Posted on 10/17/2006 8:25:17 AM PDT by GMMAC
Harper to probe phantom jobs
Move comes after revelation ministerial
aides won free ride into public service
Kathryn May
The Ottawa Citizen
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
The Harper government wants to investigate how former Liberal ministerial aides landed jobs in the public service over the past decade.
A senior official confirmed yesterday that the Treasury Board and the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency are examining the issue following recent revelations that two former Liberal aides landed "phantom" jobs that gave them free rides into the public service after they lost their political jobs in the January election.
The Public Service Commission, the watchdog of an impartial, non-partisan public service, uncovered a scheme that created false jobs for two political staffers and immediately revoked the appointments.
At the time, PSC president Maria Barrados said the cases raise troubling questions about political meddling in the staffing of the public service that warrant tougher rules or legislation to stop the wide-open and "unmonitored movement" of bureaucrats between ministers' offices and the public service.
It's unclear what kind of probe the government is considering, but it's said to be exploring several options.
One is using an independent third-party rather than the Public Service Commission whose investigatory powers are limited to the public service and can't reach into ministers' offices. The PSC can sanction departments, including stripping them of the power to hiring and firing employees.
Some say the cases have raised questions about how many other political staffers slipped into the public service over the years under the guise of special programs that were created for different reasons.
The commission found about 100 public servants joined ministers' offices and went back into the public service -- with no break in service -- over 11 years of the previous Liberal government.
The two cases at the centre of the commission's recent probe were bureaucrats who had taken leave without pay to work in ministers' offices as "exempt staff" -- which means they are exempt from the rules governing all bureaucrats under the Public Service Employment Act.
Their jobs had long ago been filled or disappeared and, with the election looming, they arranged for their departments -- Public Works and Health Canada -- to create new positions for them under a special program known within bureaucratic circles as SAPP, or Special Assignment Pay Plan.
The commission's probe found the jobs only existed on paper and the departments had no intention of using them on special assignments as prescribed by the program. Under the program's rules, departments have "quotas" on how many employees they can place under the program. Deputy ministers, who are responsible for staffing in their departments, must approve those jobs. The program has been around for years and hasn't been changed since 1991.
Talk about an investigation also comes at the same time as the appearance of a new website (www.phantomliberals.com) with a melodramatic takeoff on Liberals creating jobs for themselves in the public service and "spooky how this all sounds like another Liberal scandal." The anonymous website was posted by a Texas-based web provider that markets its services for controversial material.
Ms. Barrados also raised concerns in her annual report about the interchange program being improperly used to recruit staff for ministers offices through a government organization.
But Liane Benoit, a policy consultant who studied political aides, said investigating them is difficult because they are "statutory orphans" who live in this "Neverland" with no formal rules or legislation to govern what they do.
"They fall through the cracks so they are difficult to investigate because there's no legislation to get at them. There is no way to nail them on anything because there is nothing to nail them with. If there are no rules, how do you break them?" she said.
Some argue the hiring of a third-party to investigate, instead of using the commission, an officer of Parliament and the government's own staffing watchdog, would suggest this probe is politically driven and shows how little trust the Harper government has in public servants.
The commission's discovery showed a major gap in the Conservatives' vow to scrap the "priority" privilege that allows ministerial aides who have worked three years for ministers to get a job in the public service without having to go through a competition.
The Conservatives are killing the perk in the accountability bill, but the two cases show there is nothing regulating public servants who work for ministers and then return to the bureaucracy years later. Ms. Barrados argued the commission should review their appointments just as it does for public servants who want to take a leave to run for office. She also urged that public servants be unable to work for ministers for longer than two years.
Ms. Barrados warned the rules should be clearer because the Tories' new conflict of interest provisions could force ministers to rely on bureaucrats as staffers even more. The accountability bill proposes banning ministerial aides from working as lobbyists for five years after leaving those jobs, which is making it more difficult to recruit staff for ministers.
The power of ministerial aides has increased dramatically over the years. Ms. Benoit said ministers of all parties have always had an unwritten code to try to find jobs for their staff when they leave office. Canada was the only country that gives ministerial assistants a "priority" for joining the public service to compensate for the uncertainty of the jobs.
But Ms. Benoit said the privilege, which goes back to the 1920s, was originally intended as a perk for the lower-paid administrative staff, such as secretaries and receptionists, so they weren't out of a job when their political bosses lost theirs. Over the years, however, the perk was taken away from administrative staff and was given to the senior political staff instead.
The commission faced heavy criticism for failing to stop or raise flags about the abuse of the privilege when two of then- Public Works minister Alfonso Gagliano's ministerial aides were parachuted into key public service jobs to run the sponsorship program.
The most dubious was Pierre Tremblay, Mr. Gagliano's chief of staff to take over the management of the program when bureaucrat Chuck Guite retired.
Ms. Barrados and her commissioners now personally examines any appointments of former political aides into executive jobs in the public service.
A recent study found 243 ministerial aides used their priority privilege to land in the public service between 1993 and 2004 and one-third went to executive jobs.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2006
Keep trying the linked image.
If it comes back on, the flash video is as adept Librano$ whacking as you'll ever see !!!
It is always easy to spot liberals, no matter what country they are in....the modus operandi is always the same.
" "They fall through the cracks so they are difficult to investigate because there's no legislation to get at them. There is no way to nail them on anything because there is nothing to nail them with. If there are no rules, how do you break them?" she said."
Should be easy to fire them then.
Go PM Harper!!
Surely this behaviour on the part of the Liberals constitutes a major political scandal? If not, it certainly should and hopefully it will get plenty of exposure.
I saved the website to my hard drive before it vanished.
It's already sent to the WS. I dont' know what they'll do with it.
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