Ottawa – Parliament should be more involved in overseeing the government’s solution to problems with the Phoenix pay system, the troubled plan the federal government implemented to manage payroll for its nearly 300,000 public servants.

That is one of the recommendations in a report released Tuesday by the Senate Committee on National Finance, The Phoenix pay problem: working toward a solution.

The Phoenix pay system was intended to centralize pay operations for government workers and save taxpayers $70 million a year. Instead, Phoenix has cost taxpayers nearly $1 billion in unplanned expenditures — so far — and that number is on track to hit $2.2 billion by 2023.

The report calls on the government to set targets for the time to process outstanding pay requests, and to report to Parliament on options and costs for replacing Phoenix, the anticipated impact on employees and on whatever measures will be put in place to avoid repeating the mistakes of the Phoenix pay system.

The committee is dismayed that the project proceeded with minimal independent oversight, including from central agencies, and that no one has accepted responsibility for the failure of Phoenix or has been held to account. The committee also found that the Phoenix debacle is in part the result of a fundamental management cultural problem within the public service, where an ethos persists that resists sharing negative information, runs away from risks, and avoids responsibility when mistakes occur.

The committee also believes the government should do more to support its distressed employees, who are waiting anxiously to have their pay problems resolved, by setting targets for the resolution of priority pay requests. About half of all government workers have encountered at least one problem with their pay since Phoenix debuted in 2016. Usually, those problems have taken the form of incorrect or late payments — with sometimes disastrous consequences to hard-working people who provide important services to Canadians.

Paying employees the right amount of money at the right time is a fundamental part of the relationship between any employer and its employees. The Phoenix fiasco has created unnecessary hardship, anxiety and stress for tens of thousands of public servants.

However, the fact that the federal government has had this so wrong for so long shows the need for close supervision — and especially the kind of oversight that comes from the scrutiny of Parliament.

Quick Facts: Phoenix by the numbers

• Original cost to develop Phoenix pay system: $309 million
• Costs to-date associated with Phoenix: $954 million
• Forecast cost of total unplanned expenditures: $2.2 billion
• Public servants affected by Phoenix problems: 152,517 out of 292,000 (as of June 30, 2017)
• Outstanding pay-action requests: 596,000 (as of May 30, 2018)

Quotes

“The government clearly needs help to resolve a very serious problem that is affecting more than half of Canada’s public servants. A full, detailed report to Parliament will help clear the air, give Canadians the information they deserve to know about this debacle and get Parliament on track to fix it. Our employees deserves no less.”

- Senator Percy Mockler, Chair of the committee.

“The first concern should be that the hard-working public servants who have been affected by Phoenix get their pay adjusted immediately. I am confident that the federal government is working to address this issue.”

- Senator Mobina S. B. Jaffer, Deputy Chair of the committee.

“It’s an embarrassment that a G7 country like Canada has failed to pay tens of thousands of its own public servants properly. Canada has one of the best public services in the world, but the Phoenix disaster has revealed a cultural problem within the management of the federal bureaucracy, a problem that we have to address if the government is to successfully undertake complex projects such as this one in the future.”

- Senator André Pratte, Deputy Chair of the committee.

Associated Links

• Read the report: The Phoenix pay problem: working toward a solution.
• Follow the committee on social media using the hashtag #NFFN.
• Sign up for the Senate’s eNewsletter.

For more information, please contact:
Sonia Noreau
Public Relations Officer
Communications Directorate
Senate of Canada
613-614-1180 | sonia.noreau@sen.parl.gc.ca