Attrition won't help many of the 687 employees at Public Works who were told in June that their jobs will be cut over the next three years, says Claude Poirier, president of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees. Mr. Poirier said that he is in "almost daily" contact with union representatives at Public Works, and judging by the information he's seen on the affected workers, most of their jobs will not be eliminated because public servants are leaving of their own will.
In total, 300 employees will be laid off this year across Public Works.
When news broke of the layoffs June 20, an internal memo obtained by the Globe and Mail stated that "as people leave and retire, the positions, along with the salary dollars, will be abolished."
CAPE represents 103 workers at Government Consulting Services in Ottawa who will be laid off this year. Mr. Poirier said that the government is effectively closing the operation, which gives economic and policy advice to departments.
"Most of them are not old enough to go on retirement, so attrition doesn't apply to them," Mr. Poirier said. CAPE represents 14,000 federal workers including economists, statisticians at Statistics Canada and policy advisers.
Treasury Board president Tony Clement (Parry Sound-Muskoka, Ont.) has previously said that 11,000 people make the choice to leave the public service every year. Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page disputes this number. He estimates that net attrition will be 1,100 over the next three years.
The union is trying to take advantage of departures in other areas of government by arranging for willing affected workers to get training and move into jobs left vacant by retirees, said Mr. Poirier.
But two months after the layoff news, he estimates only about 30 per cent of his affected members know where they'll be working in the near future.
The job cuts are a result of Public Works' 2010 strategic review. As a part of a strategic review, departments are asked to identify their worst-performing programs for the chopping block, to a total of five per cent of program spending. That money is then re-allocated to higher priorities inside the department.
Because of the strategic review, Public Works will save $24.1-million in 2011-2012, $49.5-million in 2012-2013, and $98.6-million in 2013-2014, according to the 2011 budget.
While the department told CAPE that the strategic review was the reason for the job cuts, Mr. Poirier said this doesn't make sense, as consulting services is a special operating agency that runs on contracts for work from other departments.
"It's not really to save money that they've been dismantled. I'd say it's more of a principle for this government. They see a better government as being a smaller government so less government is better government to them," said Mr. Poirier.
The work will now be contracted out to the private sector, though Mr. Poirier noted that there should be limitations to what sort of information is disclosed to outside contractors.
"If you were to provide advice on strategic decisions for the government, you don't want those decisions, and that advice being provided by outside people, it doesn't make sense," he said.
Government Consulting Services' sister agency Audit Services Canada provides departments with contract cost and transfer payment auditing on a fee-for service basis. The two organizations, formerly Consulting and Audit Canada, have been around in one form or another for 50 years.
As a part of the layoffs, 92 auditors will be let go over the next three years. Audit Services Canada has 200 staff in eight cities, including 20 in both Toronto and Montreal, 13 in Winnipeg and 10 in Vancouver.
Public Works did not respond to a request for information on the cuts or the auditing agency in time for publication.
In its report on plans and priorities, released in March, the department writes, "public servants with an indepth knowledge of the priorities and administrative policies of government ... contribute to a more effectively managed public service."
Queen's University public sector financial management expert Andrew Graham said that the good news is it won't greatly affect government accountability or financial monitoring.
"As far as Audit Services Canada goes, it's something that you can pick up and use, or not, as a department. I don't think it's going to have a big impact on the accountability side of things," he said.
Mr. Graham said that the Conservative government has spent "a lot more money" on auditing than the previous government.
In the auditor general's spring report, the office also praised departments' progress on strengthening their internal auditing capacity.
"This is the kind of thing that may have outlived its usefulness. By that, I mean that having a little central company inside the organization may be something that was a great idea when there wasn't a lot of audit expertise around, but there is a lot of government audit expertise around now," he added.
Along with strengthening internal audit, the government has also made deputy ministers in charge of their department's accounting, upped the qualifications for internal auditors, and established external auditing committees to provide advice, something Mr. Graham said has been extremely successful and a "Canada-first" innovation.
"Audit Services Canada was created well before these initiatives," he said. "I don't see it as necessarily the end of audit, but of something that made sense 20 years ago but doesn't make sense today."
But Mr. Graham is concerned about the upcoming spending review. "Often when you cut your budget, you cut training and you cut audit, so we've got to watch it," he said.
The Strategic Operating Review will look at the public service's annual $80-billion in direct program spending and operating costs and look to cut $4-billion. Departments are currently coming up with proposals for five or 10 per cent cuts. A special Cabinet committee led by Mr. Clement will approve the plans, with results to be released in the 2012 budget.
"It's probably going to be a rocky year in 2012," said Mr. Poirier.
On top of the changes in Public Works' consulting and auditing agencies, Mr. Poirier said the department has also been letting go of translators. CAPE represents 1,000 translators in the department.
"It's strange because translators are in huge demand in Canada and there is plenty of work to keep them busy at the federal level," he said. He added that many of them will be reaching retirement age in the next few years.
Public Works' translation bureau does the translation and interpretation for more than 1,700 Parliamentary sessions a year and translates 1.7 million pages of documents for federal departments, according to the department's report on plans and priorities.
Mr. Poirier said that while there has been pain this year, "This is just the tip of the iceberg compared to what we're going to see next year."
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Source: Hill Times
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