Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Thompson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. If I understand this correctly, the actuals are… We're saying travel has been more in this area throughout the years because I mean I'm looking at actuals in 2014 at 38, they almost doubled in 2015-16 and now 2016-17 we're at another $18,000, so I'm seeing a steady increase in here. Is that just because of the work that's been involved? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Mr. Minister.
Yes and we do see a rise in the number of investigations and complaints that need to be investigated which is driving our need to travel out and do worksite and workplace investigations and site inspections. With the more investigations, the more travel.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Thompson?
In regards to investigations, is there a reason for the increase in it? Is it just people more aware or is it better promotion on your guys' part or what's the rationale for this?
Thank you, Mr. Thompson, Mr. Minister.
There are a number of reasons, but the reason we think that we've seen the greatest increase is the Harassment Free and Respectful Workplace Policy that we have put in has resulted in a number of files and investigations that we need to do increasing. It's a fairly new policy, new program, and I think we expected some ramp up as we're implementing it and we have seen that.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Thompson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just with this policy, do you guys submit a report to committee on not the specific incidents but the number of incidents and what the costs are and what it involves? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Thompson. Mr. Minister.
I don’t believe that we have provided a report but there's no reason we can't so I will commit to providing committee with a summary, a written summary, and if you want to have a meeting we can do that, too, but I'll start with a written summary to committee.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Thompson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Further questions. I see none. Human Resources, labour relations, operations expenditure summary, activity total, $3,310,000. Agreed?
Agreed.
Moving on, page 216, Human Resources, labour relations, active positions, information item. Any questions?
Agreed.
Agreed. Page 218, Human Resources, management and recruitment services, operation expenditures summary, activity total, $4,734,000. Questions? Mr. O'Reilly.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think I heard a mouse in the Chamber squeaking something from over there.
---Laughter
I think the Minister wants to take an early weekend, but I think this is the place where I should be asking questions about staffing appeals. What I find difficult in this process is we've already been through the business plans, there has been some really good discussion back and forth, and then we get a completely different document that I guess is not really as detailed or well laid out as the business plans, but we're trying to probe and get some issues onto the table. It's not always clear to me where they arise in the main estimates, so that might be an observation I offer in my reply to the budget address. The issue of staffing appeals, it's my understanding that staffing appeals, the numbers have been going down, but also the length of time that an appeal can be filed has also been reduced in regulations. There's a whole number of reasons why people are excluded from even appealing a staffing action, so I guess the issue is one of fairness. How is the department looking at the issue of fairness in staffing appeals, particularly by parties? How many may not be government employees because I think we want to make sure that we have a robust system of hiring folks and that people don’t feel that there's bias in any way in the hiring process. But if you're not even eligible to file an appeal or you have a very restricted right to file an appeal, people start to lose, or could lose, confidence in the hiring process itself. I'm wondering if the Minister can just tell me how the department has considered these issues in the context of staffing appeals. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Staffing appeals give candidates with appeal rights an opportunity to be heard if they feel that a procedural error has been made during the competition process that might negatively affect how they were considered as a candidate. With respect to independence, the staffing appeals are reviewed by an independent staffing review officer who is appointed by the Minister of Human Resources and is not a government employee. Amendments made by the staffing appeal regulations which are outlined in the Public Service Act clearly on page one of appendix, well it's on page one of the regulations, they clearly outline who is eligible and who is not eligible for appeal rights. These amendments to the staffing appeal regulations came into force on July 15, 2015. The changes were expected to improve the timeliness and efficiency of the staffing process and previous timelines in the staffing process allowed I think it was 10 days response time when a candidate was notified by e-mail or fax. Due to the immediate nature of e-mails or faxes, candidates can immediately receive or respond to staffing appeals. Changes to the regulations now require candidates to appeal rights within five days instead of 10 days recognizing technology and the ease of communications. Amendments were also provided to provide additional clarity on if and when a staffing review officer may actually dismiss an appeal, but the changes did not affect an individual's ability to appeal. GNWT employees who are applying to GNWT jobs have the right to appeal, Indigenous Aboriginal candidates have the right to appeal; it isn’t just GNWT employees. There’s a few other criteria that I can't remember off the top of my head.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I appreciate the explanation. I'm all for efficiency, but I don’t want that at the expense of fairness. It's my understanding is that the grounds and who can actually file an appeal are very, very limited which I think can lead to issues of credibility of our hiring process. What is the department doing in terms of the fairness of staffing appeals to ensure that we can maintain credibility and confidence in our staffing processes? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, O'Reilly. Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the parties who have appeal rights include any person eligible for priority consideration under the Affirmative Action Policy and any current GNWT employee. There are some scenarios where appointments to positions may not be appealed under regulations and those are clearly outlined within the policy and regulations. That's a person with a staffing priority status under the Staff Retention Policy, any position considered an executive position as determined by the job evaluation system, and teacher and/or principal jobs. With respect to fairness, I mean we want to be fair, we want to be open. Anybody can apply on jobs, but there are some limitations on who can appeal. And I mean we'll certainly continue to look at this to make sure that it's fair and reasonable, and I'd certainly like any insight the Member might have, but at this time, I mean we weren't going to do any additional review of the appeal process given that a review was done in the last Assembly and came into force in July 2015.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll take the Minister up on his offer and put together some thoughts on this and pass those back to him because I think there are ways that we could ensure that we can maintain confidence in our staffing process by ensuring that we have a fair appeal process. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the Minister for being so open and transparent.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Mr. Minister.
I'm looking forward to that conversation, but in light of that conversation I will point out that most of the employers throughout Canada, in fact many places throughout the world, don’t have appeal rights at all. This is something that we felt was appropriate given things like our Affirmative Action Policy and our desire to work with Northerners to employ Northerners. Most employers don’t have an appeal mechanism at all for job competitions and we have I think in many ways gone quite a distance to work with residents of the Northwest Territories. We’re always looking for ways to improve obviously and I look forward to that conversation.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. O'Reilly. Mr. Thompson?
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thought Mr. Beaulieu was ahead of me. We're on page 218, correct? I just want to make sure because yesterday I was a couple pages ahead sometimes. In regards to contract services, I see a huge increase from $8,000 to $350,000. Can the Minister explain why there's this huge jump and discrepancy in money since it was $8,000 last year? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Thompson, Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chair, there are three positions being eliminated within the Department of Human Resources, all of them were vacant, and they are a result of the reduction. As a result of eliminating some of these positions, especially the area around strategic human resources, we've had to do some reorganization within the department. The re-allocation of the marketing and communication budget from the strategic human resources section, which was about $212,000, as well as some internal re-allocation of budget from purchase services to better align us with historical expenditures in this area have resulted in that change. That’s a matter of taking out of the strategic human resources section, put it here because those positions have been eliminated and some adjustments based on historical expenditures.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Thompson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. If I get this correct, we lost three positions, now we're reallocating money here, and are these contract services doing the work of these three positions or is it other contracts that are going to be done? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Thompson. Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, I guess I didn't explain it clearly. The positions have been eliminated, that's part of our reduction exercise, but some of the programs and services they're delivering continue to exist, but because those positions don’t exist and that section has been changed, those services are now going to be delivered in a different area. They're now going to be delivered in management and recruitment services. The dollars that are coming out of the $212,000 are part of the marketing and communications budget, not the staff salary budget but the services or the programs they provided.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Thompson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In regards to fees and payments, it's dropped by $19,000. You know, it was up by 18 and then it's down by 19, is there a rationale for this?
Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Mr. Minister?
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this is going to sound like a really repetitive answer, but in this particular area we really dug deep into the department trying to figure out what we're actually spending, and compare it to what our budgets were, and realign our budgets with actual expenditures rather than historic budgets. And this is one of the areas that, you know, we felt we needed to align in order to capture the fact that some of the fees and payments that we're making out there with respect to some of our software, our human-resource-specific software, have escalated and changed over time.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Thompson?
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This purchased services the reduction to 135, is this actual historical or is this a reduction in services? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Mr. Minister.
Sorry, I'm a little confused. I thought we were talking about the fees and payment line. Which line are we talking about?
Mr. Thompson?
MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, yes, I've now moved on. Sorry, Minister. You gave me the answer and I accepted that answer and so now I've gone onto purchase services. I notice that there is a huge decline that's actually more than 50 per cent. Is this historical or is this part of the reduction process? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Mr. Minister.
I'm going to go to Michelle on this one for the detail. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Ms. Simpson.
