REPORT ON THE HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ISSUES IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE 

INTRODUCTION 

The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance has a general mandate to examine government spending, either directly through the Estimates documents or indirectly through bills that provide borrowing authority or bear upon the spending proposals identified in the Estimates.  Traditionally, the Committee has also shown an interest in matters affecting the management of the federal Public Service.  It is for these reasons that the officials of the Public Service Commission (PSC) have appeared regularly before the Committee to answer questions on spending for which they are responsible and on other matters concerning the management of the Public Service.

During this session of Parliament, the President of the Public Service Commission, Ms. Maria Barrados, appeared before the Committee to explain the Commission’s recent annual report and to discuss its findings regarding a number of public service human resources management issues.  The lively discussions which followed sparked an interest among senators for additional information.  Subsequently, two additional hearing dates were scheduled with other government officials in order to gain a better understanding of the nature of the problems highlighted by the PSC report and to determine what will be the government’s response.

The Committee hopes that this report will inform the Senate on some of the main human resources management issues currently occupying the federal public service.  We also hope that our recommendations will guide the federal government in its efforts to improve the functioning of the Public Service.  The study involved three meetings.

First, on November 14, 2007, Ms. Maria Barrados came to the Committee to discuss the findings of the 2006-2007 Annual Report of the Public Service Commission and the results of four audits tabled in Parliament on 13 November 2007 and two statistical studies released on the same day.Ms. Barrados reminded the Committee that the 2006-2007 fiscal year was the first full year of operation under the new Public Service Employment Act.

Second, on November 28, 2007, the Committee met with Ms. Kami Ramcharan (Director General, Workforce and Workplace Renewal) of the Canada Public Service Agency and officials from the Treasury Board Secretariat – Mr. Dan Danagher (Executive Director, Labour Relations and Compensation Operations) and Mr. Tom Scott (Executive Director, Government Operations and Services, Human Resources Directorate) – to discuss employment equity issues in the federal public service.

The Canada Public Service Agency (formerly known as the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada) is the agency responsible for human resource management of the public service, including monitoring the implementation of the Employment Equity Act and related policies and guidelines by departments and agencies for which the Treasury Board is the employer.  That responsibility covers about 65 departments and agencies employing approximately 175,000 employees.

Third, on January 29, 2008, the Committee met with Ms. Karen Ellis, Senior Vice-President, Workforce and Workplace Renewal, Canada Public Service Agency to obtain greater clarification on a number of the issues raised in the Annual Report of the Public Service Commission.

Ms. Ellis briefly described 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.  She explained that 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.

Ms. Ellis explained that the renewal of the public service is based on four elements: 

·         Integrated planning, which 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. 

·         Recruitment which is critical to renewal in order to sustain the workforce capacity at all levels.  

·         Employee development which is about fostering leadership at all levels and ensuring that employees have meaningful work to do in a supportive environment.  

·         Enabling infrastructure which means having the right systems and processes in place to ensure effective planning, recruitment and development.

 

THE ISSUES

Overall, Ms. Barrados stated, the Public Service Commission has confidence in the integrity of the staffing systems in the federal government.  Departments and agencies have made progress in implementing new approaches in staffing.  It was noted that most federal organizations (88%) had developed human resources plans that cover a good portion of their workforce, but they still needed to strengthen the link between their plans and staffing actions.

Despite the progress achieved, the Commission remains concerned about weaknesses in supporting human resource modernization efforts.  The capacity of the human resource community and the need for better information to support planning and accountability continue to be source of concern.  The 2006-2007 Annual Report identified a number of issues  which are discussed below.

 

A.    Recruitment through the Temporary Workforce 

The Commission found in the patterns of public service recruitment a heavy reliance on temporary employment.  Over an eight-year period, more than 80% of the 86,000 new indeterminate (permanent) employees hired for the federal workforce had prior public service experience, 75% either as casual or determinate (temporary) term employees.

The Commission is concerned about such hiring practices.  It feels that hiring for short-term needs is not the best way of meeting long-term requirements in human resources nor is it the best way to attract qualified people who already hold permanent jobs.  The Commission noted that federal departments and agencies will have to strengthen their human resource planning systems and procedures, particularly in the way they hire permanent workers.

Senators shared the concern expressed by Ms. Barrados regarding the preponderance of temporary or casual workers chosen to fill vacancies.  Ms. Barrados considers this a serious problem and not the best approach to building up a permanent workforce within the public service.  Still, she also believes that it is not the time to impose more rules and regulations given that specific directives have already been made to departments and agencies to improve their hiring practices.  The Public Service Commission will continue to monitor and report on the situation as it evolves. 

The issue around casual and short-term hiring is an important one that the CPSA is also studying.  Ms. Ellis reminded the Committee that casual employees cannot just automatically become indeterminate employees.  They have to go through a competitive process that is open to the public.  The Agency also has a policy on term employment, and that policy advises departments that they are to use term employment for the kinds of work that require a shorter term requirement.  According to Ms. Ellis, an important aspect of this issue is whether people are using that as part of their management tool kit to manage performance and ensure that the federal public service is keeping and retaining the best people.

The Committee members were concerned about the implications for the federal government of its heavy reliance on casual and temporary hiring in order to fill vacancies within the public service.  As a result the Committee proposes the following recommendation:

                        RECOMMENDATION #1: 

That the Public Service Commission provide the Senate Committee on National Finance with regular status reports on the temporary and casual hiring in the federal government. 

 

   B.  Employment Equity 

                        Senators were troubled to learn about certain trends regarding employment equity in the public service.  The current legislation identifies four employment equity (EE) groups—women, persons with disabilities, Aboriginal peoples, and visible minorities.  Three equity groups continue to exceed their rates of workforce availability—the proportion of the national workforce that is comprised of a designated group of employees.  The principle is that their portion of employment in the federal public service should equal or exceed their proportion of the national workforce.  According to Ms. Barrados, there remains a gap for visible minorities between their workforce availability and their representation in the public service. Equally troubling is that while overall recruitment to the public service increased, the recruitment for visible minorities has shown a marked drop from 9.8% of all new appointments to the public service 1 in 2005-2006 to 8.7% in 2006-2007.

 As she explained it, if the recruitment rate of visible minorities does not increase, the gap in representation will only be aggravated.

                        Ms. Barrados explained that the Public Service Employment Act (PSEA) contains provisions which enable organizations to take actions to improve representation, such as including employment equity in the merit criteria by identifying EE objectives as current or future needs of the organization and expanding or restricting the area of selection for EE groups. The PSC’s assessment of government organizations in fiscal 2006-2007 found that federal organizations are not using these provisions to their full extent.

                        As a result of its findings, the PSC continued its research and analysis to better understand and address the "drop-off" in the percentage of visible minorities between application and appointment. So far it has not identified any problems at the initial stage of screening which would explain why the number of visible minorities hired is not greater than currently observed. The PSC informed the Committee that it will conduct further research in 2007-2008 to track the performance of EE group members in subsequent screening, assessment and selection stages of the recruitment process conducted by departments and agencies.

                        One encouraging observation of the PSC was the increase of 70% in entry appointments of visible minorities to the Executive Group over the previous year. In their view, this demonstrates that concerted efforts by both the PSC and departments in monitoring and using special recruitment strategies, such as the pre-qualified pool established in 2005-2006, can produce significant results.

                        Senators expressed strong concern about the under-representation of visible minorities in the public service and questioned Ms. Barrados further about the probable causes.  She discussed a number of possible explanations but was unable to be definitive on the matter.  She agreed that the Public Service Commission needed to push harder on the federal government to address the issue of hiring more visible minorities within the federal government.  In her view, the declining rates of hiring visible minorities were likely attributable to “bad habits and not making the extra effort to change.”  She noted that where there had been concerted efforts to address this issue, there was improvement.  Ms. Barrados suggested that there were a number of things that could be done to improve representation of visible minorities in the federal public service, including increasing the number of visible minorities in leadership positions in the public service because it serves as a real example and assists in changing attitudes.

                        According to Ms. Ramcharan and Ms. Ellis, the Canada Public Service Agency, the federal organization responsible for developing federal employment policies is currently reviewing the Employment Equity Policy with the aim of making it simpler, clearer and results-based to support the integration of employment equity goals into all aspects of human resources management, business planning and accountability for results.  Scheduled for completion for April 2008, the revised policy will set out accountability of deputy ministers for achieving equity group representation within departments and agencies. 

Senators wondered about the possible impact of federal bilingualism requirements on the hiring of visible minorities.  Ms. Ellis was not aware that there is a particularly acute problem for visible minorities in terms of bilingualism across the public service.  What she felt to be important applies equally for visible minority employees and all other employees. In her view, language training has to be part of our overall thinking on the management of human resources.  She acknowledged that in some regions, the greater problem for all employees is the lack of accessibility to language training facilities and programs.

Senators were not satisfied with the overall response of the Agency’s officials on the way that the government is dealing with employment equity issues for visible minorities.  The Committee sought additional information on this matter, which unfortunately it has not yet received.  Pending the nature and content of the Agency’s response to these outstanding questions, the Committee may wish to make additional comments at a later date on the problem of under-representation of visible minorities in the federal public service.  The Committee believes that the current under-representation of visible minorities within the federal government is a serious concern and concerted efforts must be directed to address this issue and thus proposes the following recommendation: 

RECOMMENDATION # 2: 

That the federal government develop initiatives that would promote and facilitate the hiring of more visible minorities within the federal public service in proportion to their representation in the national workforce; and, that the federal government provide the Senate Committee on National Finance with an action plan for the implementation for these initiatives.  

 

   C.     The Impartiality of the Public Service 

The Commission is also mandated to maintain an impartial public service.  There is a requirement that requires public servants to obtain permission from the Commission before seeking elected office.  Ninety-five public servants requested permission to be a candidate in a federal, provincial, or municipal election.  This is a new provision.  Not all public servants were aware of this requirement, and one third of the postulants did not meet the requirement for timely application. 

 

   D.  Human Resource Management Practices 

As part of its mandated responsibilities, the Commission audits the human resource practices and procedures of federal departments and agencies.  The Commission presented the results of four audits that were conducted in 2007-2008.  In three instances, the Commission found that the entities audited had satisfactory hiring practices.  However, with the fourth audit, namely the Office of the Correctional Investigator, the Commission found that 9 out of 10 appointments did not comply with the delegation agreement between itself and the Office of the Correctional Investigator.  It concluded that the staffing patterns of the Office of the Correctional Investigator compromised the values of fairness, transparency and access.  Senators were interested in what the procedures were at the Public Service Commission under such circumstances and what sanctions are available.  Ms. Barrados indicated that the Commission identified gaps in the human resources policy framework that needed to be addressed.  Consequently, it recommended that the employer, the Treasury Board, introduce appropriate policy corrections and that the Treasury Board Secretariat better monitor the staffing actions of the Office.  She also informed the Committee that it had put the Office of the Correctional Investigator under increased supervision.  Finally, the Commission requested that the Office provide it with quarterly reports, and the PSC is closely monitoring and supervising the situation.  The Commission is expected to review the individual appointments in question and will make a determination at a later date whether the restrictions should be maintained or revoked. 

The Committee members recognize the importance of maintaining sound hiring practices at the federal public service and view the situation within the Office of the Correctional Investigator with concern.  In response to these concerns, the Committee recommends: 

 

RECOMMENDATION # 3: 

That the Public Service Commission provide to the Senate Committee on National Finance a report before the end of the fiscal year 2008-2009 on the appointment situation within the Office of the Correctional Investigator.

 

   E.  National Area of selection 

The Commission informed the Committee on the progress achieved in establishing and implementing a national area of selection for external recruitment.  The Commission continues in its efforts to expand access to public service jobs across Canada.  The Commission told the Committee that it expects full implementation of the new national area of selection policy by December 2008.

The Senators requested an update about the implementation of the National Area of Selection, which is now scheduled to be operational by December 2008.  Ms. Barrados told the Committee that the full implementation date had been delayed one year because the Commission wanted to conduct a pilot project in the National Capital Region in order to ensure that it had the human resource capacity to handle the potentially significant increases in the number of applicants resulting from this new policy. 

 

   F.   Budget Problems of the PSC 

The Public Service Commission of Canada told the Committee that it is striving hard to implement the provisions of the Public Service Employment Act, that it has strengthened its audit and monitoring capacity and is continuing its efforts to modernize and transform its services.

Moreover, because of the greater responsibilities of the Public Service Commission under the provisions of the new legislation, the Commission is seeking to find alternative funding formulas in order to continue to provide for its statutory requirements and support the federal human resource management system as required.

Mr. Tom Scott, of the Treasury Board Secretariat, provided some clarifications on how the Public Service Commission is funded, particularly in light of comments made by
Ms. Barrados about seeking new funding formulas, notably about cost recovery for some products and services delivered by the Commission to departments and agencies. 

Mr. Scott indicated that the Commission has two responsibilities:  one that is mandatory for audit and oversight of the federal government in terms of its compliance with the legislation governing employment in the core public administration, and the other for executive responsibilities associated with the provision of products and services to departments and agencies.  Some services are provided through budgetary appropriation and some through cost recovery. 

Mandatory services such as oversight and audit are funded through appropriations, while optional services delivered to specific client departments such as assessments and screenings are funded through cost recovery.  In recent years, the Public Service Commission has been expanding its optional services to departments and, as a result,
Ms. Barrados has been requesting Treasury Board to have the Commission’s cost recovery authority extended.  

Mr. Scott indicated that Ms. Barrados first needed to regularize the authority that was given on a temporary basis two or three years ago for cost recovery, and then extend that authority given the rising demand for optional services levels.  Ms. Barrados indicated that the Public Service Commission has the authority to spend $ 8 million and is currently negotiating with Treasury Board Secretariat to expand that authority by an additional $ 6 million in order to better respond to greater demand for its optional services.

 

CONCLUDING COMMENTS

                        These issues were discussed during the Committee’s examination of the 2007-2008 Main Estimates.  In the future the Committee intends to continue to monitor these issues and other items within the broad context of human resource management in the federal public service.

                        The Standing Senate Committee of National Finance respectfully submits its Report on Human Resource Management Issues in the Public Service.

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