Vendor-sponsored travel review prompts change to conflict policy

Province clarifies and strengthens rules to be ‘best-in-class’, says premier

REGINA A review into vendor-sponsored travel among public servants found no evidence of violations in the past two years, but has prompted changes meant to clarify and strengthen provincial conflict of policy.

“As we move forward, we are going to have a best-in-class policy,” Premier Scott Moe told reporters Friday morning. “We’ve had a strong policy, but we’ve had the opportunity to clarify and strengthen the policies that we have across government.”

The review was prompted when three employees of eHealth, which handles information technology and vital statistics for the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA), were fired after it was discovered they had taken trips to luxurious locations and events paid for by companies receiving government contracts.

The review canvassed ministries, agencies and Crown corporations in Saskatchewan over the past two years, gathering every instance of vendor-sponsored travel to assess whether it violated conflict of interest policy or not.

“I am pleased to report that based on responses ... there has been no reported vendor-sponsored travel that did not meet learning and development or procurement requirements,” said deputy minister to the premier Cam Swan who did the review.

Moe’s stance on whether or not vendor sponsored travel is appropriate continues to shift. On Friday, he returned to his original message that there are situations where vendor-sponsored travel is appropriate — a drastic departure from comments he made in November suggesting such travel should never be allowed.

“I think it’s important for us to note ... that any travel, whether it be sponsored or not, needs to fall within the confines of the Conflict of Interest Act, but it also needs to be for the public benefit of the organizations in serving the people of this province,” Moe said Friday.

The review resulted in three recommendations the province has agreed to implement immediately.

First, to expand the Conflict of Interest Policy to include clarity on vendor relationship and acceptance of gifts including and a definition of permitted vendor sponsor travel.

Second, every provincial employee undertake mandatory conflict of interest training, expanding the content of the training to include procurement, gifts and vendor-sponsored travel.

(Previously, only supervisors, managers and people in select positions where conflict of interest was more likely to occur were required to take the training.)

And third, to update current travel approval forms to indicate whether the purpose of travel is vendor sponsored and establish criteria for approval. The province has also standardized the forms for all government employees so everyone is using the same ones.

Swan looked at policies in various other provinces as well as the federal government to inform the recommendations and bring Saskatchewan’s policy in line with other “best-in-class” practices.

“We are happy that they took this step, as we urged throughout the last session to actually look at this — show us what’s been going on. Now we need to make sure that there are changes made so that the policies are very clear,” NDP Leader Ryan Meili said in Saskatoon on Friday.

Swan said the review shows the issue of inappropriate vendor-sponsored travel is not widespread and that situations where it happens within the parameters of the conflict of interest policy doesn’t happen a lot.

Of the various ministries, agencies and Crown corporations, he said the health system does it the most, but with the caveat that they are a large body.

“The reason it’s OK in my estimation is because it’s around bettering your knowledge, it’s around bettering your ability to actually deliver programs and services,” said Swan. “Any travel, no matter who’s paying for it, needs to be for the benefit of those that we serve, which is the public.”

Any travel, whether it be sponsored or not, needs to fall within the confines of the Conflict of Interest Act, but it also needs to be for the public benefit.