Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Finance
Issue 8 - Evidence - Meeting of April 1, 2008
OTTAWA, Tuesday, April 1, 2008
The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, to which was referred Bill S-219, An Act to amend the Public Service Employment Act (elimination of bureaucratic patronage and establishment of national area of selection), met this day at 9:31 a.m. to give consideration to the bill.
Senator Terry Stratton (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Welcome to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance. My name is Terry Stratton. I am from Red River, Manitoba. Senator Day is away this week, and I am sitting in his place.
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 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.
This morning we are examining Bill S-219, An Act to amend the Public Service Employment Act (elimination of bureaucratic patronage and establishment of national area of selection) tabled in the Senate on November 13, 2007, by the Honourable Senator Ringuette, a member of this committee.
A similar bill was introduced in the previous session of Parliament and referred to our committee. Upon hearing from the bill's sponsor, Senator Ringuette, and Ms. Barrados, President of the Public Service Commission, in September 2006, the committee amended Bill S-201 to remove the requirement of establishing a national area of selection for internal staffing purposes. The bill died on the Order Paper when Parliament prorogued. This new Bill S- 219 retains the change made in the previous bill.
I am pleased to welcome the sponsor of the bill this morning, the Honourable Senator Pierrette Ringuette from New Brunswick. Will you proceed with your remarks, and after your remarks I would open the floor to questions from the floor.
Hon. Pierrette Ringuette, sponsor of the bill: Thank you, Mr. Chair and colleagues. It is a pleasure for me speak to the committee of which I am a member. I have tabled this bill three times because of election situations although it has been presented here and recommended to the Senate. It made its way to the House of Commons, but because of the election process, we must start all over again.
I will not make a lengthy statement this morning as most honourable senators understand my position on the issue of geographic restriction in regards to federal jobs. In the last three years, the President of the Public Service Commission, Ms. Barrados, has made much progress in regards to removing those barriers. However, at this stage, it is still at a policy process, which can be reversed at any time. A policy is a policy and not a piece of legislation. The bill aims to formalize the policy. That is the main purpose of my bill at this stage.
I remind honourable senators that only 20 per cent of the current federal hiring is conducted through competition, which is not normal in this sector as a service provider, while 80 per cent of the hiring is for part-time, term and indeterminate. Last year, 45,000 employees were hired without competition. Only 5,700 of the jobs were listed on the Public Service Commission website. That is one portion of the bill.
As of last Thursday, March 27, there were 556 public service jobs posted, but only 141, or 25.4 per cent of them were without geographic restrictions. This morning, there were 116 jobs without geographic restrictions, with 33 in the National Capital Region; the rest were in Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Northern Quebec, Abitibi-Témiscamingue and so on. Only 28 per cent of these jobs with no geographic restriction were in the national capital.
Another statistic to bring to your attention, which I think is indirectly pertinent — and I have mentioned this once in this committee — relates to the MERX tender process. The MERX process is to tender out goods and services, the services being jobs. They are contracting jobs through the MERX service. There are 687 contracts for jobs, most of which are being filled by placement agencies.
From my perspective, the current situation is not a pretty sight. Although much progress has been made the geographic restriction are still alive and well. I am not persuaded that the Public Service Commission policy to have all geographic barriers removed by the date of December 2008 will be attained.
I bring to your attention reports done by the Prime Minister's Advisory Committee on the Public Service. The first one is dated March 31, 2007, and the chair of that advisory committee is the honourable Don Mazankowski joined by Paul Tellier, two very credible people who have looked into the current situation of the federal public service.
With your permission, I would like to highlight some of the comments from these two reports. The first one is dated March 2007. On page 6 they note in regards to mobility:
Notwithstanding the national presence of the Public Service and the fact that 60 percent of federal employees are located outside the National Capital Region, we understand there is limited mobility between regions, and in fact even between departments.
That is another aspect of restricting mobility.
The most recent report, dated this February, from the same advisory group on the current situation, on what to do with the public service has five recommendations to the Prime Minister, one being ``the importance of having a Public Service workforce that draws on a diversity of origins, cultures, ideas, experiences and perspectives from all regions of Canada.''
This reinforces the fact that we have to legislate to ensure that the public service represents all regions and can voice also the situation and the needs of the different regions. Even today, this very impressive group of advisors to the Prime Minister in regard to the federal public service makes the same recommendations that my bill seeks.
The second item on the agenda on Bill S-219 is bureaucratic patronage. We cannot hide our heads in the sand; there is bureaucratic patronage in the system. It has been identified most recently by the Auditor General when she said that 75 per cent of the student hiring was done by bureaucratic patronage. A study from Ms. Barrados of the Public Service Commission identifies that 73 per cent of our public servants say that there is bureaucratic patronage in the system. Therefore, my bill proposes to add not only measures that we currently have in regards to political patronage and the public service but also with respect to bureaucratic patronage in the public service.
Colleagues, I thank you for your attention this morning, and I hope I will be able to answer all your questions. I do not necessarily have a crystal ball.
The Deputy Chair: Senator Ringuette, when Ms. Barrados appeared earlier this year, she spoke about implementation and moving toward what you are trying to achieve. She told us that they were moving to that end and had a timetable for it.
Have you spoken to Ms. Barrados about the progress on that timetable, or would you expect to hear from her today regarding that issue?
Senator Ringuette: I expect to hear from her today. Knowing her reputation and what she has done in the last four years in removing geographic barriers, I have no doubt that she will have that policy in place by December. Mind you, colleagues, with respect to the public service, I find that this bill is a first step towards many issues that, as parliamentarians, we have to deal with to ensure that the public service truly represents all Canadians from all regions and will be able to well serve all Canadians in all regions.
In regard to your question, Senator Stratton, I have full confidence in Ms. Barrados. However, Ms. Barrados is the chair of the commission. It is a policy that she has put in place, it is not legislation, and if we want to ensure that the process is open, then why not have a piece of legislation that says it will be open to every citizen of this country?
The Deputy Chair: I appreciate that comment.
Suppose there is a job in Ottawa and applicants from Nunavut, British Columbia and New Brunswick apply. Suppose a fourth applicant is from Ottawa. All four applicants are equal in standing for the job, so the person from Ottawa is chosen based on economy.
Do you or do you not want the relocation costs covered off for any candidate that is selected from the other regions for a job in another region?
Senator Ringuette: Senator Stratton, my understanding of the public service is that interviewing cost and relocation cost is not a factor in an open competition. It is only a factor when there is an internal competition where you would have, for example, a public servant working in Halifax who applies for an internal competition in Ottawa and is the best person. Within the collective agreement, there are provisions for relocation purposes. There is no written policy in regard to costs for interviewing purposes or relocation purposes for an external competition. When and if it happens, it is purely because of a department decision to do so because of that particular competition.
The Deputy Chair: That is a question that perhaps Ms. Barrados can answer more clearly. While I do not disagree with the intent of your bill, I become extremely concerned about handcuffing the bureaucracy, for example, by insisting in some instances that they must do this. That is a question that could also be answered, perhaps, by Ms. Barrados. My concern is that if you make it a law, as your bill proposes, you remove the flexibility.
Senator Ringuette: I will restate that 80 per cent of current hiring is not conducted through open competition. There is already 80 per cent flexibility to the public service. I truly believe that, eventually, we, at least I, will want to pursue the situation, because I think it is doing a disservice to all Canadians wherever they live. It is doing a disservice to the level of competency that we would like to see in our public service.
We also have to bear in mind that, in the next year, because of demographics, in order to have a good slate of potential candidates for jobs in the public service, wherever they are, you will need to open the process. Otherwise, you are limiting the competency that one looks for from the public service.
The advisory committee's report confirms my opinion that we need to open up the process. We need to have more accountability. We need to have an array of competency. We need to employ people who live in different regions with different experiences so that they can provide a true, national perspective on issues.
The Deputy Chair: You are aware that the Public Service Employment Act already has a clause about abuse of authority. In other words, the patronage issue is covered in that act. Would we not be double loading this, as it were?
Senator Ringuette: No, we would not because most of it is concerns internal competitions. In their legislations, Australia and the U.K. have reinforced the point that they want to deal with bureaucratic patronage in their systems. We know that it is also happening in our system, whether we are looking at contracting out services through MERX or going through an agency and hiring people for six months. Either way, after six months, the competition is opened and we end up with just one person with experience in the job. It is not a fair process. I do not think that kind of practise does the taxpayer a service, and that is the purpose of the bill. Practice and policies are all nice and are changeable within 24 hours, but you cannot change a piece of legislation within 24 hours.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Senator Ringuette. You and I could debate this for hours, as we have done in the past, but I will stop there so other senators can ask questions.
Senator Di Nino: How does it feel to be on the other side?
Senator Ringuette: If I did not have this cold and fever, I would think that it is a very nice experience.
Senator Di Nino: From time to time, all of us have had that experience. When I have been there, I found it interesting.
Just to continue the same line of questioning, unquestionably you have also accepted the fact that much progress has been made, and in fact, those were your words. The Public Service Commission under Ms. Barrados has progressed toward not only these goals but generally in the improvement of the public service in this country. We have acknowledged that, and you have as well.
I understand that you want to legislate these principles, and my concern is that sometimes when you legislate these things, you actually restrict instead of encourage. There are both positive and negative aspects to it. You obviously know that the Public Service Commission did a study to determine if there was interference or personal favouritism or patronage appointments, and the results did not indicate that this was an overwhelming problem, at least not the way I understand them. I understand a quarter of the respondents came back and said that they felt that often that this may have been the case, and that does not mean all the time. Although it should not happen, your expressions seem to indicate that this is a regular occurrence, but the study certainly did not seem to indicate that.
Senator Ringuette: Actually, in the study the public servants indicated exactly the contrary to what you are saying. Seventy-three per cent of the public servants said that they have knowledge of bureaucratic patronage. I have full confidence that that polling was done with all of the necessary scientific equations. Seventy-three per cent is a very high number.
Senator Di Nino: It depends on the way you read the report. The way I read the information is that 28 per cent suggest that personal favouritism may occur often or from time to time and 45 per cent believe it occurs sometimes. You have added those two together. I am not sure that is what the report meant to say.
Senator Ringuette: If you add the two answers of ``often'' and ``some,'' it provides us with the answer that today's public servants are aware of bureaucratic patronage in the system. Whether they know that it occurs often or sometimes, it is still an indicator that bureaucratic patronage is alive and well in the current system.
Senator Di Nino: I will put that question to Ms. Barrados, because I believe that your interpretation is incorrect.
I also have a question dealing with the timing of this bill. I believe Ms. Barrados expressed concern about the timeline to implementation the last time she was here. I was trying to look for her quote, and I have not been able to find it. I will again follow that up with her as well. My question to you is if more time were required to be able to accomplish this, would you be amenable to making some amendment to allow that.
Senator Ringuette: Yes, as long as we agree that we need to put an end to the current situation and that there is a need for accountability in the public service. If my memory is correct, the timeline for the policy to remove the geographic barriers was last December, but because of technical issues concerning the computer system, Ms. Barrados gave us the timeline of December 2008.
Senator Di Nino: The provisions of the bill call for the coming into force immediately after Royal Assent, and that may clear up the problem.
Senator Ringuette: I have no problem with amending the bill to say the coming into force will be January 1, 2009.
Senator Di Nino: That is fair enough.
Senator Ringuette: We can amend as long as we accomplish this step. I did not mention in my opening remarks that even within the Constitution Canadians enjoy mobility rights to move from one province to another for gainful employment. This bill reinforces that the federal government and the federal public service cannot uphold the Canadian Constitution. What are we doing here?
Senator Di Nino: There are two or three questions I want to ask Ms. Barrados. However, to make a comment on your last comment, you were right to bring this matter up, but I am also tremendously pleased that the Public Service Commission under Ms. Barrados' leadership, and possibly even before that, has taken steps to try to address some of these inefficiencies that seem to exist in the procedures. It gives me some comfort to know that both of you are working on correcting these errors.
Senator Ringuette: Senator Di Nino, I do not consider this a political issue. I started to look into this issue when I was a member of Parliament in 1993. In 2002, I picked up the issue again because during those intervening nine years nothing had been done to correct the problem. I am hopeful that this time the bill will move toward the House of Commons, due diligence will be done, and it will become law.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: As concerns the definition of bureaucratic favouritism, you are asking us to reintroduce this power, and to define it for the commission. Why not define it yourselves? It may seem complicated, but we should at least try.
Senator Ringuette: If we could agree on a definition, I would certainly be in favour of including it in the bill. The survey demonstrated the need.
Senator Nolin: Personally, as a parliamentarian, I have trouble with the idea of leaving that responsibility aside and entrusting it to a regulatory power. I will do it for technical reasons, but now it appears fundamental to me. I think that we agree that that is not acceptable. We should be able to define this together. Do you have any elements of definition the commission is already working on, or others, so that we could agree on what that definition might be?
Senator Ringuette: Without calling it patronage or bureaucratic favouritism, I believe that the commission has done a great deal of preliminary work thanks to the survey done with the commission in order to determine the definition or something similar. The current act does refer to political patronage but those terms are not necessarily defined.
Senator Nolin: Oh, there is no definition? In the note the Library of Parliament gave us, it seems complex. It is a matter of perception. There are unacceptable behaviours on the part of management. I am thinking, for instance, of delays in holding competitions. If the period is of one week, obviously a one-week period is too short. People have to be able to find out that the competition is being held, is open. And already right there, that is behaviour that could lead an external witness to conclude that there is some kind of trickery involved in the very opening of the process.
If you have some elements of definition in mind, I would be in favour of including them in the bill rather than referring this regulatory power.
Senator Ringuette: Four years ago, when we prepared a draft of the bill, we looked at what was being done in Australia and Great Britain. Those were the two most relevant examples. Everything needs to be done within a transparent system. I would be happy to share that research with you.
Senator Nolin: I have a question concerning the geographical criterion. I understand that you are asking us to abolish these criteria for public competitions only and not for internal competitions?
Senator Ringuette: That is correct.
Senator Nolin: In other words, if a competition is only being held within certain sectors of the public service at this time, the geographical criterion, for cost reasons apparently, could apply. But it would not apply for a competition that would be open to the general public.
Senator Ringuette: No.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Senator Ringuette.
I would now like to welcome our witnesses from the Public Service Commission of Canada: Ms. Barrados, President; Ms. Miles, Director, Regulations and Legislation, Policy Branch; and Ms. Fisher, Director General, Staffing and Assessment Services Branch.
[Translation]
Maria Barrados, President, Public Service Commission of Canada: Thank you, Mr. Chair, for your introduction and invitation to appear before the committee with respect to Bill S-219. I have with me today Cheryl Fisher, Director General, Staffing Services, and Jennifer Miles, Director, Policy Branch, of the Public Service Commission.
I fully support the principle of this bill to expand Canadians' access to public service jobs. Ensuring fair access is a clear direction in the current Public Service Employment Act, the PSEA, and is reflected in the commission's policies. The PSEA also provides managers with discretion to fill short-term needs through term employment with geographic limits.
I am concerned that, as currently drafted, Bill S-219 may unduly restrict some necessary management discretion.
The Public Service Commission is an independent agency reporting to Parliament. Its mandate, as established in 1908, is to safeguard the integrity of the public service staffing system and the political neutrality of the public service. In addition, the PSC recruits qualified Canadians from across the country.
[English]
The federal public service is the largest, most complex organization in Canada. For 2006-07, there were nearly 49,000 external appointments, which included more than 7,700 indeterminates, that is, permanent jobs, almost 10,000 terms, nearly 13,000 students and more than 18,000 casuals.
The Public Service Commission has long held access for Canadians to federal public service jobs as a fundamental value. We have been working to expand access since 2001. We began by requiring national area of selection for executive and senior officer external advertised jobs in 2001. In 2005, we announced a three-phased approach with impact assessment and evaluation to determine the rate of implementation. Our approach was designed to expand the national area of selection to all externally advertised positions for indeterminate and determinate jobs over six months. Our approach does not include the use of a national area of selection for hires of terms of short duration. Casual employment is excluded from the requirements of the Public Service Employment Act and, by definition, non- advertised positions would not be included.
In April 2006, Phase 1, the PSC extended a national area of selection to officer-level externally advertised jobs in the National Capital Region. There was a 33 per cent increase in application rates as described in the attached table. These applications came from outside the region with associated increased costs for travel, relocation, assessment and administration. Based on our assessment, we determined that the increased volume and associated costs were manageable.
In Phase 2, April 2007, we extended the national area of selection to all officer-level jobs in all regions. The table also shows the number of applications that came from outside the region where the jobs were located. The outside application rates for jobs in the National Capital Region, Ontario and Quebec, are the lowest of all regions. In some regions, such as Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, there were more applications from outside the province than from inside.
The commission has made important progress in implementing national area of selection. We have gone from making one in five public service jobs available to all Canadians in 2006 to making more than half of them open to Canadians in 2007.
When I met with this committee last November to discuss our annual report for 2006-07, I indicated that the Public Service Commission would move forward with full implementation by December 2008 once it could ensure government-wide readiness to meet the increased volume of applications resulting from this expansion. We also intend to expand national area of selection for Federal Student Work Experience Program full-time employment opportunities.
We are concerned about placing a greater burden on an already overloaded system without proper training and tools. We expect volumes to be even higher than they are today for non-officer jobs, particularly, clerical jobs. Last year, we received more than 400,000 applications for 1,316 staffing processes. Today, the tools to support this transition are not in place. We are continuing to do assessments, and we are putting in place what we believe to be essential tools, such as random selection, in addition to supporting tools and guidance.
[Translation]
As mentioned, we agree with the principle of Bill S-219, but it is important that we understand the impacts of applying a national area of selection to all external recruitment. As currently drafted, the bill removes all discretion to determine a geographic area of selection. The approach taken by the PSC does not apply to terms of less than six months. This exemption allows managers to effectively address urgent operational requirements or other pressing short-term needs through advertised processes.
Managers must have some flexibility in setting geographic limits to meet short-term requirements. The only remaining option would be to do more casual staffing or non-advertised staffing, which would not be an outcome that upholds values of access and transparency. Casual staffing has no merit requirement.
[English]
We are at an important stage in moving forward and achieving our mutual objective of making public service jobs open to the public accessible to Canadians across the country.
The PSC is committed to continuing the implementation of its national area of selection policy. We will provide regular updates to Parliament on our progress. We recommend to the committee that the proposed legislation be amended to take into account those circumstances where a national geographic area of selection may not be warranted. This could be achieved either by adding a regulation reference or by directly amending the bill.
Under the regulatory option, a reference could be added to the bill to provide the Public Service Commission with the authority to prescribe those exceptional circumstances. The wording for such a reference is attached.
The proposed legislation could also be amended to specifically list those exceptions. The proposed amendment is also attached for your consideration.
Honourable senators, the Public Service Commission is committed to implementing national area of selection for external advertised appointment processes for positions across Canada. We have taken a measured approach toward full implementation. We want to be ready and fully prepared to complete this by December 2008. We are continuing to redesign our policies and procedures to maximize the use of electronic tools and collaborate with departments and agencies to develop policies and processes to effectively implement national area of selection.
I have one last comment concerning the coming into force of Bill S-219. The commission has devoted considerable resources to implementing our policy, and it would be very hard to advance its implementation beyond its current timetable. We would suggest that a standard clause be inserted with respect to the coming into force as included in the proposed amendments.
[Translation]
The issue of national area of selection has attracted considerable interest and generated much debate. We are committed to implementing national area of selection for external recruitment. Moreover, we have already taken significant steps and achieved progress in meeting the objective of this bill — enhancing Canadians' access to jobs in the federal public service.
[English]
Senator Ringuette: Ms. Barrados, I thank you for your commitment to removing these barriers. Your commitment and policy directives have moved the issue in the last four years.
In your statement, on page 1, you say that for 2006-07, there were nearly 49,000 external appointments, permanents, students and casual. Then on page 3, you say that last year we received more than 400,000 applications for 1,300 positions. What is the situation here? I would like to understand the 49,000 external appointments of which only 1,300 were advertised.
Ms. Barrados: The first set of numbers concerns appointments from outside into the public service. We broke that figure down into permanent jobs, terms, students and casuals. Remember that casuals do not fall under the Public Service Employment Act, so that group does not require any advertisement or merit criteria. All the others have a requirement that they go through some kind of merit test, and there is discretion to advertise or not. Most of these positions are advertised because the commission has made its view known that it prefers to use the advertise process.
The other number of 400,000 provides the committee with an indication of the number of applications. These applications are for clerical positions and illustrate the volume that we are concerned about when we post these jobs. The other number we had for the 1,300 processes can result in more than one hire. That means 1,300 posters went up saying we are looking for clerical positions, and we had that number of applications.
Senator Ringuette: Would those 1,300 clerical jobs be across the country within all the different departments?
Ms. Barrados: That is correct. They would be across the country but within a limited geographic area most of the time.
Senator Ringuette: Most of the time?
Ms. Barrados: Yes.
Senator Ringuette: How many of those jobs are of six months or less duration?
Cheryl Fisher, Director General, Staffing and Assessment Services Branch, Public Service Commission of Canada: I do not know that number.
Ms. Barrados: I can obtain that information for the committee.
Senator Ringuette: Because of my ongoing interest in these issues, I often go the website and I do not recall seeing postings for positions of six months or less. It seems that they are not advertised.
Ms. Barrados: My worry is in making the requirements greater for the national area of selection, we will in fact push the system to go to casual employment, which does not have to be advertised. It is clearly excluded from the bill. We will push the system for going to the unadvertised, which is allowed under the legislation. The current legislation would only make that worse.
The position of the commission has been that, as much as possible, all job opportunities should be advertised. We are now trying to force that with policy to be national, but there are other routes that managers can go that would not meet either one of our purposes.
Senator Ringuette: Are you saying, Ms. Barrados, that perhaps that is another issue we should legislate?
Ms. Barrados: It is up to senators to determine what legislation they would like to introduce. I believe that what we have done well in the current piece of legislation is going for the principles in terms of the kind of staffing system that Parliament would like to see. I like that the legislation has forced accountability on the commission.
Where we have been directive in the legislation, and it is a technical area, is in the notification process. We have difficulties where the statute has been so directive and fairly rigid. When you are running a big system, you cannot anticipate all the consequences. That is giving us difficulties.
I am a strong advocate of being comfortable that you have the principles and general directions clear in the legislation and holding the Public Service Commission accountable and asking us questions. We will try to answer them, and, if we cannot answer them, we will go back and try to obtain the answers. I am nervous about two directive pieces of legislation.
Senator Ringuette: From my perspective, I think that we have not been issuing a strong directive for a number of decades in regards to the public service. I recollect your testimony a few years ago in front of this committee that only 23 per cent of the departments had human resource planning at that time. It is part of the cycle of not being prepared in regards to the public service, not knowing one's needs and not preparing adequately to fill those needs. It is part of the process. I think we must start to fix the broken wheel. I thank you again, because you have done well for us concerning these issues.
Ms. Barrados: I think Senator Ringuette's attention and the attention of this committee have resulted in the kind of progress we have had on broadening national area of selection.
With respect to planning, the earlier report had been 23 per cent. My last report was 88 per cent, with 12 per cent who were in the process of doing the plans. The Clerk of the Privy Council is pushing hard in this direction, and he is requiring that all government departments post them on the web. I think this is another area where we are seeing real progress.
Senator Di Nino: Ms. Barrados, I will first deal with the issue of 73 per cent. When you look at statistics, you can read them in many ways.
If we look at them in one way, we could believe there is a widespread, serious problem in the area of favouritism, patronage, et cetera. The way I look at the statistics I see a problem and one that we should address; however, the situation is not quite as bad what we may be led to believe, which is that it is a bit of an epidemic. Would you care to comment?
Ms. Barrados: The difference in the numbers is in the way the questions were asked. The first set of questions was about the experience in your work unit. That is a lower number. Those are the numbers you were quoting. The second set of questions dealt with what you see overall in your department. Those are the numbers that Senator Ringuette was quoting.
My worry is, with the higher number you could have one incident that many people report many times. From my point of view, quite apart from what number you settle on — whether it is the number in the work unit or overall in the department — I did end up being concerned that about one-half of public servants had a perceptual concern that there had been unfairness or favouritism in the system. I am in between the two sets of numbers.
To me, this was a concern. Then I ask what we are doing about that? I think the new legislation has made an effort to try and deal with that by strengthening the accountability requirements that the Public Service Commission has to exercise, strengthening our audit hand and requiring us to report these things regularly to Parliament, which we are doing. That is part of, on the one hand, loosening up the system and making managers more responsible — which is an important thing to do — and on the other hand strengthen the accountability. However, our study did show that there is this perception of concern on the part of public servants.
Senator Di Nino: What is the practice as far as costs incurred when we are hiring for the public service?
Ms. Barrados: This has become a complicated issue. The real authority on this matter is the Treasury Board, but I will give you the information that we have concerning the costs.
What makes it complicated is we have two sets of regimes: One is for people who apply from outside the public service; the other is for people in the public service who can apply to jobs that are posted for outside the public service. You have a competition, you are going outside the public service, but public servants can apply for that position. If a public servant living in Vancouver applies for a job and they come to Ottawa, their collective agreement requires that their relocation costs be fully paid. This can be very expensive. If you are outside the public service, there is a minimum requirement of $5,000, and the rest of it is discretionary. Those costs are much lower. Public servants who apply to these jobs can make the cost much higher.
We have tried to estimate the costs. My colleague Jennifer Miles is the expert on this issue. I am very nervous about the cost numbers because they vary so much by the competition. The big cost factors are if there is someone from inside the public service who applies for relocation.
Senator Di Nino: The cost could be in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Ms. Barrados: That is correct and depends on the location of the employee. Other costs include the increased volume of applications and effort the testing and interviews cost. Those are more manageable, but when we get to a very high volume, which is the next step in those clerical jobs, that is where we feel we have to go to other means of making sure we have solutions. Otherwise, if we think of testing all those people individually, the numbers are too high and too costly.
Jennifer Miles, Director, Regulations and Legislation, Policy Branch, Public Service Commission of Canada: If you look on your table, from Phase 1, officer level in the National Capital Region, we saw 33 per cent of applications coming from other regions. When you look at what has happened to date in Phase 2, which is where we require national area of selection for officer level across the country, you will see that the application rates from other regions are much higher. In considering relocation costs as a factor, when we look at national area of selection across the country in these other regions, the possibility of having much higher costs for relocation is there, compared to what we see in the National Capital Region. That means we cannot really predict the costs across the country from what happens in NCR because the patterns are quite different.
Senator Di Nino: You do have a concern about the costs skyrocketing.
Ms. Barrados: We have a concern about the unknown element of the costs.
Senator Di Nino: Have you discussed your amendments with Senator Ringuette?
Ms. Barrados: The first amendment is similar to the one we came to the committee with the last time. The second amendment was in response to a committee discussion where I felt there was unease in giving us greater discretion. The first is asking the commission to use regulatory powers to put in the necessary discretion. There was unease, so we tried to articulate the specific circumstances. I have not had a subsequent, specific discussion with Senator Ringuette on this matter.
Senator Ringuette: Ms. Miles, in Phase 2, we see 36 per cent, for instance, in the National Capital Region and 36 per cent from other regions. Out of that 36 per cent, which applicants are in the public service?
Earlier you said that your cost factor would be greater if dealing with the collective agreement of a public servant who applied for a publicly advertised posting.
Ms. Barrados: I think we could probably get that kind of number, but we do not have it. Our systems are not as easy as they should be to get information from it. I am pushing for better systems, but we will not discuss that today.
Senator Cowan: Welcome, and congratulations on the work you have done. I am impressed by the progress you have made since we last heard about these issues.
The question I have relates to what seems to be a sensible exception, and that would be for short-term employment. I have certainly heard many allegations in the last couple of years, since I have been in this job, of people in the public service who abuse the term — and indeed the casual — employment status to get around the system. I would expect that term employment would be used in a situation where there is a requirement for short-term employment, and when that position disappears, there is no need for an employee to continue in that position. However, terms are obtained and they are renewed and renewed and renewed. That seems to me to be a way to get around the system. Indeed, casual employees are hired when everyone in the system — or everyone who pretends they know what is going on in the system — says this is not an urgent requirement. Everyone knew this work was coming up and it should have been a subject of term employment — if it was of short-term duration — or if it continues over and over again it should be a permanent job and not casual or term position.
What systems do you have in place, if you were given what seems to be a sensible exception for short-term, casual, and term employment, to prevent that from being abused to get around the laudable objective, which our colleague has been promoting and which you have been successful in implementing in the phases that you have described?
Ms. Barrados: I have the same concern. In fact, in our last annual report, we reported on the results of a study that showed that most new hiring into the public service for permanent jobs had gone through casual or term and into the permanent public service. The permanent hiring was through that route, and to me, that is not a good way to do permanent hiring, although you will always have some of it.
On average, the public service runs around 88 per cent permanent staff and 12 per cent terms and casuals, which is about right for any organization. However, what is wrong is that is the route used to do all the hiring. In the study, we put down the marker saying that this was not a satisfactory way to do business.
The current effort to recruit new employees through the post-secondary recruitment drives are aimed at going directly into permanent jobs. We are continuing to put pressure on the system to avoid this problem. I do not think the bill for national area of selection will solve that problem, and I worry if we do not allow some exceptions that it will make it worse because people will just go casual or unadvertised.
I would like a system that advertises and gets people into the jobs that are needed. If you want short-term, you hire for short-term; it is not your way to recruit permanently. If you need casual, hire for casual. If you need seasonal employees, hire seasonal employees. If you want permanent employees, hire permanent employees. It is not to say you can never have a casual or term employee move into the permanent work force, but 80 per cent is too high. It is not a good way to recruit.
Senator Cowan: You have identified this as a means by which some managers are circumventing the rules?
Ms. Barrados: They are not circumventing the rules. They are following the rules, but they are not following the principles or doing the best hiring for the public service.
Senator Nolin: You heard my question to Senator Ringuette about the definition. What is so complicated about trying to establish and write out the definition that we should give you the legislative authority to do it? Maybe you are already working on a definition. If so, can you share that definition with us?
Ms. Barrados: Senator, your question is in two parts. Do I have a definition and what is so complicated about it? In some respects, the current legislation made it complicated in that it talks about abuse of authority without defining it. The formulation of the definition of abuse of authority for internal competition was left to the Public Service Staffing Tribunal. The tribunal had to include the possibility of personal favouritism in the definition as well. ``Personal favouritism'' is the language that is used in the legislation.
We are responsible for the external part of the staffing system and the investigations, and we are responsible for investigations of internal processes for fraud and political activity. We have put forward a definition. I can make sure that the committee gets a copy of our study. Our definition is based on the survey and focus group work. There was a lot of work in the system to put forward a definition in which we tried to focus on inappropriate actions or behaviours. We wanted an action element related to the knowledge or authority or influence that provides unfair advantage or preferential treatment. We tried to put that wording into the definition and added, ``and is contrary to the good of the organization,'' because there are some circumstances where perceptually someone might think something is wrong but it may be the right thing for the organization. An example is skill shortages that might arise.
We put this forward, and this is the one with which we are working. We have not really had any response or test to it. Provisions such as this mean we would have to push a lot harder and try to turn them into regulations.
Senator Nolin: Is it normal practice for us to give you the authority to organize and put those definitions on paper? Is that the normal process?
Ms. Barrados: It depends. In the previous legislation, the former Public Service Employment Act, had not defined ``merit,'' and in not defining merit, it became defined by the courts. At the end of that period, there was a decision and we ended up in a place we did not want to be, and the system was far too heavy. The new legislation defined ``merit,'' and this lightened the system. In this case, it is a judgment.
I have a working definition. It is up to senators to determine whether they think this is important for us to do more work. We have done this. We are working with this. I have not had any big challenge on it, but many of these things then have to be tested in the context of individual cases.
Senator Nolin: I assume they will be.
Senator Eggleton: It is gratifying to know that your work and the efforts of Senator Ringuette and the work of this committee are helping to advance this matter, even though it is not in law yet.
I can understand your suggested amendments. You obviously want to keep some discretion ability to manoeuvre within the system and to carry out what you see as worthy goals, which are similar to what Senator Ringuette wants to do, while at the same time not being handcuffed by precise legislation. As legislators, we have to find a balance between those two goals.
In your opening statement, you indicated that out of 49,000 external positions, 10,000 were terms and 18,000 were casuals; and combined, they are the majority. You also indicated that people out of the casual pool fill 80 per cent of permanent positions. If these exemptions you suggest to the legislation were not put in place, you thought the situation could actually be worse. I do not quite understand.
When a manager of a certain entity wants to justify a position, quite frequently, my perception is that he or she would try to get someone in there as a casual to show there is work and here is how it would be done. It is an easier sell to a superior than making it permanent right away, and so he or she starts with a casual employee. The person who goes into the casual position has a leg-up when it comes to the position becoming a permanent position. You may have a process on paper that requires the manager to go out and solicit other possibilities for filling that position, and that person may interview two or three, but the person that has been doing the job surely has a leg-up.
With the amendments you are suggesting, it strikes me that it probably guts the bill in the sense that so many people coming into the public service will be able to bypass it by going into either casual or term positions. I do not understand how Senator Ringuette's proposed legislation would make the situation worse in that respect.
Ms. Barrados: The 80 per cent, the movement that we have had prior government experience before people come into permanent jobs, is the terms and the casuals. It is not just the casuals. Casuals work for no more than 90 days with no merit requirement. Term employees are appointments that require merit requirements but do not always require that national area of selection.
My concern is that we do not want the permanent hiring always to be that way. If you have that type of permanent hiring, we create a public service that is not sufficiently diverse, and there are questions about geographic diversity, which is Senator Ringuette's concern. My concern is about enough diversity from different racial ethnic groups. We are not sufficiently diverse as a public service and that pattern of hiring generates that kind of result.
I would like to see more advertising for all jobs, but not the casual because they are excluded and there is always a need to do short term work. I would like more advertising for all jobs, with national area of selection for those jobs, but allowing managers some discretion because the option they will always have is to go non-advertised. If we make it too tight, we will not get any advertising. We will get non-advertised. I really would like to see that only used under exceptional circumstances. I would not like to see the non-advertised become the norm.
If you are a manager trying to fill a job and you really do think it is short term because someone is sick and you need someone to come in, you can go casual if it is 90 days, but what if you think it will be longer than 90 days in one year? I would rather that kind of thing be posted and advertised to give everybody a crack at that job rather than the job being unadvertised. I just do not want to make the advertised tougher so it has people going unadvertised.
Senator Eggleton: I do not think we would have any problem with casual in the normal sense of the word, but when it is used to bypass the system, it becomes a problem. Perhaps you need to have different categories. If a person is replacing someone due to illness, that is fine and I do not see any difficulty, but if a position is made casual with the thought that down the line, it may become a permanent position, then we have a problem. Why would you exempt that from the national area of selection, and why would you exempt that from advertising?
Ms. Barrados: Casual employment was excluded from the Public Service Employment Act, which was passed in 2003. It was specifically excluded to provide that discretionary need for a short term basis. I can understand that managers need that kind of thing, but it should not be used the way you describe it, senator, and it should not be used as a way to give people training and experience in government so that the next time you have advertising up that says ``training and experience in government,'' they have gained it through being a casual employee.
Senator Eggleton: I agree that it should not be used in that way, but how do you prevent that from happening, particularly if you are providing exemptions for these classifications of people in the proposed legislation from Senator Ringuette? Maybe we need to make a distinction between different types of casual so that it is not abused.
Ms. Barrados: The casuals are not part of Senator Ringuette's bill and are not part of my responsibilities as head of Public Service Commission, but I am looking at them any way and reporting on them any way. We are talking about the terms. The exemptions we are suggesting are exemptions for the term employment. When we have national area of selection that has to go to all the jobs, we are asking for those exemptions for terms because I would like all of those kinds of jobs posted. I would not like them to go not posted. I would like them posted and give people the opportunity for them, but allow more flexibility on the geographic area, particularly for things like seasonal employment or something that is short term. That short term could still give people some advantage, but it is not realistic to think you would run a big national competition for a short term position in an area. That is why the exemptions are there for the terms. I put the casuals in there so you would get the total picture, but casuals are outside the system.
Senator Eggleton: Casuals and terms together are the majority of the 49,000 external appointments, and I am concerned that we give people a fair opportunity. Eventually, if the position they are applying for becomes a permanent or indeterminate position, there should be fairness as to how that is acquired as opposed to getting in as a casual or a term and using that as a step to get into permanent service.
Ms. Barrados: I share the concern, and I have made the commitment in my report that I will continue to monitor that situation. Nagging is good; people pay attention.
The Deputy Chair: Ms. Barrados, you refer to two options for potential amendments. Of the two, do you have a preference?
Ms. Barrados: I prefer option one, but the last time I was at this committee you did not like that, so I thought I had to come back and be more specific.
The Deputy Chair: I appreciate that. In both of your options for amendments, you state that subsection 34(3) of the act, as enacted by subsection (1), comes into force on a day to be fixed by order of the Governor-in-Council. Senator Ringuette's concern is that it is very open-ended and she has proposed a compromise of the start of 2009. Would you consider a fixed day?
I happen to believe that the progress you are making is really quite amazing. You put this together very quickly given the size of the civil service, and I commend you for that. Can you live with a fixed date and if so, what date would be agreeable to you? You do not have to answer now, but you can think about it and get back to us. If you unequivocally think that it is to be a date fixed by order of the Governor-in-Council, so be it, but you have to know that will come down the track.
Ms. Barrados: I suggested that because I asked my lawyers what is a standard clause, and they said that was a standard clause. I believe I will have it in place by December 2008. However, I could have some trouble with my systems. If Senator Ringuette wants to give me another year, I would certainly have it in place by then.
The Deputy Chair: By December of 2009.
Ms. Barrados: December 2009.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. Are there any other questions?
Before we wrap up, do we have any other witnesses that we would like to hear? If not, if you agree, we will go to clause by clause tomorrow evening. Tomorrow evening, starting at 6:15, we have consideration of a draft report in camera of the human resource management issues in the public service, and then we will go to clause-by-clause examination. If you agree with that, that is how we will proceed.
The committee adjourned.