Message from the President: the New PSC

Welcome to the first issue of the new Public Service Commission (PSC) newsletter, INFO-PSC. In the months to come, I hope that you will take the time to read and subscribe to this publication to get all the latest news and useful information from the independent agency that protects non-partisanship and safeguards the integrity of staffing in the Public Service of Canada.

I can't think of a better time to offer this newsletter to you. After all, the Public Service is changing — especially for those of us who manage human resources.

The Public Service Modernization Act received Royal Assent in November 2003, putting in place new legislation to govern how staffing is done and overseen in the federal Public Service. This is good news. Now we can start doing things differently.

The PSC, as an organization, has already changed under this new legislation. Provisions creating a new Public Service Commission are in place and a new Commission has been appointed. (Please take a moment to read about our new Commissioners' distinguished careers). Our organization will continue to change as we work with departments and agencies to implement the new Act by December 2005.

For example, by April of 2005, we will create a quasi-autonomous service agency within the PSC, so that we may continue providing recruitment and assessment services to departments.

At the same time, as the "new" PSC, we are responsible for overseeing the integrity of the appointment process. One of our first challenges is to implement an effective oversight program under the new legislation. To start, we have developed new vision and mission statements to better reflect our new mandate.

We are communicating with departments about what we expect their hiring practices to be, namely: fair, transparent and accessible to Canadians. We are developing an appointment framework to guide departments as they create staffing policies that meet their specific needs and support these key values. In addition, we are rebuilding our audit capacity and updating our accountability and monitoring programs.

In the midst of these changes, we remain committed to promoting employment equity and achieving a Public Service that reflects the diversity of Canadian society. Last spring, we launched a new Framework for Employment Equity Programs to assist departments and agencies in achieving a representative Public Service.

We continue to report to Parliament on the health of the staffing system. Last October, we tabled our 2003-2004 Annual Report. On the whole, we found that the Public Service staffing values and management principles are being respected and that managers are appointing competent employees within a complex and often cumbersome system. We believe that the new legislation offers departments and agencies the opportunity and flexibility to improve the operation of the new system and address some long-standing issues that we have observed in the staffing system for a number of years. For example, the PSC has long noted the importance of human resources planning. Many departments continue to come up short in this area, leading to a continued reliance on short-term and casual hiring. We are also concerned about the under-use of valuable programs like the Post-Secondary Recruitment Program.

The PSC, with its strengthened responsibility for oversight of the staffing system, will closely monitor how federal organizations use this opportunity to take their extended authorities and address these and other issues.

These are some of the changes underway at the PSC that will affect staffing throughout the Public Service. I feel strongly that these are positive changes, signalling our arrival on the threshold of a better staffing system. Those of us who have been managing human resources in the Public Service know that it hasn't been easy. For years, managers and HR professionals have been struggling to manage the often overwhelming day-to-day demands of their jobs, rushing from one transaction to the next, with little or no time to strategize about how to meet future demands.

The bad news is that there will always be daily pressures that distract us from the big picture. The good news is that, under the new legislation, we have more choices for how we cope and a requirement to do better planning. We have the opportunity to innovate using the flexibilities allowed under the new staffing regime (read Moving Forward on the New PSEA).

My hope is that this newsletter will give you some of the knowledge and support necessary to do just that.

Maria Barrados, PhD