Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Finance
Issue 4 - Evidence - Meeting of January 29, 2008
OTTAWA, Tuesday, January 29, 2008
The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance met this day at 9:30 a.m. to study the Estimates laid before Parliament for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2008. Topic for this meeting: Public Service.
Senator Terry Stratton (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Deputy Chair: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance. My name is Terry Stratton. I represent the province of Manitoba in the Senate and I am deputy chair of the committee.
[English]
The Chairman, Joseph Day, is unable to be with us today, therefore I am pleased to assist in chairing this meeting.
Welcome to this tenth meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance. The committee's field of interest is government spending and operations, including reviewing the activities of officers of Parliament and those various individuals and groups that help parliamentarians to hold the government to account. We do this through estimates of expenditures and funds made available to officers of Parliament to perform their functions and through budget implementation acts and other matters referred to the Senate.
Today, I am pleased to welcome Karen Ellis, Senior Vice-President, Workforce and Workplace Renewal, of the Canada Public Service Agency. This is the agency formerly known as the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada. The name was changed in April 2007. It is the focal point for people management in the public service and reports to Parliament through the President of the Treasury Board, the Honourable Vic Toews.
Thank you for being with us today, Ms. Ellis. I would like to mention that Ms. Ellis has been invited to appear before the committee to expand on issues raised during the two previous meetings of the committee. The November 28 meeting with officials from the Treasury Board and the Canada Public Service Agency was the result of the November 14, 2007 testimony of Maria Barrados, President of the Public Service Commission. She appeared before the committee to discuss the Public Service Commission 2006-2007 Annual Report. These meetings raised a number of issues that the committee is interested in addressing, including term versus indeterminate hiring and turnover rates in the public service.
I would like to thank you for taking the time to be with us today. I am aware that Treasury Board officials were unable to be with us today, but I am confident that you will be able to help us with our remaining issues. I would ask you if you would make your presentation and then we will open the floor to questions.
Karen Ellis, Senior Vice-President, Workforce and Workplace Renewal, Canada Public Service Agency: I am a Senior Vice-President with the Canada Public Service Agency, and I head the Workforce and Workplace Renewal Sector.
[Translation]
I know that you are interested in a number of specific issues related to the management of people in the public service. Before we delve into those issues, permit me to set the stage by briefly describing the new regime for managing human resources that was launched in 2003, and which continues to take shape across the public service. This change came when Parliament adopted the Public Service Modernization Act.
[English]
The fundamental shift with this new regime is that deputy heads and line managers now have primary responsibility and more flexibility for managing their human resources. This includes responsibility for recruitment, staffing, employment equity, official languages and human resources planning.
When looking at employment equity, for example, this means the deputy heads are responsible for preparing their own employment equity plans, reviewing employment systems, identifying and eliminating barriers to employment and showing that they are making reasonable progress toward achieving employment equity objectives.
The role of the Canada Public Service Agency is to guide, support and monitor departments as they fulfill their responsibilities for managing people. We do this in three ways: through our leadership, through our service and help to departments and through integrity. By integrity, we mean helping with the monitoring and reporting of how departments are doing in these areas.
Our work touches the approximately 200 institutions that are part of the federal public service, which is the largest and most complex enterprise in Canada.
[Translation]
The work of public servants is carried out an increasingly complex and interconnected world, especially given the ubiquitous impacts of globalization and technology on all aspects of our work. A high performance public service is essential to Canada's success in the world. And the performance of the public service depends on the talent and performance of its people.
[English]
In this context the public service is facing well-known demographic challenges and a highly competitive labour market. We are well aware of the issues and of the work we need to do to build and sustain a strong public service.
In response, the Clerk of the Privy Council, the head of the public service, has made renewal a top priority. This has given our work a new focus and energy.
The four foundations of renewal are: integrated planning, recruitment, employee development and enabling infrastructure.
Integrated planning is the foundation and the powerhouse of renewal that links business and human resources planning. It is about enabling the full use of flexibilities under the Public Service Modernization Act and facilitating achievement of both employment equity and official languages objectives.
[Translation]
Recruitment is critical to renewal in order to renew and sustain capacity at all levels.
[English]
Employee development is about fostering leadership at all levels and ensuring that employees have meaningful work to do in a supportive environment.
Enabling infrastructure means having the right systems and processes in place to ensure effective planning, recruitment and development.
Deputy heads and their departments are engaged in renewal. Each organization puts its energy into the areas of renewal that are most pressing relative to its particular business circumstances and needs.
I look forward to speaking in more depth about the relationship between issues you have identified as important and our broader renewal agenda. In particular, you have noted concerns about the level of use of casual and term employment, turnover generally, the need for human resources planning and improving results on employment equity.
As Madam Barrados indicated during her appearance before this committee on November 14, 2007, the data used by the Public Service Commission in relation to employee turnover is fairly crude. Work is underway to clarify what we mean by terms such as mobility, turnover, temporary workforce, et cetera.
We need to refine and analyze the data in relation to those definitions. Trends have been identified and they deserve closer reflection and attention.
[Translation]
There is, and will always be, some tension between working on the longer-term fundamental shifts towards better planning, recruiting and employee development, and the need to meet shorter-term operational requirements.
[English]
Each department tackles its own particular challenges in these areas.
As a public service, the better we become at planning, the more effective we become at recruitment, staffing and developing our people for maximum performance in the service of Canadians.
Collectively, we are taking important steps to renew and sustain an excellent public service for Canada. A culture change is taking shape. It will take time and we need to think about that change in terms of steady and sustainable progress driven by focus and commitment at every level in the system.
This concludes my opening remarks. I would be pleased to take your questions.
Senator Ringuette: I could take the entire allotment of time for my questions in this interesting field.
You indicate that you are responsible for the workforce and workplace renewal sector. For the benefit of my colleagues and the people listening to us, could you indicate the difference between your organization, the Canada Public Service Agency, and the Public Service Commission? How do you differ in mandate?
Ms. Ellis: I will certainly speak to that. I believe we have also provided an attachment to my opening remarks that will be helpful for later reference.
The Public Service Commission is an independent agency reporting to Parliament. It has a large focus in its mandate regarding the audit and verification function of how departments are performing on staffing as well as the use of their delegations that the Public Service Commission has given them for staffing. There is a very specific role in legislation.
The second thing that the Public Service Commission does is provide services in terms of recruitment to departments. This is an optional service, and I have been in briefings where I have learned a bit about how they play that role. They talked about 12 to 15 departments that have worked in very close partnership with the commission for quite a number of years and had a very successful partnership in recruitment.
As Madam Barrados says, that service is optional and they like to offer that service to departments. One of the key messages she has shared is when departments are very precise and clear on the needs they have for the kind of people they need, the Public Service Commission can get great results by recruiting on campus. There are two functions: The first is the legislative or audit function on staffing and areas that the public service delegates to deputy ministers to exercise staffing. The second function is the service side that the commission offers in terms of recruitment.
Again, the Canada Public Service Agency is a central agency. Our role is one of enabling, meaning that we provide guidance, help and support to departments to actually do the work needed to manage their human resources.
As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the shift with the Public Service Modernization Act was really to give to the deputy heads and their teams in the departments that primary responsibility for managing people, talent and performance.
We develop policies in consultation with departments; we get those policies rolled out into departments. We give them advice, help and interpretation on how to implement those policies. We also do our own particular type of monitoring and review of how departments are performing. They report into us on areas for which we are responsible.
I can give you concrete examples in my own area. I am responsible for employment equity which involves getting the reports in from departments on how they are doing on employment equity. I look after official languages, so I would get reports in from departments on how they are doing on that. Values and ethics is another area. My colleagues in the agency have other specialty areas where they provide policy and guidance to departments and the reports come in each year.
We have visibility. We help departments see how they are performing in the different areas based on their own reporting to us, and then they are able to make plans to improve different areas if there is a gap.
Senator Ringuette: I must admit that I find there is a great deal of bureaucracy.
As I say constantly, we are in the service industry. People should come first and that is the priority in regards to human resources. I am sorry, but I really do not understand why you give guidelines and elaborate on policy. That should be done by the departments. That is the bottom line. In general, policies should be given by Treasury Board. I have some issues about the existence and the purpose of the agency.
What is your annual operating budget?
Ms. Ellis: For the agency itself?
Senator Ringuette: Yes.
Ms. Ellis: I would have to check on that. I do not have that information immediately available, but we could get that.
Senator Ringuette: Could you send that to the clerk?
Ms. Ellis: Yes. I did not come to speak about financial estimates, but we can get that information easily with a follow-up. Sorry, I do not want to give you the incorrect number.
Senator Ringuette: You can give a ball-park figure. You are a vice-president.
Ms. Ellis: I think it is in the range, to be confirmed, of about $62 million in terms of our overall budget.
Senator Ringuette: How many people do you employ?
Ms. Ellis: This is again an estimate, but about 500 people.
Senator Ringuette: Where are they located?
Ms. Ellis: I think we have one or two people in regions, but we are primarily in Ottawa.
Senator Ringuette: I would like to investigate further into the purpose, mandate and the money involved in this agency.
On the second page of your presentation, you identified that you guide, support and monitor. The Public Service Commission and not your agency takes care of monitoring and support. You say that you do that in three ways. The first one is in providing leadership. Could you give us some examples of that leadership?
Ms. Ellis: Certainly, and perhaps I can clarify that you are quite right in saying the commission provides support and guidance to departments, but that is specifically in the area of staffing and staffing delegations.
The agency provides guidance and policy in a range of other areas that the commission does not have responsibility for. These include employment equity, official languages, values and ethics. We have a duty to accommodate quite a range of issues that are not covered by the Public Service Commission. There is a very distinct role.
Senator Ringuette: However, the Public Service Commission does the audit on all of those issues.
Ms. Ellis: No, it does not. It does the audit on the staffing issues and the human resources planning-related staffing strategies. The agency does the review on, if you will, monitoring and reporting on results on all the other areas mentioned. There is a very specific role for the commission that is very different from the agency. We do not duplicate efforts in terms of what we are seeking from departments in the areas they report on.
Senator Ringuette: Can you provide an example of leadership?
Ms. Ellis: Certainly, we are part of the Treasury Board portfolio, by the way. The Treasury Board has other areas of policy for which it is responsible, such as labour relations, pensions and compensation. For example, we do not hold every single policy. Obviously, the commission does some things. We try to pull together the overall picture on people management and the importance of human resource management in the entire public service. Therefore, one of the areas that we show leadership in is the area of performance management.
We have two angles on this. I have a colleague who is responsible for the leadership and talent management group, which focuses on the executive community. They work on and run the whole system of performance management of executives in the public service. In my area, I am responsible for developing policy and programs for departments related to performance management for the rest of the public service. This is an important topic across the public service. I work with the other central agencies and consult with a whole range of other departments to find out what their experience and best practices have been in managing performance. We are going to pull together for the system overall policy and approaches on management which, once they get through the approvals and are shared with departments, will be something that everybody can work on. Ownership has to be taken by each organization to implement that policy and those programs.
Regarding deputy heads, there must be some coherence with policy in the sense that you have that overall, high-level policy coming from the central agencies, but departments have the job, as you rightly point out, to work with that policy in their own organization and make it effective. They very much have to take ownership of it. Often, they can tailor it a bit with some of their own internal guidelines if they want to, and set up policies to use those processes. It is important to understand the different roles.
Senator Nancy Ruth: I will change the questioning to the developing policy around saving jobs for people serving in the military reserves in Canada.
I took a press release from January 9, from your department. That press release informs us that following an announcement in Vancouver the minister remarked that the department will provide protection to reservists who return to civilian life. The press release states:
The strategy will include legislative changes, which will protect the civilian jobs of reservists who work for employees in federally regulated sectors and the public service. It will also provide support to student reservists.
My questions are centered on the minister's comments.
Can you tell us something about the conversations or the discussions that your department had with whoever was making this policy?
Ms. Ellis: Senator, I must apologize. I have not been involved with that particular issue so it would be inappropriate for me to try to comment on it; however, I will obtain that information for the committee.
Senator Nancy Ruth: I have a series of questions so I will read them aloud and provide you with a copy so you can get back to the committee.
Can you guess how many of these reservists are in the federal public service?
Ms. Ellis: I am sorry; I cannot hazard a guess on the answer to that question.
Senator Nancy Ruth: One of my questions is about what happens to their jobs when they leave. I ask about this because for decades some people in this country have been concerned about a public civil service being truly representative of the public.
To save and even encourage the jobs of reservists is to perhaps lean on the side of militarizing the public service, and I am hugely concerned about it. I am not one who supports the government's move in this direction. I want to know about the consultations; how many people were involved; what kind of impact you perceive it will have; the gender breakout of that and whether this is another way to imbalance the issues around women and men in the public service, and which way that imbalance would be, et cetera. I will give you a copy of those questions.
Ms. Ellis: Thank you, senator. We will get back to you in as complete a way as we can. I am sorry I do not have that information today.
Senator Eggleton: Ms. Ellis, I note your focus on the four foundations of renewal. The word ``renewal'' has been around for a long time in terms of the public service, and we are hoping that it will bear fruit. However, I do not know how it can easily do that given the current conditions under the Harper government's reign of terror against the public service, as evidenced by the firing of Linda Keen, President of the Nuclear Safety Commission. It is a disgusting thing that the government is doing and I wish you well in your efforts as you are up against a government that does not seem to care about renewal of the public service.
I will ask about your comments on cultural change. They were nice words but how will you bring that about? When Ms. Barrados appeared before the committee, we heard about the statistics relative to visible minorities and it would seem that they are going in the opposite direction from where they should be going. It is not clear why that is happening or what needs to be done to correct it. Also, if you cannot correct it on a volunteer basis, what kind of consequences and penalties do you have to use to ensure that departments will take this seriously?
I would like your comment on that because you have spoken to cultural change. Demonstrate that and show me how you will bring about such cultural change and, in particular, as it applies to visible minorities.
Ms. Ellis: Thank you for that question. By choosing a concrete example, I hope that my comments will give you some of the principles around some of the other areas of cultural change as well. As you say, there are many things to be done on renewal, and it takes time to do them.
In terms of the visible minority representation in the public service, the numbers are well known that we are not meeting workforce availability. However, I would say that over the last 10-15 years the overall number of all employment equity groups in the public service is increasing. There is improvement overall but we are not meeting the workforce availability. There is a gap.
In respect of cultural change, one of the main issues is awareness and linking the need to improve and increase representation through human resources and business planning in departments. The first pillar of renewal is integrated planning and is precisely because we have areas with persistent gaps or problems in the public service where we need to make progress. This means that the leadership of every department has to sit down and cascade through the whole organization, and talk about the business of the department and the human resources needed to ensure that business runs well. In doing that planning, the department has to be able to take a look at where they might have persistent gaps in the area of visible minorities, for example. If they identify that the department is falling behind in that area, they can determine how many people are required, how to recruit them and what kinds of skills and experience are required when they sit down to do their planning. They might determine that the department has a legitimate business need to do some targeted recruitment that will increase the representation of visible minorities. We can run a competitive process or a recruitment strategy that says we will give special consideration to people from visible minority groups in the process. Departments that identify persistent gaps and want to close them, they can avail themselves of the flexibilities in this staffing regime to run competitions that can help them to meet that need.
My point is that unless there are truly engaged departmental discussions to identify the gaps, they will not be able to take targeted concrete action to fix the problems. It all begins with departments getting into the kind of planning they need to do. That will link back to the role of the agency. Every year the report on employment equity is tabled in Parliament and we have departmental reports. Both are published in our management accountability framework in government so there is visibility on how departments are doing on employment equity, for example.
You asked about how people pay attention if the results are not very good. By providing year-over-year visibility, every deputy minister is evaluated on a range of issues related to their business and their human resources management. If that is found to be a particularly weak area, then there will be an expectation to make improvements. Cultural change is a slow but steady thing in our hugely complex institution. We need to have people focused on the issues and to continue to push for year-over-year improvements.
We are working on renewing our employment equity policy out of my group this year. When I presented this in various drafts to committees of deputy ministers, they were hugely supportive. They understand why it is important and they know that we need to improve the areas where there are gaps. They have said that their managers need help with how to accomplish this, how to work with the policy, how to plan better and how to work on the recruitment strategies. Once you get rolling on it, it becomes easier.
Cultural change takes time and that is why I said in my opening remarks that there is always a tension. We want to get faster results but we have to build strong foundations and get people to think and plan with explicit focus in that area to put real strategies in place. Some departments do very well and many still have room to grow.
Senator Eggleton: I understand and that is all very nice. You talked about year-over-year improvements but, in the case of visible minorities, we have slipped backwards. The numbers of recruitment hires have decreased 9.8 per cent to 8.7 per cent, I believe, over the last year or two. It is in decline so it is going in the reverse direction. How do you account for that reverse?
Ms. Ellis: I have to go back to basics. Have people identified that they need to do more specific work around recruiting and building up their workforce in terms of visible minority representation?
For some departments, it will be easier to recruit from a labour pool that has more diversity — for example, if they are in some of the larger urban centres; or there may be a real desire to hire a more representative workforce and there simply is not the workforce availability in that particular region. The experience will vary by department in terms of how successful they can be wherever they are located in the country.
If they have looked at it in their planning as a holistic thing for the department and said we have to do something about this particular gap or lack that we have, then they can implement strategies to make something change. I keep going back to basics because unless you do the planning and the thinking, you will not have that focus on the issues that you want to address. That is where you must start.
To me, the question is: Are the departments doing the depth of planning they need to address an issue such as visible minority representation?
Senator Eggleton: You need to pay particular attention to this because from what Ms. Barrados told us, the applicants that are coming in from visible minority communities are well qualified. They have university educations and the language skills seem to not be a barrier for them — nor does their Canadian citizenship, she told us.
There is something wrong when they represent 10.4 per cent of the working population, and we are going backwards, slipping well below that in terms of the hires. This needs some particular attention.
I appreciate that you want to change the whole culture of the place and the system, but I hope you will also specifically examine some issues like this one of visible minorities to be sure we do not slip back further, because that is what gets the attention.
[Translation]
Senator Chaput: You speak a lot about integrated planning. My questions are about the policies. You said that your agency develops policies and helps to implement them in the various departments. Is there a link between the policies that you are developing for those departments and those of the Treasury Board, which also has its policies and its regulations? Are the two linked? Do you start with the Treasury Board policies and use them as a guide from which you subsequently develop your own? I would like to understand the link that you have with the Treasury Board.
Ms. Ellis: That depends on the subject. It depends on the legislative mandate given to the agency responsible for developing the policy. For example, the Treasury Board is responsible for financial compensation in the public service; pensions, for example. So they will develop the policies they need. If something in the development process affects us, they will consult us.
Senator Chaput: Is it you who are developing the policy on employment equity?
Ms. Ellis: I am developing that policy in consultation with my colleagues in the public service.
Senator Chaput: My next question has to do with the link between your agency and the Public Service Commission. On the flowchart that was part of the documentation I received, it says that the Public Service Commission is an independent agency that reports directly to Parliament. So, if you have developed a policy on employment equity, if I understand correctly, you then present it, you send it to or discuss it with the Public Service Commission that looks after hiring. What happens if they do not agree with your policy? Who has the last word, your agency or the commission?
Ms. Ellis: The question is not who has the last word; it is, as you said earlier, about consulting all partners and colleagues in the system — when you are developing a policy — to really find out if an idea or a concept in a policy causes problems. The situation has to be discussed and resolved. We are not going to present a policy for approval if we are not in agreement.
Senator Chaput: In terms of evaluating the policy that you develop after your consultations, who is responsible for assessing the impacts of the policy and whether its goals have been met?
Ms. Ellis: For each policy?
Senator Chaput: Yes. Let's take the employment equity policy as an example.
Ms. Ellis: That is our responsibility. Each year, we go and ask each department a series of questions as we conduct our evaluation of human resources management. Each department replies, we examine each department's reports and we evaluate their performance. It ends up on the Treasury Board website and that gives a transparency to the whole system of departmental performance in employment equity. All their statistics are clearly displayed. If some departments have shortcomings, it is a challenge that the deputy ministers of those departments must deal with. They are responsible for improving their results in specific areas, in this case, employment equity.
[English]
Senator Di Nino: I want to go back to the issue of visible minorities. I appreciate the frustration that I think has grown over the last couple of decades, if not more. However, unlike my friend, Senator Eggleton, I will not put the blame on any political party. As he says, this is an issue that has grown worse instead of getting better, notwithstanding all of the words that have been expressed over the years suggesting that efforts are being made to solve the problem.
One comment you made about some specific market areas was along the lines of there not being a workforce in some communities. Ms. Barrados told us that the public service does not seem to have any problem attracting applicants. It is not a question of insufficient numbers, according to her. There is a conflict.
Ms. Ellis: If I can clarify my answer, I was not trying to suggest there were not numbers overall in Canada. There certainly are. Madam Barrados is correct that we have great interest coming from visible minorities and, as Senator Eggleton said, highly qualified people across the board.
For example, however, I was in New Brunswick talking to a group there about employment equity and renewal. One of the things they said is they have a persistent gap in terms of Aboriginal employment in the region. They would like to recruit more Aboriginal persons into the workforce and they have tried campaigns to do exactly that, but there just was not the critical mass in that region to help them get the numbers they were looking for.
I am simply saying that in some regions of the country, you may not have as much of a basket of representation in the labour market to help the department meet a particular need. However, overall in Canada, Madam Barrados is absolutely right and you are right, that there is a great deal of interest across the country from the visible minority community. I am sorry if I caused confusion. I needed to give a more specific example.
Senator Di Nino: The overall numbers are still lower, is that correct?
Ms. Ellis: For visible minorities, they are still lower than workforce availability but increasing overall in the public service. They are still not good enough but they are increasing overall.
Senator Di Nino: Something like 45 per cent to 50 per cent of the public service is situated in the capital region; is that correct?
Ms. Ellis: I will get validation on that but I think there is actually 42 per cent in the National Capital Region and the rest are in other regions of Canada.
Senator Di Nino: In effect, 42 per cent of the jobs are available here. Are the visible minority hires better in the National Capital Region than in other places?
Ms. Ellis: I would have to get the actual numbers on that, but I think we have some reasonably good representation. For example, in our public service in British Columbia, we have excellent numbers on visible minority representation. I have been out there talking to groups of managers, and a large proportion of people in those rooms are visible minorities. I will have to get the exact numbers for the National Capital Region.
Senator Di Nino: I cannot recall if the report actually had a breakdown. Could you provide us with a breakdown in some reasonable manner? However you collect this information — regionally, by province, et cetera — that be would be a useful statistic to have.
Ms. Ellis: We will follow up with the committee on that information.
Senator Di Nino: Another question that has been raised is the bilingualism requirement. Has this been a problem in the hiring of visible minorities?
Ms. Ellis: The issue for a bilingualism requirement always has to be determined by the hiring manager based on the actual job and its requirements. For example, if there is a significant component of service to the public or there is supervision of a bilingual workforce required for that post, then there will be a bilingual requirement for that job. It is determined objectively before the job goes up for competition. This is important to know. We have to do it by what is supposed to happen with that particular function, and then the hiring can take place.
I am not aware that there is a particularly acute problem for visible minorities in terms of bilingualism across the public service. The important point you have raised ties back to what I was saying earlier about renewal when we talk about recruitment and development of employees.
With the broader change in the public service, we are trying to say that every line manager must take the development of every employee very seriously. When they come into the public service, a good people manager will know every member of their team, their learning needs, strengths and weaknesses, and they should identify early on whether French training will need to be built into that particular employee's learning plan. The earlier we do that, whether you are a visible minority or not, the better we are at getting people prepared to move up the system. The more senior you go and as you get into supervisory roles, the more likely you will need French in order to move up in the system, particularly in the executive ranks.
What is equally important for visible minority employees or any other employee is being managed well, having ongoing performance management and learning plans and development year over year that helps them become the kind of people we need with the right skills and training. French training has to be part of our overall thinking: What is appropriate, when they need it and how to plan for it so you do not have everyone away at the same time on French training.
One of the biggest issues for both visible and non-visible minorities that I have heard directly from groups of staff is the access to French training. Again, that goes back to whether the planning has been done at the work unit level. Has the manager looked at each employee in terms of need? Has the manager planned for the French training, as it is best needed for the employee's own need while taking into consideration the needs of the organization?
I always go back to basics because that is how we actually address these bigger issues and symptoms, by conducting the fundamental people management well.
Senator Di Nino: For clarification, when you talk about French training, do you mean training in the other official language?
Ms. Ellis: Yes and some people need training in English as well.
Senator Di Nino: My question is has the need for bilingualism contributed to the under-representation of visible minorities?
Ms. Ellis: I would not draw that conclusion. We have done a little research around perceptions and attitudes, not so much hard empirical data but perceptions and attitudes about the impact of bilingualism requirements in visible minority communities. My sense from that is that it was not seen as a more acute issue than for anyone else trying to find their way through their career in the public service.
The question always goes back down to whether that person, whatever group they are from, is being managed well and paid attention to in terms of their development needs for French. If they are seen to be on a track where they need that French training, is provision being made to help them obtain that training in order to move ahead for advancement and promotion in the system. Again, it goes back to how that individual is being managed by their manager.
Senator Di Nino: In her appearance before the committee, Ms. Ramcharan suggested there was a major revision of process in the employment equity policy. I believe she told us she expected this to be in place by April 2008. How is that coming along?
Ms. Ellis: That is progressing well. We are currently in the stages of seeking final approvals of our policy. I obviously cannot speak about exact dates, but we have done a lot of work over the last three years to update and sharpen up that policy on employment equity, working with departments across the public service.
One of the main pieces of feedback that I received in presenting that policy to some senior officials over the last year is, again, when you roll out the policy, we understand why it is important, we get it and we care, but would you please ensure you provide some good basic training that we can adopt in departments in order to help our managers work more effectively through planning and staffing strategies to help achieve employment equity objectives. It is a continual building of awareness.
I find it encouraging that in the last three or four months, I have hosted about four breakfasts for public servants at various levels of seniority who have been nominated and recognized by their own staff for the work they are doing to improve representation in the workforce and for their work on employment equity. They are seen as role models and people who actually care about ensuring there are lots of concrete things in place to increase representation and to accommodate employees who need it.
I talk about culture change. It happens with one engaged person at a time. As I look at those leaders that I have been meeting with, I actually see an engagement that has ripple effects. I asked them to be role models, to speak on panels and come to sessions to train managers and talk about how they do it so others can see it is not that complicated, and how much energy they have put behind it and the results they have achieved.
I am the kind of person who believes it takes time to do things, but if you get people involved and talking to each other, amazing things can start to happen. You do eventually build to a tipping point.
I know we have a lot of work to do, but I see leaders in the public service who take this seriously and who are getting results.
Senator Di Nino: We look forward to those results.
Senator Murray: Last night in this room, the Official Languages Committee met under the chairmanship of our friend, Senator Chaput. We had as witness your colleague, Madam Boudrias. We had a good discussion with her.
I do want, however, to very quickly, without retracing all that ground, put on the record some of the concerns that I and others raised.
First, with regard to language training, there is a fair bit of anecdotal evidence that the availability of language training varies greatly across the country. This is, if true, a serious inequity. I agree that anyone who aspires to a very senior position in the Government of Canada will need to be bilingual. If more junior people who live in Vancouver or Calgary or St. John's, Newfoundland, do not have the same opportunities for language training that their peers have in Ottawa or Montreal, this is unfair, and it is bad for bilingualism. It is bad for the reputation of language policy in this country.
It is all well and good to say that managers will have primary responsibility and more flexibility to attend to these matters. Again, we have heard anecdotal evidence of where supervisors in relatively small units are told, sure, you can let Ms. or Mr. so-and-so go off for language training, but you have to swallow the cost out of your present budget, including the cost of replacing that person during the period he or she is undergoing language training. It is all right to let the managers manage, but you have to bird-dog this thing — pardon the expression — from the centre, or there will be serious inequities.
The same applies to the question of the designation of bilingual positions. Managers need, in my opinion, a great deal of help from the centre as to what positions should or should not be designated as bilingual and at what level. One of our colleagues last night raised the question of whether there are relatively too few positions designated as the C level, which is a very high level of bilingualism. I wonder whether that is bad. I wonder whether what we need are more people at B level, which is an ability to get along in one's second language. Anyway, the criteria have to be there, and it is not a situation where I think you can leave too much flexibility in the hands of managers. There has to be real direction, not just supervision, but direction, from the centre.
Two matters came up before Christmas when Madam Barrados, the President of the public Service Commission, was here and have been alluded to earlier by senators and the first is this business of casual, part-time employees. We discussed with Madam Barrados not just the possibility, but I think, the reality that managers are using their authority to hire casuals or part-time or whatever you call them as a means of recruiting full-time employees, thereby avoiding the disagreeable process of hiring a full-time employee and putting him or her on probation. In other words, you hire them as a casual or part-time, and then after they have shown their stuff, if they are capable, they suddenly morph into a full-time employee. There must be a policy somewhere for these more flexible managers telling them under what circumstances it is appropriate or not appropriate to hire casual employees. It must be a function of the role that the casual employee will play. Can you describe that policy to me and/or let us have a copy of the written copy of the directive that managers are expected to follow in determining whether to hire casual or part-time employees?
Finally, on the question of visible minorities, the evidence has been, and we discussed this with Madam Barrados, that there are plenty of applications from highly qualified applicants, as Senator Eggleton and Senator Di Nino mentioned, but fewer successful applicants than one might have expected. There is a reason for that somewhere. I do not know what it is, but I do not believe for a moment that there is bad faith anywhere. Is it possible that people send applications all over the place and perhaps they qualify for the job, but they get a better offer somewhere else and take it at about the same time? Some kind of a study might be made of these applications and what becomes of them and what becomes of the applicants. That can be done. There are firms that specialize in that kind of thing.
Also, I still do not have a good idea of the universe that we are dealing with here. There is a finite number of qualified people who happen also to be visible minorities. We are competing against the private sector and the provincial and municipal public sectors for personnel. There is a desire in most places in Canadian society to hire more visible minorities for all kinds of reasons. I would like to have a better idea than I have now as to what the competition is, namely, what the federal government is facing here in achieving its objective to hire more visible minorities.
Ms. Ellis: The issue around casual and short-term hiring is an important one that all of us are looking at because it does need some attention. First, casual employees cannot just automatically become indeterminate employees. They have to go through a competitive process that is open to the public.
Senator Murray: They have a leg up if they have spent a year on the job.
Ms. Ellis: A casual employee can only work for a maximum of up to 90 days.
Senator Murray: Yes, subject to a renewal I believe.
Ms. Ellis: You commented on probation, and if an employee is hired as a term employee, you asked about what policies exist. We do have a policy on term employment, and the policy that comes out of our agency is that departments are to use term employment for the kinds of work that require a shorter term requirement and to use their judgment in doing that.
I will come back to why the planning is so important because there are legitimate reasons for some departments to have seasonal workers on a term. If you think of the revenue agency or Service Canada, there are legitimate business reasons, so if you have done a good plan, you will have articulated clearly why it makes sense for you to do particular kinds of short-term hiring in certain circumstances, and that is entirely defensible. In that plan, you also have to look at your longer term needs, the more permanent types of approaches you need to take for different types of specialists, backgrounds, degrees or whatever you need to make that department run, and you need to have strategies that are longer term strategies, namely, recruitment, staffing and bringing people in on an indeterminate basis through the right process.
The probationary period is there for term employees and for term employees who have become indeterminate employees. There is up to roughly 12 months of probation once someone becomes indeterminate, during which time, if performance management is being done well by the manager in the team and it looks like there is a performance issue or that the employee will not be a good one, there is flexibility not to have that employee continue with the public service.
The issue is not whether we have a probation period. The issue is whether people are using that as part of their management tool kit to manage performance and ensure we are keeping and retaining the best people in the public service.
I agree with you that we need to take a look at short-term hiring trends. Ms. Barrados identified a trend, and we are all seized of that, and the key to figuring out that trend is how it connects to the plan for what a department needs in terms of its human resources. How many people does it need, of what type, and what backgrounds, and how will it bring them in, develop them and turn them into the kinds of public servants who do an excellent job?
It is all connected to what I talked about in terms of renewal. If you do not have a plan for how you are hiring, you will sometimes have to take some of those shorter term routes to meet immediate business needs, and sometimes that is entirely legitimate. As you get better at figuring out the overall picture, you will get better at the strategies you use for meeting those needs and, preferably, you will move over time to do as many indeterminates as you can in the right way and use the short term for the truly immediate needs that you cannot meet any other way. As you get a better handle on the overall picture, you are able to be more selective and effective in your strategies. The longer term changes we make will start to help address some of these symptoms that are being highlighted as real issues, and they are real issues.
On the second issue on visible minorities, you said that it would be good to do some study, and I believe the Public Service Commission has been working on what they call ``the drop-off study'' on visible minorities, namely, the number of applicants who have put their applications into the process, get to a certain point in the process and then there is a drop-off rate in terms of how many get hired. That has been identified by the commission. I know they have worked on a study, and we will also be working with them to try to dig deeper into what is causing that drop-off. The point you made that some of them may be applying in a range of sectors at the same time and may get something faster than they might get out of the public service may be something that influences their decision. I agree with you, and I think we agree in the system, that we need to know the underlying reasons for the drop-off rate and figure out how we can address that across the system. Although there is a current ongoing study there needs to be more in-depth understanding of what is happening. It is not always easy to see exactly the cause or effect on something like that. There are often multiple factors.
Senator Murray: I will interrupt to say that I do not think we as a federal apparatus have solid information as to the rest of Canadian society, be it the provincial, municipal, public or private sector. That is the competitive environment, and the people with whom we compete. We need to know more.
Ms. Ellis: We will take note of that. We may have some information. I do not know how in-depth it is, but we will certainly send the committee what we have to show as a comparison. For example, in certain sectors, the private sector is doing better in terms of visible minority representation rates. It would be good to know why they are more successful. I will see what we have on that and follow up.
Senator Murray: What about language issues and language training and designation of positions?
Ms. Ellis: Designation of positions really in done in relation to what is to be expected of whoever fills a particular post. The official languages group has recently developed a helpful tool that allows for managers to fill in key information about the job for which they are trying to figure out the designation, and the system tells them whether it would come out at an A, B or C level. Perhaps Madam Boudrias told you about this tool. We held a forum on best practices and official languages about a month before Christmas, and we had a fantastic turnout. We received great feedback from many line managers, saying that this was helpful for them to figure out what level of bilingualism is needed. We are working on tools that are practical for people that will help them do that.
You are right that the C level is challenging. I have to do my oral exam within about three weeks. I would say that for the executive positions, the policy is clear in terms of the C level in most cases, but there is a variation at the non- executive levels in terms of the requirement. Again, considering service to the public and supervision of a workforce, you have to figure out what level is required. We are trying to help people.
Senator Murray: What about availability of training?
Ms. Ellis: I have to be very clear about that. Every department has to look at its need for French training and figure out in terms of budget, how much the manager can spend for the training. It is not something for which the centre has a pool of funds. That has to be handled in departments because it is part of managing your workforce and making sure that you can meet the bilingualism requirements in your workforce and developing your people and investing in them accordingly.
Senator Murray: This is a problem.
Ms. Ellis: I know there are concerns about it.
Senator Murray: It is quite legitimate for a person who happens to be working in tourism in Vancouver to aspire to not just to something greater, but to something other that is greater and wants to pursue a career in the public service. If his or her manager determines that they do not need any more, or they do not need it in their own little empire, it places that employee at a considerable disadvantage in terms of his or her future track in the public service. There has to be a better way than that. There really does have to be a better way than leaving it to the managers of various departments to decide what their particular needs are and to permit or allow employees to take language training on that basis of that criteria alone. I thought we were doing better than that.
Ms. Ellis: It is a real issue, and I think the experience varies widely.
Senator Murray: You have to be on top of this. This has to come from the centre. If there is not a pool of funds or a central policy, there should be.
Senator Eggleton: Senator Murray also raised the point of inequity in terms of the training facilities and language training services in different parts of the country. He cited a number of different cities. Do I assume, therefore, that part of the decision managers make in sending somebody is about absorbing the cost? If they have to send them out of town, then that adds an additional cost. Does that have to be absorbed in their department as well? That is a further impediment, if it has to be absorbed.
Ms. Ellis: The bottom line is that it will depend on the case, depending where you live and what is available in terms of training, but if somebody does need to travel, it would be part of the package of making sure that person gets French training.
When I worked at National Defence our management team decided to have a central fund for French training, and then we would actually have the group discussion with all of my directors general and look at the needs for French training. I wanted people to think about the overall needs in my group: Who needed French training, what order would they go in, how would we have a backup person for when someone went on training. We managed it very proactively. I am not saying that every individual manager had to make a determination.
Senator Murray: Where was that?
Ms. Ellis: That was in Ottawa, but all I am saying is that every manager will have to tackle that issue of the language training, take it seriously and see what approach they wanted. I am giving you an example of how I managed the situation. We also have to look at other things.
Young public servants that I have talked to raised the issue of French training. Some of them have said to me that they have gone to their manager and said, ``Maybe you cannot spare me for seven or eight months this year to go off on French training, but would you pay for me to take French on my own time in the evening?'' They have worked that out as their learning plan. We have to look outside the box and try to look at some of the other ways that employees who have ambition can take ownership of their own learning needs. We cannot think that going away for nine months for formal French language training is the only way to learn a second language. I put time into watching TV5 and reading French newspapers because I want to keep my French up. There is a responsibility. You know that you need French when you are going to move up the system, and you want to have that conversation with your manager and figure out how you can learn that French. Maybe there is a compromise approach. Maybe it is not always going off for the nine months if someone can get a leg up early in career and we pay their university or college course and they are willing to do it in the evening.
There are two sides to that dialogue, and we need an environment where employees can say, ``I want the French because I want to move up and I think I have potential. How can we work that out in my learning earlier on in my career?'' The more we get managers to understand that there are different ways of tackling those issues, the better we will get at getting people with the basics in French. There will always be cases where someone goes away. Let us plan for it, help them succeed, and importantly, when they come back, let us use the French. That is something we have to do. We invest in people to learn the language. We need have an environment where we use it.
[Translation]
We must have an environment where we use both official languages on a daily basis and where we encourage people to value their second language, whether it be English or French.
[English]
It is a holistic package. It is not only about the training. It is about what we do once we have invested in that training.
Senator Eggleton: You need to help ensure the environments are like what you had at DND.
The Deputy Chair: Ms. Ellis, the four foundations of renewal are integrated planning, recruitment, employee development and enabling infrastructure. You say ``Enabling infrastructure means having the right systems and processes in place to ensure effective planning, recruitment and development.''
When you talk about the right systems and processes, does that mean they are centrally formulated here and then the regions are told what systems they will use? Does this mean that the regions have a choice of software programs specific to their regions or the application to their tasks? You say ``right systems and process.'' Perhaps you could expand on that for us.
Ms. Ellis: Thank you for that question. If you want to talk about some of the software or the supporting informatics systems for human resources management, we do have quite a few departments that work with one system called PeopleSoft. If they are using PeopleSoft, they would use it in Ottawa but they would also use it in the regions because a department would have a consistent system across the country. Some departments have other types of software that has been effective for them and, again, it would be the same likely throughout that department.
What we mean when we talk about the enabling infrastructure are things such as how do we make sure those systems could talk to each other and connect well if we are trying to get an overall global picture on the data we need to manage human resources well and strategically in the public service. These systems help us to know how many people have different types of degrees or backgrounds, it help us to understand where our talent pools are and to understand the bilingualism issues. How do we make the cross-references between all of these areas of policy that affect human resources and having data that gives us an interesting cut at what some of the issues or challenges might be.
The systems are important. Are they talking to each other? Can we work with the data that comes off them? We are continually working to improve those systems and, again, those are big endeavours but I think we are making progress. Let me give you a very practical example of something that we call enabling infrastructure.
The Department of Agriculture and Agri-food has piloted a system where for three or four different kinds of staffing actions, such as an acting appointment or renewing a term or something that is not a full staffing initiative they have something called their fast-track staffing and it is on their computer system. Basically those transactions are so smooth and easy to do now in that department. They can be done within a service standard of a day or two to get that particular staffing action done. That is a huge improvement of pulling together your system and making it work for you, and now quite a few other departments are picking up on that example, either having adopted that model from Agriculture Canada or developed something of their own. The point is that people are being engaged in trying to improve the work on the systems that help to move some of these processes a little faster.
The second thing on enabling infrastructure is providing tools. I have a small centre of expertise in my own sector on integrated human resources and business planning. They developed a neat tool that includes a very simple set of questions that any manager, whether a deputy minister or a local work unit manager, can go through with their team in a day, and be able to work through the core elements of their business and people needs. They would basically have the guts of a plan and could start to develop their strategies for staffing and recruitment.
We have another one on succession planning. It walks you through a whole series of questions, a kind of a track that tells you where you are vulnerable, if someone is going to be retiring, et cetera. What kind of person are you going to need to fill that gap? You can start to talk about when how we are going to make sure we have several candidates to choose from to put into that job. Enabling infrastructures are around building that basket of tools that departments can pick up and use, maybe tailor to their own needs, but helps them get a head start on doing some practical thinking around what they have to do.
The Deputy Chair: When you talk about retirement, and there is a considerable number retiring or considering retiring right now, when you have this kind of turnover and you have a significant amount of job change within the service, how do you measure whether the managers' plans are effective?
If they are getting huge turnovers, which they are, and we are having to replace large numbers of civil servants across the country due to retirement, how are you managing that flux and how are the local folks able to manage that process? Is it working out or what are you doing to effectively manage that area?
Ms. Ellis: In terms of how effective is the planning to replace?
The Deputy Chair: Well, we have all these folks retiring. You have job changes. What is the percentage of changes within departments in a given year? I believe it is 58 per cent of managers have turnover in their jobs.
The question becomes, if we have heard from you about all this wonderful process of managing and yet you get this huge turnover of retirements and job changes, what are we doing? Are we effectively carrying out the change or are we just dealing with it on an ad hoc basis?
Ms. Ellis: My main point is how is every department doing it, because we have to remember the roles and the responsibilities here is every deputy minister has to take these issues of the people side of the business as seriously as the business side of the business, because you cannot get the business done without the right people.
The bottom line is we have heard from a number of deputy ministers who have really become engaged in the basic planning that helps them address the questions like succession planning, dealing with impending retirements, making sure they are in shape to handle those pressures, they say that on average it takes two to three years for a department to get really good at integrated planning. They have told us that once you get rolling on it, once you get good at it, all the other parts start to fall in place a little more easily. It is not a perfect world.
We are making progress on making fundamental change. It is taking time and, at the same time, we are using some of those shorter-term strategies to meet immediate business and operational needs. We are not perfect yet. We always have that tension between having to do some of the shorter-term things we would rather not have to do as we get better at the longer term.
You talked about the number of retirements. What I would say to you is everybody is seized of the demographic challenges, the number of retirements that are happening, but if you look at the overall public service, our departure rate for retirements is around 4 per cent every year, which is, compared to the private sector, quite manageable. We know it is coming. We have lots of information on that trend. Departments need to have a handle on what they are dealing with in terms of how many people are leaving and what key positions need to be filled. We take it very seriously. People are focused on it.
You have particular challenges with particular communities such as financial. Talk about the competitive labour market: Financial expertise, audit and evaluation expertise, personnel expertise, everybody wants these folks and everybody in the public service wants these folks and you are right, there is a lot of movement with some communities because people really want them in their departments and will try to offer an attractive job for someone to come over.
We have to build the capacity of those specialist communities, offer training, show them that we care about them, that we are building them, and actually have them stay in jobs for a reasonable amount of time. We have to do that so they can build some depth and credibility and so that there is some stability in the organization that has hired them.
All of these pieces fit together. You cannot deal with movement of people without looking at the fundamental capacity gaps so that people are not moving all the time. How do we strengthen that particular community on finance?
There are many pieces to the question. We are taking them seriously and we are trying to make sure they connect. That is really when we talk about the pillars of renewal, the type of thing we are trying to get at.
A lot of the movement in the system is actually quite legitimate movement. Again, those numbers are crude and we have to get more granularity on them and what they mean by mobility. Some of the figures could indicate promotions; they could be an acting assignment that has been planned by the work unit. A lot of that movement is within the same department, and some of it is probably healthy and good planned movement. What we need to get a handle on is what part is not. What part is the kind of too much movement that is not healthy movement and what are we going to do to find out the root causes and take action to address them.
The Deputy Chair: I would have to express the concern of the high turnover rate of managers, what we hear is 58 per cent. That is substantial. That came from Ms. Barrados, so I believe that needs to be perhaps addressed more fully from either you or Ms. Barrados because that indicates to me that the system is not really working.
Senator Ringuette: The agency of which you are vice-president has 500 people located in Ottawa. You do not seem to have anyone located in any other locations in Canada.
Your ballpark operation budget exceeds $61 million a year. I would like to know how many bilingual people you have, how many visible minorities, how many permanent, term and casual employees. I would like a copy of your integrated plan in regards to human resources to see if you are showing leadership.
Ms. Ellis: We will provide you with that information. Having been with the agency for a year and a half, I can certainly tell you that we are doing a very good job of integrated planning. I have participated in it myself, and I am impressed by the leadership of my own deputy minister in making us a model of how to work with these tools and the things we are preaching to everyone else to do.
Senator Ringuette: There is a difference between assuming leadership and trying to be a model. When we get all that paperwork we will be able to see what kind of true leadership you are assuming in your own operation,.
Since you are responsible to provide guidelines, policies and directives, those should all be in written form.
Ms. Ellis: Yes.
Senator Ringuette: Through the chair, I would like to have for all my colleagues, your written policy or directive in regards to term employment, contract employment, indeterminate employment, part-time employment, casual employment and permanent employment. I would like to have your hiring policy and directives in regards to the use of the Public Service Commission, the use of private agencies and the use of pools of employees. That is in relation to my interest in the type of policy and leadership you are assuming. What are your policies in regards to employees acting in a certain capacity?
In November, this committee had an issue in regards to a committee evaluating and making recommendations in regards to the serious lack of human resources available to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, both in this country and in our embassies, to deal with foreign affairs, trade and immigration issues.
Are you involved in that committee?
Ms. Ellis: No, I am not.
Senator Ringuette: You mean the agency responsible to show leadership, to provide guidance and policies, rewards, recognition, planning, accountability, reporting to Parliament, values and ethics, management of executive groups, corporate leadership development programs, management of classification systems, employment policies, terms, official languages, learning and all that, is not part of this ad hoc committee that has been put together because of the emergency situation in foreign affairs?
Ms. Ellis: I would like to answer the question. I personally am not on the committee. I may well have a colleague from the agency who is on the committee.
I spent almost an entire day with the Department of Foreign Affairs senior management committee to talk about renewal and how they were addressing the findings from the report that you are talking about that highlighted a number of their needs.
Senator Ringuette: Should you not be the leadership group in helping this committee — put together on an ad hoc basis — because of the emergency in regards to human resources and foreign affairs?
Ms. Ellis: As I said, there may be someone from my agency who would work on behalf of the agency with that committee. I will have to check.
Second, the main lead on the committee would be from Foreign Affairs —
Senator Ringuette: But if you are responsible to assume leadership —
The Deputy Chair: Please do not get argumentative here. I would like to wrap this up at eleven o'clock.
Senator Ringuette: If you are responsible as an agency through the Treasury Board, and this very important committee has been put together to look at the emergency situation in regards to human resources in that particular department, why have you not been mandated to take the leadership role in regards to helping out in this particular situation?
In regards to classification, a few years ago, this committee was told that there have been many and continuous attempts concerning classification and trying to downsize, integrate and provide uniformity in regards to public service classification.
Where are you in this file? I remember it was at least four years ago that I raised this issue at this committee.
Ms. Ellis: You are asking for an overview of where are we on classification reform?
Senator Ringuette: Yes.
Ms. Ellis: Again, I can give you a couple of high points on that. Another vice-president runs the whole classification file for the agency, but I can tell you that the classification reform continues to be ongoing. It is not trying to tackle everything at once. It is choosing particular occupational groups and working on reform in those groups.
The foreign service group has been reformed, and the conversion on classification was implemented in July 2005. That is one stream where significant work has been done on classification reform.
The border services group is a newly created occupational group to meet the needs of the Canada Border Services Agency, and it was implemented in February of 2007 — just about a year ago.
A lot of work has been done on classification on the economic and social sciences group, and it is set for conversion implementation, pending discussions in the current round of collective bargaining.
Quite a lot of progress has been made in the legal group, and implementation will proceed following Treasury Board approval of the new standard for lawyers. Several projects around the program administration group have been initiated.
With classification reform it is happening in manageable chunks by particular occupational groups. There has been some very good progress on that — as I have given with the four examples — and work continues.
Senator Ringuette: Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you for your patience, Senator Ringuette.
Any further questions?
Having heard none, I want to thank you very much for coming and for your attention to our questions. As you can see, there are some fairly serious concerns around this table with respect to the changes taking place, and I think you are aware of what they are. If you could respond to us with your submissions on questions that have been asked, it would be most appreciated. Thank you.
The committee adjourned.