Page reports to Parliamentary Librarian Sonia L’Heureux who is putting together a search committee and has hired headhunters Renaud Foster to find a mid-level executive to take over the job — a move critics say rules out any serious “heavy-hitter” finance executives from either the public or private sectors.
The job description of the Parliamentary Budget Officer has been controversial from the start. Library officials say the position is classified as a GCQ-5. That is similar in pay and responsibility to a director-general job classified as an EX-3, which pays between $131,200 and $154,000.
But many say the government will never find a candidate with the stature and experience to fill Page’s shoes at that level.
“Who would they get for that?” said Ian Lee, professor at Carleton University Sprott School of Business. “Zero from the private sector, and who from the public service would commit career hari kari by going into the PBO and criticizing government? You can’t go back to the public service after that.”
The classification is a level lower than the one recommended by an outside human resources consulting firm when the Parliamentary Budget Office was created in 2006 as part of the Conservatives’ Federal Accountability Act. One longtime senior bureaucrat said the job should be at least at the level of a newly-minted deputy minister.
“So you are going to offer someone a job well below the deputy minister level and then tell them to fight with the deputy ministers for information,” said Peter DeVries, a former Finance Department executive and a co-author of 3D Policy blog.
Page was an assistant deputy minister when he was offered the job. The government let him keep his higher salary and job level and the Privy Council Office promised to reclassify the position. That never happened.
Library officials confirmed the job description of the position hasn’t changed since 2006 and it meets the “mandate specified in the Parliament of Canada Act.”
PCO, which manages governor-in-council appointments, classified the job as a GCQ-5, which pays an annual salary of $139,000 to $164,500.
Page’s five-year term expires March 25 and given the Conservatives’ slow-footedness on filling appointments in recent years, it’s unlikely a replacement can be found before Page is scheduled to leave.
His replacement was at the centre of an NDP motion debated in Parliament on Thursday. The NDP wants the government to extend Page’s mandate until a replacement is found and bring in legislation to make the PBO a fully independent officer of Parliament.
The government could, through a cabinet order, extend Page’s term on an interim basis. Alternatively, it could name an interim officer from inside his office.
Conservative MPs, however, oppose the NDP motion to make Page’s successor an officer of Parliament. They say that’s unnecessary because the PBO is independently housed in the Library and away from the influence of the government.
Opposition MPs worry that the position will still be vacant when Finance Minister Jim Flaherty tables his budget, which is typically in late March. It’s uncertain whether the office could release an analysis of the budget’s projections if there is no budget officer.
Don Drummond, the former chief economist for Toronto-Dominion Bank who was on the committee that selected Page, said the panel fielded about eight candidates but Page was the only qualified one from the start. He said the others weren’t interested because of the level of the position and anticipated the job would be nothing but headaches. The committee expected the position would be reclassified to better reflect the demands of the job.
Drummond worries that filling the job without resolving issues around the job’s classification and the office’s mandate could further weaken the PBO.
“There may be another Kevin Page out there, but I am pessimistic on that front,” said Drummond. “I’d say it’s better not to have a PBO at all than to have a weak one.”s
Lee said the job’s classification problem flows from the “structural flaw” of putting the office in the Library rather than making it a full-blown independent officer of Parliament. The librarian’s job is assessed as a GCQ-6, and the budget officer can’t earn more than the boss.
The PBO now has two executives at the director-general level who, if they are at the top of the pay scale, could earn more than their new boss.
Lee, who is writing a paper on the PBO, says the next budget officer should come from the private sector rather than the bureaucracy. Senior accounting and audit executives bring a discipline and professionalism to the job that would make them less likely to rankle the government by veering into policy or “punditry,” he said.
Still, he says, no one would apply.
“No self-respecting senior accountant or partner in a national audit or consulting firm is going to come to be an assistant to a librarian. It won’t happen,” he said.
Lee said a director-general doesn’t have the experience or gravitas for the job and would kiss goodbye a career in the public service unless they became “puppets” and did the government’s bidding. A bureaucrat who wanted to continue in the public service after working as the budget watchdog would also be afraid to challenge bureaucratic colleagues or deputy ministers for information.
Some of the PBO’s biggest clashes have been with the bureaucracy over information. Page had a prolonged tug of war with Privy Council Clerk Wayne Wouters when he asked deputy ministers to turn over details about spending cuts in their departments outlined in the 2012 budget. That battle has landed in court to determine the scope of the PBO’s mandate.
Lee, a strong supporter of the PBO, said Page leaves a legacy of building an independent office with a small, highly capable staff “that punches above its weight.” His two missteps were releasing a report on the cost of the Afghanistan war in the middle of an election campaign and “wandering into punditry and political judgments.”
In his blog, DeVries said the uncertainty around Page’s replacement could drag on into a “black period” with changes in the office’s mandate and management that could water down its influence until it “disappears.”
“The office will likely be fully assumed within the Library of Parliament with restrictions on what studies it can undertake and how these studies are to be made public. Under such a scenario, many of the current staff will move on. The ability of the PBO to challenge the government will be compromised. Reports will not get done and the PBO we know will probably quietly disappear.
“Parliament and Canadians will be the worst off for it.”
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: KATHRYN MAY
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