PBO flags impacts of government cuts on Phoenix pay system

Annette Ryan, a senior public servant, was named Parliamentary Budget Officer on March 9. Photo by House of Commons

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Canada’s budget watchdog is warning Parliamentarians about the impacts the government’s spending review could have on the Phoenix pay system.

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Annette Ryan, the new parliamentary budget officer (PBO), published several papers on Wednesday, May 4 analyzing the government’s spring economic update and found that the fiscal document did not provide “details on actual savings” from the government’s ongoing cuts. But she noted that lawmakers will want to keep a close eye on how the government’s “comprehensive expenditure review” may affect Phoenix’s massive backlog of pay issues.

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“Parliamentarians may wish to monitor the implications of CER changes for government pay systems,” the PBO said in the analysis.

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“Workforce adjustment and early retirements of employees with unresolved issues might compound the complexity of the overall caseloads and hinder the ability to redeploy employees effectively across departments as the planned reductions deepen to the 15 per cent target.”

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The government’s spending review is looking to slash the size of the public service by about 30,000 jobs. Federal officials have said they’re hoping to make those cuts through voluntary departures as much as possible. But with all those thousands of departures could come a deluge of problems for Phoenix.

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The pay system backlog sat at about 206,000 unresolved issues as of March 25, according to government data.

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In a briefing with reporters, Ryan noted that the spring economic update announced $36 million for the pay centre at Public Services and Procurement Canada to address “surge capacity.”

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Ryan said she wanted to pose a “set of questions of how this $36 million corresponds to highly complex cases, and whether the new highly complex cases related to the (comprehensive expenditure review) would take precedence or not over the existing case backlog.”

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PSPC did not provide comment the Ottawa Citizen by deadline.

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It’s unclear if the worsening Phoenix backlog has been because of the start of the spending review.

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At the time, Benay was confident the federal government could handle any influx of Phoenix problems caused by the spending review, pointing to a “white glove service” for departing public servants experiencing issues being developed by the pay centre.

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Ryan also told reporters that the scant information about the ongoing the spending review within the spring economic update hamstrings her office’s analysis to parliamentarians moving forward.

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“The lack of detail in the update makes it a bit difficult to do things like analysis of the main estimates to follow the money, follow reductions in money into the main, to say which department are seeing reduction in year one of the (comprehensive expenditure review),” she said.