Treasury Board official recommends end to publicly reporting Phoenix costs

Michael Sabia, the clerk of the Privy Coucil, is seeking to streamline reporting requirements in the federal government. Photo by PIERRE OBENDRAUF /Postmedia

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A Treasury Board official has recommended that the department stop publicly reporting the costs of the plagued Phoenix pay system, according to an internal memo.

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The official, Martin Krumins, assistant comptroller general, made the recommendation despite an acknowledgement that doing so may “be perceived as a reduction in transparency or accountability”, according to the document, obtained by the Ottawa Citizen through an access-to-information request.

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The memo sought approval from Annie Boudreau, the comptroller general, for the Treasury Board to stop collecting and reporting on costs related to Phoenix, which have ballooned to about $5 billion since the pay system was launched in 2016.

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“The original rationale for the reporting exercise was to establish transparency and provide Parliament with visibility into the scale and nature of Phoenix-related expenditures at a time when the government did not yet have a consolidated understanding of the associated costs across organizations,” Krumins wrote in the memo.

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“After seven years of reporting, the expenditure profile and major cost drivers are  now well understood and concentrated primarily within a limited number of organizations, particularly (Public Service and Procurement Canada). As a result, the annual reporting exercise has become a recurring data collection process rather than a mechanism for generating new insights regarding the overall expenditure profile.”

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When first implemented, Phoenix was immediately plagued with problems as thousands of public servants struggled to get paid properly. The federal government is now set to replace Phoenix with Dayforce.

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In the memo, Krumins said ending the Treasury Board’s annual reporting of Phoenix costs would be in line with an initiative of Michael Sabia, the clerk of the Privy Council, to streamline reporting in the federal government. In a report to Prime Minister Mark Carney this summer, Sabia said that the Treasury Board has conducted a review of the reporting requirements placed on federal departments and agencies, and has identified “proposals to eliminate or streamline over 60 per cent of the requirement, reducing administrative burden on organizations while maintaining effective oversight.”

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It isn’t clear whether Boudreau has approved the Phoenix reporting recommendation, but Treasury Board spokesperson Daphney Degand-Emmanuel said the department is “exploring options for reporting that better reflect the current approach to government pay administration as well as the eventual shift to Dayforce.”

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“This is part of ongoing efforts to make sure that reporting requirements remain modern, efficient and useful to avoid undue administrative burden on department,” Degand-Emmanuel said in an emailed statement.