Phoenix fix will include $142M to fund staffing

The federal government will spend another $142 million over the next two years in an attempt to fix the problem-plagued Phoenix pay system.

Steven MacKinnon, parliamentary secretary to Public Works Minister Judy Foote, said Wednesday the new money will be spent to “recruit, attract and train more employees to fill the gaping hole left by the previous government.”

The money would be used to increase staff at the government pay centre in Miramichi, N.B., extend the use of satellite offices until the end of the year and create “surge capacity” at the Gatineau office.

New compensation and technical staff will be hired to handle the processing of new collective agreements. Also a new case management tool will be implemented that will allow compensation advisers to better track employee files, and change the way pay transactions are processed to better meet employee needs.

The government hopes to hire up to 200 more staff, MacKinnon said. That is on top of 300 who have been rehired after being let go by the Conservative government, he said.

MacKinnon said the government will also change the way pay transactions are processed to better meet the needs of the tens of thousands of federal employees who have experienced problems ranging from not getting paid to getting paid too much since Phoenix launched in February 2016.

MacKinnon said the $142 million was on top of $50 million invested last year and $70 million in annual potential savings Phoenix was supposed to generate that the government left in the departments for a three-year period.

“We’ll do everything that we can to ensure that this system performs up to its capabilities, and that we have enough people in place to operate the system and do so in fulfilling and getting to a steady state,” MacKinnon said

During a news conference Wednesday, MacKinnon heaped blame for the Phoenix fiasco on the Conservative government.

McKinnon said the Liberals had no choice but to “make this system a success” because the Conservatives let more than 700 compensation advisers go before the launch of Phoenix to save money.

“The choice was between Phoenix and no system,” said MacKinnon, the Liberal MP for Gatineau.

“The problem with Phoenix is largely one of capacity,” MacKinnon said. “Because the previous government cut more than 700 staff from departments that were transferred to the Miramichi pay centre, it left those departments unable to make the transition to the new pay centre.”

MacKinnon said the departments that had their pay advisers cut are now the departments with the most pay problems, while departments that maintained their advisers managed to transition with better success.

“We think that today’s investments will go a long way to ensuring that we have the capacity to operate the pay system at a steady state,” he said.

Robyn Benson, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, said the union welcomes any new money that will help fix the Phoenix debacle.

“We’ve been saying forever that they needed to have more people, they need to ensure technology was working, and finally I think they are starting to listen,” she said.

But Steve Hindle, vice-president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, said that was a “cop-out.”

“It’s time to stop playing the political game with this and get the system fixed for public service employees and Canadians,” Hindle said.

“It doesn’t really matter which political party was in power when it was implemented or started, it’s a problem and it needs to be addressed.”

The Liberals share blame for what has happened with Phoenix, Hindle said.

“You had choices, and you made them, or you made a choice because you just decided the other ones weren’t available to you because you didn’t like them,” he said.

“The government in power has responsibility because they had an opportunity once they realized how bad it was,” Hindle said. “They were the ones in power once it went live.”

MacKinnon acknowledged the government’s initial response to Phoenix was too slow and was insufficient in addressing the problem.

It wasn’t entirely clear when — or where — the government would find the new employees with the skills required to manage the complex pay system.

MacKinnon said the government is hoping to find solutions from within the public service — those who have retired or those who have the ability to be trained as quickly as possible, he said.

MacKinnon said the investment would be in the public service to solve the problem before the government would consider turning to the private sector for help.

“We think the public sector should manage the public sector pay and we are looking to public sector solutions to manage that,” he said.

Hindle said he believed that would be difficult since he suspects many of those compensation advisers may have already moved on.

Hindle said if the new hires are term positions and not indefinite, that would also pose challenges if the plan is to terminate the positions once Phoenix is stabilized. New hires from outside the public service would require extensive training on the complex pay system and its myriad rules.

“The expertise is out there, they are going to have trouble finding it and convincing it to come back and work for them, partly because of how they were treated when all of this was going on,” Hindle said. “I think it is going to be a problem for the government getting these people and their expertise back in-house.”

We think the public sector should manage the public sector pay and we are looking to public sector solutions to manage that.