Annual public service report to PM should prompt ‘serious conversation’ about bureaucracy’s future, says former PCO clerk Wernick

Civil service renewal is ‘fairly low down on the political radar screen,’ says bureaucracy expert Andrew Griffith. 

Begs the question, if nobody in Parliament is paying attention, what is the value of the report? Part of the problem, as in many (most?) such reports, is the lack of frank language on failures and challenges and general bureaucratic tone (been responsible for comparable reports).

My comments on the relative success of government in increasing representation among the equity groups part of the article:

Michael Wernick, the former clerk of the Privy Council Office, says the annual report on the public service of Canada, released on July 19, should serve as a “jumping-off point” for a “serious, more grown-up conversation about the state of the public service going forward,” especially since the government has lost traction and focus on public-sector capability, but he says the report is usually ignored by Parliament.

“You want to tell a positive story. It’s a rare opportunity to push back against the usual negative feedback loops where people only pay attention to things that go wrong, and highlight some of the hidden stories and what’s going on and tell us the bigger picture,” Wernick explained to The Hill Times after last week’s massive cabinet shuffle. “The risk is always getting it right—you want it to also be candid about where there were issues, and you want it to sort of set up a conversation about the state of the pubic service ideally.”

Anita Anand (Oakville, Ont.), who most recently served as defence minister, was appointed as Treasury Board president in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s (Papineau, Que.) cabinet shuffle on July 26. Her arrival into the role comes not long after John Hannaford’s appointment as Clerk of the Privy Council following Janice Charette’s retirement.

Charette officially ended her time in the role and in the public service on June 24, telling The Hill Times that “anything that’s on the prime minister’s desk is on my desk; anything that he’s dealing with, I’m dealing with.”

Wernick told The Hill Times that, during his time in the top job, he signed off on annual reports four times between 2016 and 2019.

Wernick said his point was not to be critical of the report, given that “it’s a difficult balancing point.”

The former top bureaucrat called it “frustrating” that Parliament passed a law requiring an annual report on the state of the public service “and then has never shown any interest in it.”

The government first introduced the annual report in 1992, a requirement under section 127 of the Public Service Employment Act, according to the Prime Minister’s Office.

“I tabled four of them, and was never, ever asked to go to a parliamentary committee and discuss the report or the state of the public service,” said Wernick.

Wernick also said that there was nothing in the report about the service review which was alluded to a few years ago, and that digital government projects are “waiting in a queue.”

“And that’s where finance comes in—if you were going to be serious about public-sector capability, you’d have to spend money,” said Wernick. “You’d have to invest in training and leadership development, you’d have to put some money into it and buildings and equipment … it won’t come for free. And so far, this government has lost any sort of focus and traction on public-sector capability.”

“The idea of having a serious discussion at parliamentary committees about the public service would be a good start,” said Wernick, alluding to a Globe and Mail opinion article he penned earlier this year where he argued that the government “should work with Parliament to create a new Joint Committee of the House of Commons and Senate on the Public Service” as well as create a “permanent Better Government Fund in the care of the Treasury Board.”

“I’m not sure that the timing is great, which goes back to the cabinet shuffle, where we’re in this phase of the government where the hourglass sands are running out, there’s less than two years left, two budgets, maybe about 200 days of parliamentary time,” said Wernick. “The last two years of a mandate of a government that’s 10 points behind in the polls is probably not where you’re going to see bold ideas on the public sector.”

The disruptions caused by the pandemic were “enormous,” said Wernick, and the opportunities for some parts of the public service that hybrid work creates “are interesting.”

“Their promise in the strike settlement to add seniority to the algorithm for laying people off could be very relevant two years from now,” said Wernick. “If I was a younger public servant I’d be quite worried.”

Any return to the size of the public service when the Liberals took power in 2015 would involve tens of thousands of job losses, said Wernick. 

“Is this government going to try to tap the brakes in its last two years? I don’t know,” he said. 

But Wernick also noted that this government, at this point in its mandate, “wants to deliver stuff.”

“Climate change, green transition, hugely ambitious immigration numbers, housing, reconciliation, the defense policy review and implementing something out of that, the review of the foreign service—they’re going to run out of time in June of 2025, which is not so far away,” said Wernick. 

Data shows growth in public service, progress in diversity and inclusion

In terms of the diversity goals, Andrew Griffith, a former director general for Citizenship and Multiculturalism who keeps a close eye on public service survey results and reports, said that “virtually, for all visible minority groups, their relative share in promotions has increased.”

There has been significant growth in the size of the federal public service recently, with the report noting that the number of employees grew from 319,601 in March 2021 to 335,957 in March 2022.

The number of executives grew from 7,972 to 8,506 during that time period, with the number of deputy ministers increasing from 37 to 41. The number of associate deputy ministers fell slightly, from 39 in March 2021 to 36 a year later.

In the report’s “year ahead” section, Charette notes that the government’s agenda on diversity and inclusion “must be inclusive” and must advance commitments around reconciliation, accessibility, combating transphobia and better support for 2SLGBTQIA+ communities.

Charette also writes that the government must continue to prioritize the recruitment and retention of persons with disabilities, and “ensure employees in religious minority communities feel safe and supported in their workplaces.”

Griffith told The Hill Times that “the overall pattern of the public service becoming more diverse with better representation is there, at both the executive level and non-executive level.”

Griffith also said that based on the data he sees and analyzes surrounding the bureaucracy, the visible minority category as a whole is doing better in the last six years than the non-visible minority community—which applies to both men and women.

According to the report, which outlines disaggregated employment equity representation and workforce availability, the number of women in the public service increased from 127,043 at the end of March 2021, to 132,299 one year later.

The number of Indigenous Peoples in the public service increased from 11,977 to 12,336 over the same time period, with the number of persons with disabilities increasing from 12,893 in March 2021 to 14,573 in March 2022.

In terms of visible minorities, the total increased from 43,122 to 47,728, with Black employees increasing from 8,754 to 9,809. Non-White Latin Americans and persons of mixed origin both saw increases of 0.1 per cent in the public service population.

Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, and South Asian/East Indian employees also saw increases within the bureaucracy’s ranks, as well as Non-White West Asians, North Africans or Arabs, Southeast Asians, or other visible minority groups, according to the report.

At the executive level, the percentage of women increased from 52.3 per cent to 53.2 per cent, persons with disabilities increased 5.6 per cent to 6.5 per cent, and members of visible minorities increased from 12.4 per cent to 13 per cent.

Public service renewal ‘fairly low down on the political radar’

When asked about recent changes both at the top level of the public service with a new clerk, as well as a new Treasury Board president in Anand, Griffith said he thought “sometimes one reads a bit too much into these changes.”

“Public service renewal isn’t [something] that directly affects [most] Canadians,” said Griffith. “It’s fairly low down on the political radar screen—this is largely managed through the bureaucracy—there are checks and balances as there always are, but I don’t really think that any of these changes will drastically modify the path that the current clerk was on, and that likely the new clerk will have more important issues that take up his time.”

Wernick noted that the Liberals left Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne (Saint-Maurice-Champlain, Que.), Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland (University—Rosedale, Ont.) and Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault (Laurier-Sainte-Marie, Que.) where they already were in cabinet, but “it doesn’t explain moving Anand out of defence, frankly, because now you’ve got to bring a new person in in the middle of a defence policy review.” 

Wernick also said going through the disruption of the pandemic and now trying to adapt in some places to hybrid work possibilities, there’s now a government “in the late stages, pedal to the metal, trying to deliver stuff.”

“So it’s going to be hard to pay attention to its actual capabilities,” said Wernick, who added that he agreed with what is flagged in the report in terms of organizational health, burnout, mental health, and diversity.

“But there’s not a lot in there about the basic capabilities of the public service,” said Wernick.

‘I know getting here has not always been easy,’ writes Charette on hybrid work

The report also highlights the shift in the past year towards a hybrid work model, a change that made headlines for months and raised the ire of many public servants both in mainstream media and on social media. 

“Once we were able to safely welcome more employees back into the workplace, I outlined my expectations for deputies, including that they encourage employees to test new hybrid work models, wrote Charette in the report. “The shift to a hybrid model was about putting our effectiveness first and making a change that would best enable us to support government and serve Canadians, while giving employees flexibility to support their well-being.”

Direction on the common hybrid work model was released in December 2022, which set out guidelines requiring that employees work on-site at least two to three days per week.

“I know getting here has not always been easy,” wrote Charette, noting that the public service is the largest employer in the country and is made up of hundreds of thousands of public servants in a wide range of roles across Canada and abroad.

Source: Annual public service report to PM should prompt ‘serious conversation’ about bureaucracy’s future, says former PCO clerk Wernick