Federal employees have been given the word from Treasury Board president Tony Clement.
Last month, they were told their work would be measured under a new system of performance reviews.
This month, it’s an overhaul of the sick leave structure.
Taxpayers, as Clement has emphasized in a series of interviews on his plans for the federal civil service, deserve to know they are getting good value for their hard-earned tax dollars.
Hear, hear. In a time of fiscal restraint, a sluggish economy and dismal job markets in the private sector, who is going to argue with that?
The question is whether Clement, as the minister most closely attached to the G-20 spending scandal, is the person best positioned to be making this argument on behalf of the Harper Conservative government.
Clement says the high number of sick days that federal employees use is consuming resources at an “unsustainable” rate.
“In any cases of unwarranted absenteeism, we’ll be able to track that a lot better and make sure people are not taking advantage of the system,” Clement said at a Monday news conference in Ottawa.
The average federal worker uses 18.5 days of paid and unpaid leave per year, he said.
The CBC reported last year that an internal Treasury Board report indicated sick leave among federal workers is costing Canadians more than $1 billion a year in lost wages.
On Monday, Clement said the system needs to be updated to include a short-term disability program.
The average disability claim lasts 7.7 years, he said, and more than 13,000 workers, out of 285,000 in total, are on long-term disability.
Last month, he announced that performance reviews would be implemented to ensure government workers are meeting productivity goals.
“Hard-working Canadians look at us to provide high-quality, affordable service for their tax dollars,” Clement told the Globe and Mail in the wake of that announcement. “Either poor performers improve and become productive as employees — or we will have to let them go.”
It is ironic that the crackdown on federal civil servants comes not only as many of them are losing their jobs due to budget cuts but also at a time when politicians in Ottawa are under a microscope for their own waste of taxpayers’ dollars.
The Treasury Board president certainly has his own baggage to haul in terms of delivering taxpayers bang for their buck.
In 2011, John Wiersema, the interim federal auditor general at the time, told the public accounts committee that myriad protocols were sidestepped and rules broken when the Conservative government approved projects related to the G-8 and G-20 summits.
Infrastructure projects worth $50 million were approved in Clement’s Muskoka-Parry Sound riding without the normal oversight, Wiersema said. The projects included sidewalks, a gazebo and public washrooms that were miles away from the site of the summit meetings.
The normal bureaucratic recommendations were not received. Instead, then-infrastructure minister John Baird approved projects based on input from Clement, the auditor said.
At the moment, the Conservatives are trying to play political catch-up on the issue of accountability for federal politicians’ expense spending. A golden opportunity was missed two weeks ago for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to lead the charge for a crackdown on expenses for both senators and MPs.
But the prime minister was busy playing defence, due to the involvement of his chief of staff in the expense scandal. (Nigel Wright has since resigned.)
So into the gap stepped new Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, who was happy to grab the political opportunity to push for better accountability from politicians in how taxpayers dollars are consumed by their expenses.
Clement’s Monday news conference may have been a happy coincidence, or it may have been part of a greater effort by the Conservatives to demonstrate they are serious about cracking down on wasteful spending — whether it’s happening due to politicians abusing the expense rules, or bureaucrats abusing their sick leave.
Either way, Clement might not be the best choice as captain to lead the charge. That gazebo will be casting shade on his political credibility for a long time to come.
Original Article
Source: thechronicleherald.ca
Author: MARILLA STEPHENSON
Last month, they were told their work would be measured under a new system of performance reviews.
This month, it’s an overhaul of the sick leave structure.
Taxpayers, as Clement has emphasized in a series of interviews on his plans for the federal civil service, deserve to know they are getting good value for their hard-earned tax dollars.
Hear, hear. In a time of fiscal restraint, a sluggish economy and dismal job markets in the private sector, who is going to argue with that?
The question is whether Clement, as the minister most closely attached to the G-20 spending scandal, is the person best positioned to be making this argument on behalf of the Harper Conservative government.
Clement says the high number of sick days that federal employees use is consuming resources at an “unsustainable” rate.
“In any cases of unwarranted absenteeism, we’ll be able to track that a lot better and make sure people are not taking advantage of the system,” Clement said at a Monday news conference in Ottawa.
The average federal worker uses 18.5 days of paid and unpaid leave per year, he said.
The CBC reported last year that an internal Treasury Board report indicated sick leave among federal workers is costing Canadians more than $1 billion a year in lost wages.
On Monday, Clement said the system needs to be updated to include a short-term disability program.
The average disability claim lasts 7.7 years, he said, and more than 13,000 workers, out of 285,000 in total, are on long-term disability.
Last month, he announced that performance reviews would be implemented to ensure government workers are meeting productivity goals.
“Hard-working Canadians look at us to provide high-quality, affordable service for their tax dollars,” Clement told the Globe and Mail in the wake of that announcement. “Either poor performers improve and become productive as employees — or we will have to let them go.”
It is ironic that the crackdown on federal civil servants comes not only as many of them are losing their jobs due to budget cuts but also at a time when politicians in Ottawa are under a microscope for their own waste of taxpayers’ dollars.
The Treasury Board president certainly has his own baggage to haul in terms of delivering taxpayers bang for their buck.
In 2011, John Wiersema, the interim federal auditor general at the time, told the public accounts committee that myriad protocols were sidestepped and rules broken when the Conservative government approved projects related to the G-8 and G-20 summits.
Infrastructure projects worth $50 million were approved in Clement’s Muskoka-Parry Sound riding without the normal oversight, Wiersema said. The projects included sidewalks, a gazebo and public washrooms that were miles away from the site of the summit meetings.
The normal bureaucratic recommendations were not received. Instead, then-infrastructure minister John Baird approved projects based on input from Clement, the auditor said.
At the moment, the Conservatives are trying to play political catch-up on the issue of accountability for federal politicians’ expense spending. A golden opportunity was missed two weeks ago for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to lead the charge for a crackdown on expenses for both senators and MPs.
But the prime minister was busy playing defence, due to the involvement of his chief of staff in the expense scandal. (Nigel Wright has since resigned.)
So into the gap stepped new Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, who was happy to grab the political opportunity to push for better accountability from politicians in how taxpayers dollars are consumed by their expenses.
Clement’s Monday news conference may have been a happy coincidence, or it may have been part of a greater effort by the Conservatives to demonstrate they are serious about cracking down on wasteful spending — whether it’s happening due to politicians abusing the expense rules, or bureaucrats abusing their sick leave.
Either way, Clement might not be the best choice as captain to lead the charge. That gazebo will be casting shade on his political credibility for a long time to come.
Original Article
Source: thechronicleherald.ca
Author: MARILLA STEPHENSON
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