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2001 December Report of the Auditor General of Canada

December 2001 Report—Chapter 2

Exhibit 2.2—Almost 40 years of problems with the recruitment and staffing system

Royal Commission on Government Organization (Glassco), 1962 report

The public service staffing system was a source of frustration, and the "merit system"—the rules, regulations, policies, and procedures designed to implement the merit principle—frustrated the principle.

Special Committee on the Review of Personnel Management and the Merit Principle (D'Avignon), 1979 report

The review observed excessive and inflexible regulations and a "slavish" adherence to universally applied regulations in the name of merit, at the expense of efficiency and effectiveness. Managers viewed the staffing system as slow, inflexible, and inefficient.

Public Service 2000 staffing task force, 1990

Staffing was unduly complex, rules-driven, and, particularly in the area of competition, applied unfairly. Managers did not feel ownership of the staffing system. They talked about it as an imposed burden. They either tolerated it with ill-disguised impatience or used their ingenuity to circumvent it.

Association of Professional Executives of the Public Service of Canada (APEX), survey of public service leaders, 2000

Almost without exception, respondents said the staffing, classification, and recruitment processes and practices were unwieldy and costly, hindered the development of a public service "of choice," and had a paralyzing effect on the entire system.

Advisory Committee on Labour Management Relations in the Federal Public Service, 2001

Managers viewed the system as too slow in recruiting and retaining the best people to meet their needs. They also found it inflexible and too great a burden. Although the system is supposed to protect employees from favouritism and similar abuses, union leaders considered it neither transparent nor fair. They did not see it as an effective mechanism for protection of the merit principle.