high quality people at all levels. It will also have to ensure that the existing workforce acquires the skills and diversity of experience to deal with the issues of the future. The Committee believes that at least three actions are required to achieve this state. First, the compensation issue must be addressed. Canada’s economy has placed the services of knowledge-based professionals in high demand, and the government must face this issue. The Committee there for recommends:
RECOMMENDATION 3
That the federal government give its negotiators a new mandate to solve the problems of inadequate compensation and unsatisfactory working conditions.
Second there is a need for visible and sustained political leadership and involvement in addressing the problems in the Public Service. The Committee recommends:
RECOMMENDATION 4
That the Prime Minister and government ministers publicly recognise the value of the services provided by federal public employees and recognise that these services are pivotal to Canada’s future.
Third, all organisations require some degree of stability. Although we expect constant change in the future, there is still need for some constancy in the Public Service. The earlier predisposition to devolve, privatise, commercialise or eliminate programs and organisations has created a great deal of unease among public servants. The Committee believes that loyalty and dedication to an organisation are still valuable and are worth cultivating. The Committee therefor recommends:
RECOMMENDATION 5
The government needs to make a greater effort to ensure that the disruptions resulting from re-organisation or program changes do not result in a demoralisation of its workforce.
In order to achieve these objectives, the government will have to invest in its public servants. It will have to create the environment and the opportunity that enables each public servant to contribute to his or her full potential.
During these hearings we were reminded that Canada has long been recognized as having one of the finest public services in the world. As an essential element of any stable, democratic system of government, a professional non-partisan Public Service is responsible for giving the best advice possible to the government of the day, for the effective implementation of federal programs and for the enforcement of the laws and regulations of the country. In a world beset with ongoing social and economic change, the need for excellence in the Public Service will likely increase. More than ever, Canada will require a modern organization that serves the needs of Canadians and the government in a non-partisan fashion.
La Relève alone will not be successful in dealing with the loss of self-esteem in the Public Service. The government’s response must provide meaningful action to resolve the fundamental issues that are causing dissatisfaction in the Public Service. Personnel shortages identified by the Auditor General and the Public Service Commission for policy analysts, economists, auditors, computer system specialists, financial officers, mathematicians, statisticians, engineers, financial officers and Foreign Service officers will not be resolved by La Relève.
The government must resolve the fundamental issues undermining the effectiveness of the public service. It must deal with the fundamental issues of adequate levels of funding, employment security and fair levels of compensation.
WITNESSES
The following witnesses appeared before the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance during its examination of the 1997-98 and 1998-99 Main Estimates:
February 18, 1998 (Issue No. 4)
The Honourable Marcel Massé, P.C., M.P., President of the Treasury
Board
Ms. Shirley Siegel, Executive Director, Senior Level Retention and Compensation Division,
Human Resources Branch
April 29, 1998 (Issue No. 8)
Mr. Lawrence F. Strong, Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Senior Level Retention and Compensation.
From the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
Ms. Shirley Siegel, Executive Director, Senior Level Retention and Compensation
Classification and Excluded Groups Division, Human Resources Branch
May 6, 1998 (Issue No. 9)
From the Public Service Alliance of Canada
Mr. Daryl Bean, National President
Ms Nycole Turmel, National Executive Vice President
Mr. Steve Jelly, Executive Assistant to the Executive Committee.
From the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada:
Mr. Steve Hindle, President
Mr. Bob McInstosh, Policy Advisor
Mr. Richard Bellaire, Research Officer & Compensation Analyst.
May 13, 1998 (Issue No. 10)
From the Office of the Auditor General of Canada:
Mr. Denis Desautels, Auditor General
Mr. Ronald J. Wolchuk, Principal
Mr. Jacques Goyer, Principal.
June 10, 1998 (Issue No. 14)
From the Public Service Commission:
Mrs. Ruth Hubbard, President
Mr. Jean-Guy Fleury, Executive Director, Resourcing and Learning
Mr. Judith Moses, Executive Director, Policy Research &Communications
From the Privy Council Office
Mrs. Jocelyne Bourgon, Clerk of the Privy Council and, Secretary to the Cabinet
Mr. Peter Harrison, Assistant Deputy Minister and, Head of the Task Force la Relève
October 29, 1998 (Issue No. 17)
From the Department of National Defence:
Mr. Jim Judd, Deputy Minister
General Maurice Baril, Chief of the Defence Staff
Mrs. Monique Boudrias, Assistant Deputy Minister (Human Resources – Civilian)
Major General Christian Couture, Acting Assistant Deputy Minister (Human Resources – Military)
Mr. Guy Parent, Canadian Forces Chief Warrant Officer
Lieutenant-Colonel Gilles Lavergne, Deputy Commander Recruiting Services
November 5, 1998 (Issue No. 18)
From the Department of Justice
Mr. Morris Rosenberg, Deputy Minister
Mr. Mario Dion, Assistant Deputy Minister