Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Human Resources. I’ve been a Member of the House for over four years, and early on in the life of the 15th Legislative Assembly one of the first things I took on was the staff concerns at North Slave Correctional Centre. I stood up here in the House day in and day out and told the Minister what was going on at North Slave Correctional Centre. He was adamant that nothing was going on at North Slave Correctional Centre, and we all know what happened after HR went in there and did a thorough analysis of what was happening: there were 68 recommendations that came down for areas of improvement.
I’m hearing those same types of concerns — and I’m not the only Member hearing the concerns — from staff at HR. Other Members are hearing them as well.
I’d like to begin by asking the Minister of Human Resources if he could look at having a way to go in there and talk to the employees in the department to find out what’s really going on there, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, talking to staff on a regular basis is something that I try to do regularly, and I will continue to do so. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the problem with that, I believe, is that staff at Human Resources are afraid to speak out. They need an avenue where they can feel they have some protection so that there are not reprisals against them, that they won’t lose their job. That’s the state of affairs there at Human Resources.
I’d like to ask the Minister: is it government policy that employees leave passwords for their computers with management, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, all government employees and the computers that they use are the Government of the Northwest Territories’ assets, so it’s important for the government to know what the passwords are. The Department of HR is a department that’s different than other departments, because we deal with processing pay and leave and pension records for all employees. So it’s important for us to be able to access the records of all employees on a regular basis. We need to know where the information is; we need the most up-to-date information.
If an HR employee is not there and we get a complaint from an MLA about one of their constituents, we are expected to respond on an immediate basis and rectify the problem. So we’re focusing on results, and we need to be able to access records of employees so that we can ensure that they’re paid on time and that their leave is processed. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I made mention in my Member’s statement of offices being searched on the weekend for files. I wonder if this is common practice across the government. When employees go home on Friday afternoon in other departments, are they expected to have their offices searched on the weekend and then have to account for what’s in their office or not in their office on Monday morning? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, in his Member’s statement the Member talked about a backlog of pay that hadn’t been processed that the Department of HR inherited through consolidation, which was inherited from the different departments. We are still in the process of eliminating that backlog, and I’m very pleased to say that we’re making substantial progress. We have a backlog team. We’re processing about a hundred final pay items on a weekly basis. We’ve reduced our backlog by close to 50 per cent. In order to do that, we have to be able to find files. Some files go back quite a number of years. So I wouldn’t call it searching an employee’s office. We’re not searching for any personal information of employees. What we need is the files that we need to get rid of the backlog that we have. Thank you.
Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
It sounds like the Minister is aware of the practice that is currently at play at Human Resources and he condones that.
I’d like to ask the Minister if he could commit to an outside review — a staffing review — of HR so that we can get an outside expert in there to talk to the staff that are at HR, so that they could let us know in a more formalized manner exactly what is happening there.
The previous government spent a lot of money on a review, which is less than two years old. Right now we’re focusing on results, on making sure people are paid on time and reducing our backlog. Once we’ve done that, I’d be pleased to do a review.
