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June 19, 2019                                                                                GOVERNMENT SERVICES COMMITTEE

Pursuant to Standing Order 68, Helen Conway Ottenheimer, MHA for Harbour Main, substitutes for Barry Petten, MHA for Conception Bay South.

Pursuant to Standing Order 68, Siobhan Coady, MHA for St. John's West, substitutes for Elvis Loveless, MHA for Fortune Bay - Cape La Hune, for part of the meeting.

Pursuant to Standing Order 68, Ches Crosbie, MHA for Windsor Lake, substitutes for Loyola O'Driscoll, MHA for Ferryland.

Pursuant to Standing Order 68, Brian Warr, MHA for Baie Verte - Green Bay, substitutes for Derrick Bragg, MHA for Fogo Island - Cape Freels.

The Committee met at 12 p.m. in the Assembly Chamber.

CHAIR (Bennett): We need to nominate a Vice-Chair for the Committee.

Mr. Parsons.

MR. A. PARSONS: (Inaudible.)

CHAIR: Can we get the microphone on for Mr. Parsons in the back on the Opposition side?

MR. A. PARSONS: I don't care what I want to say either, but I nominate Mr. Wakeham.

CHAIR: Do we have a seconder to that?

MR. WARR: Seconded.

CHAIR: Second by Mr. Warr.

Okay, all those in favour?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: I assume you accept, Mr. Wakeham.

Thank you.

We're going to, first of all, ask Members of the Committee and their staff to introduce themselves. Broadcast, can we start down to the far end?

MR. MORGAN: Ivan Morgan, Researcher, NDP caucus.

MR. LANE: Paul Lane, MHA, Mount Pearl - Southlands. Not a Member of the Committee, but certainly with the leave of the Committee, I may want to ask a couple of questions.

MS. DRODGE: Megan Drodge, Researcher with the Official Opposition caucus.

MR. WAKEHAM: Tony Wakeham, MHA, Stephenville - Port au Port.

MR. A. PARSONS: Andrew Parsons, MHA, Burgeo - La Poile.

MS. STOODLEY: Sarah Stoodley, MHA, Mount Scio.

MR. WARR: Brian Warr, MHA, Baie Verte - Green Bay.

CHAIR: Now I'll ask Minister Osborne and his staff, please.

MR. OSBORNE: Tom Osborne, Minister of Finance, President of Treasury Board.

I'll ask our officials here, as well, to introduce themselves.

CHAIR: Thank you.

MR. HEFFERNAN: Dave Heffernan, Deputy Minister and Chief Information Officer for Office of the CIO.

MR. HARDING: Craig Harding, Executive Director of Corporate Services and Projects for OCIO.

MR. MOULAND: Randy Mouland, Executive Director of Operations and Security, OCIO.

MR. GELLATELY: Bruce Gellately, Director of Corporate Services, OCIO.

MS. KENDALL: Cathy Kendall, Director of Application and Information Management Services for the OCIO.

MS. WILKINS: Susan Wilkins, Digital Government Lead with the OCIO.

MS. TRICKETT: Wanda Trickett, Departmental Controller.

MR. BUDGELL: Marc Budgell, Director of Communications, OCIO.

MS. ELLIOTT: Susan Elliott, Executive Assistant to Mr. Osborne.

CHAIR: Thank you.

With the approval of the Committee, we'll give Mr. Lane an opportunity to ask questions after both parties have finished.

All those in favour?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: Opposed?

Okay, Mr. Lane.

We're going to start off with item 4.1.01 to 4.1.05 inclusive.

We'll start off with you, Mr. Wakeham.

MR. WAKEHAM: Thank you.

I have general questions first. The first one is: Can you give us an overview of which projects you've worked on in the last 12 months and the status and budget of each?

MR. HARDING: That list is a comprehensive list, between 30 and 40 projects. I don't have that list here directly, but I certainly can provide it with the list of the projects and statuses of each.

MR. WAKEHAM: Okay, so you will provide it to us.

MR. HARDING: We'll provide it, yes.

MR. WAKEHAM: I'd appreciate that, thanks.

Can you give an update on the Digital By Design project?

MR. HARDING: I think I'd defer that to Susan Wilkins as digital lead.

MS. WILKINS: We are in the year two of a five-year Digital By Design plan. We just released our first phase in March and that was called MyGovNL. All the details of the release are on The Way Forward website. If you'd like more, I can elaborate, but all the details are there on the website.

MR. WAKEHAM: Okay.

And can you give an update on LaMPSS?

MR. HARDING: Right now it's more of a maintenance project as opposed to a full-fledged implementation project, it's a modification to some existing application and some functionality, but I can provide a further detailed status if you prefer.

MR. WAKEHAM: I'd appreciate that, thank you.

Can you, please, give an update on the condition of critical hardware that government has? Does it require upgrades? Is it in good condition?

MR. HEFFERNAN: I would say that it's ongoing. We always have a critical need for investing in our infrastructure and so, at any one point in time, we always have requirements for upgrading our hardware and we have a regular basis where we go about doing that.

MR. WAKEHAM: There was talk a number of years ago where we had talked about potentially moving to cloud technology. Has that moved anywhere in terms of where we might go in the future? Has anything been done with that?

MR. HEFFERNAN: We are always looking at cloud services. I would say that we are not going holistically into cloud; we are tepidly reviewing where we might go and use cloud. Eventually, vendors are going to force us to use cloud-based services so we have to be looking at it.

We look at the type of information that systems contain and we use that as a basis for whether we even consider cloud. So we sort of followed the federal government's guidelines around data classification and how you classify your data and if it's sensitive and that sort of thing, and then we have guidelines around whether you would use that type of information in the cloud.

MR. WAKEHAM: Right. I think the discussion at the time was around the shared service model which we would use for all of government, not just in the health system, but rather a much larger approach to a government service centre type of thing. Thank you.

How does government decide when to have an outside agency build a solution or a project, versus doing it in-house in OCIO? What kind of criteria do you use?

MR. HEFFERNAN: I'd say it depends. The majority of our project is cyclical, so we can't really staff up to meet that demand, so we have a high amount, I guess – or the majority of our projects are handled by outside. So we bring in contractors as we need, depending on the demand from the departments around the types of projects.

So it depends. If we have enough resources internally we'll do some of those, but if they're larger projects we'll typically bring in outside help to help us.

MR. WAKEHAM: Thank you.

What does OCIO do with the old laptops, BlackBerries and computers that are upgraded?

MR. HEFFERNAN: I believe they're recycled and I believe some of them go to computers for schools, but I'd ask my executive director, Randy Mouland, to speak to the specifics.

MR. MOULAND: We leverage the provincial electronic waste program, wherever practical, to reuse equipment. Sometimes there's trade-in value that may go back to a vendor, depending on the nature and the information that's stored on it. And for the most part, cellphones and BlackBerries are a departmental responsibility, so each department would be managing those. Although we do arrange for secure shredding of devices that might be sensitive – an MHA had a device that might contain sensitive information, we typically arrange for shredding.

MR. WAKEHAM: Okay.

Has there been any discussion with Service NL and Justice about introducing new motor registration software so that licence plates can be registered to a driver, i.e., follow the driver instead of the car?

MR. HEFFERNAN: Yes, I think we're in ongoing discussions with both Justice and Service Newfoundland and Labrador about that. No final decisions have been made on what that would entail from our perspective. From OCIO's perspective, those systems are fairly stable as they are, but we understand that they're eventually going to need to be replaced. They are our older legacy systems, so we're working on ways to figure out how we do that.

MR. WAKEHAM: So you wouldn't have an estimate of what this would cost and a timeline to implement it at this point?

MR. HEFFERNAN: I think there were some early estimates a number of years ago, but they would have to be revalidated again. We don't have an estimate today on what that would cost.

MR. WAKEHAM: It is something though you're continuing to look forward to?

MR. HEFFERNAN: Yes, we did have some work, I believe, identified for this year to do some of that analysis.

MR. WAKEHAM: Has there been any progress made on the consolidation of data centres with the ABCs? I know it was a hot topic in Health a number of years ago.

MR. HEFFERNAN: I believe there's work happening at the Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Health Information around consolidating some of the health technology into NLCHI. We're involved in some of the discussions around potential for shared services and IT aspects of that down the road, but nothing concrete about bringing that into –

MR. WAKEHAM: Yes, if I remember, I recall I think there was some talk about actually having OCIO as having a data centre as part of that backup plan?

MR. HEFFERNAN: Yes, that's correct.

The OCIO has a data centre for government. We have capacity in that data centre to be able to provide additional services and so we would be looking at that from that perspective.

MR. WAKEHAM: Okay and that was my next question. Can you tell us about government's backup of the data centres?

MR. HEFFERNAN: I'd have to ask Mr. Mouland to answer the specifics on backup procedures.

MR. WAKEHAM: Okay.

MR. MOULAND: Yeah, we have multiple layers of backup; we have multiple locations in which data is backed up. There are some backups that happen predominantly inside the data centre itself, but then we have a separate off-site location in the Confederation Building complex where there's data stored and then there's a third location approximately 10 kilometres away where we have an enterprise tape system where a third copy is stored on tape.

MR. WAKEHAM: My next question is: What are your plans to address some of the aging systems, like the MCP system for example?

MR. HEFFERNAN: As part of our typical project approach and working with departments through our client services, we're always looking at the applications that we have across government and where they are in their life cycles, so which ones are getting older, which ones are not meeting the functionality. We would be looking at all of our systems with that same lens as how are they doing meeting the functionality of the program area, how are they doing in terms of the type of technology it is and whether we can support it, are we having continuing issues and that sort of thing.

MCP is another one of those legacy mainframe systems that's actually fairly stable compared to the other systems you may have in government. So even though they're older, they're very stable. I think the challenge you have then is: Are they meeting the need down the road? It's the same process we go through with every department, is assessing their needs and then figuring out how do we budget for it, set up the priorities and that sort of thing.

MR. WAKEHAM: Right.

Have there been any situations where backup had to be restored in the last 12 months?

MR. HEFFERNAN: I'd defer that to Mr. Mouland.

MR. MOULAND: Yes.

MR. WAKEHAM: Can you provide a little more?

MR. MOULAND: We would restore data. I mean, sometimes a user will have issues with a file. We do individual file restores. Sometimes we may have system issues and have to go back to a previous restore from the night before or even the night before that.

MR. WAKEHAM: Right.

MR. MOULAND: There are any number of instances. Data restores, I would suggest, are almost a daily occurrence, but not necessarily of a concern.

MR. WAKEHAM: Right, I was more –

MR. MOULAND: We do plenty of restores all the time for a bunch of different reasons.

MR. WAKEHAM: Right, I was more interested in if there were any major issues that you might have had in the last 12 months.

MR. MOULAND: No, nothing that causes concern.

MR. WAKEHAM: Okay.

I'll move into 4.1.01, Corporate Services and Projects. In the Salaries section, fiscal '18-'19 Salaries went over budget by $329,000, yet in '19-'20 the budget is being decreased. Can the minister explain the variances?

MR. HEFFERNAN: The variance in 2018-'19 is a result of unexpected retirements. We had a $329,000 deficit there as a result of unexpected retirements and then some salary continuance costs for staff that left the OCIO.

MR. WAKEHAM: Okay, so more to do with severance and paid leave payouts and those types of things.

MR. HEFFERNAN: Exactly.

MR. WAKEHAM: Okay.

MR. HEFFERNAN: Then for 2019-'20, part of our zero-based budget identified that we needed $100,000 less than we anticipated and there was an attrition reduction of $110,600.

MR. WAKEHAM: Okay, thank you.

On the supply side, in '18-'19 Supplies went over budget by $209,000. In '19'-20 there was an increase in the Supplies budget to $709,000. Can you explain the need that is driving this budget?

MR. HEFFERNAN: I think it's important to provide some context here around Supplies for OCIO versus Supplies for the other departments and agencies that you've reviewed. Supplies for us is mainly made up on software purchases. It's not pens, pencils, office paper, that sort of thing; it's always about the purchase of software.

In the Corporate Services and Projects area, it's either software for the operations of Corporate Services of OCIO or software related to projects that are ongoing. Due to the nature of projects and where they are and delays in projects and that sort of thing, sometimes that budget area will fluctuate; sometimes projects are delayed, sometimes projects advance sooner. Sometimes when you go to RFP for software related to projects, you end up having to buy more software than you might have thought or the licensing cost may be higher. That's typically the reason for the fluctuation and the variances in supplies.

MR. WAKEHAM: If I look at this particular one –

CHAIR: Your time is expired, Mr. Wakeham.

MR. WAKEHAM: Okay, sorry about that.

CHAIR: Ms. Coffin.

MS. COFFIN: Thank you very much.

CHAIR: We'll get back to you.

MS. COFFIN: Let's start off with a quick question – perhaps I should say thank you for taking the time. We've had a little bit of a switchover of people here this time now, haven't we? Thank you for the time that you're taking here today and the time you put into preparing all of this. This is greatly appreciated. We appreciate your knowledge and dedication.

Let's go with Application and Information Management Services, so 4.1.02. Actually, this is probably going to be a more overarching question. Can you tell me how your attrition targets – if they've been achieved and how they've been achieved in here? I do see changes to salary and it looks like we have a little bit of stuff moving around here. Perhaps you can talk to me about Salaries and how that's working with the attrition plan, please?

MR. HEFFERNAN: For Salaries in '18-'19 we had a deficit there due to unplanned severance for employees who retired, as well as some salary continuance costs and benefits for staff who left. That's typically not budgeted.

Then, in terms of our attrition targets, you'll see in 2019-'20 the Salaries reflect an attrition reduction of $118,300. I defer to my Corporate Services director, Mr. Gellately, to confirm this, but I'm pretty certain that we've achieved our attrition targets.

MS. COFFIN: That's good to hear. Congratulations on that.

As we move down to Professional Services, I noticed that more was budgeted in '18-'19 than was actually spent and then we have a smaller amount spent in Professional Services. Can you explain that variation, please?

MR. HEFFERNAN: Yes. In 2018-2019 the Professional Services associated with our application branch; there was one-time funding identified of $400,000 for transition of the pension corporation, but we didn't end up needing to use that. As a result, the amount spent was actually lower by – I think it was a net of $370,000. That project ended up being done in our Corporate Services and Projects Branch instead and so we were able to do it from within.

MS. COFFIN: What were you doing with the pension corporation? Are you moving the administration of that into Provident10?

MR. HEFFERNAN: Yes.

MS. COFFIN: Okay, interesting. The payroll rests with Human Resource Secretariat, right?

MR. HEFFERNAN: Yes.

MS. COFFIN: So you're just managing the ins and outs of it all and doing that background computer.

MR. HEFFERNAN: We're managing the transition, yes.

MS. COFFIN: Okay, thank you.

I'm just getting my head around all of the pieces, right?

MR. HEFFERNAN: Sure.

MS. COFFIN: OCIO is not something that I've had a huge amount of experience with.

Let's talk about revenues. You had a big projected revenue in '18-'19 but that did not manifest. It looks to be that in '19-'20 about the same amount as the revised in '18-'19 is there. Is that some sort of guaranteed stream of income and you were expecting something substantial coming in, in '18-'19?

MR. HEFFERNAN: That's directly attributable to the pension transition. As a result of the original estimate of needing $400,000 in costs to transition pensions, there was an offsetting revenue target as well to offset that. But because we didn't need to incur –

MS. COFFIN: Money.

MR. HEFFERNAN: – the costs, we didn't need to incur the revenue to offset that.

MS. COFFIN: Do you know if Provident10 is self-financing in that the systems and the support staff. Are they being funded directly out of Provident10? This may not be a question for you; it may be perhaps for the minister directly.

MR. HEFFERNAN: I think that's a question for Provident10.

MS. COFFIN: All right, thank you. I'm just curious along the way.

Property, Furnishings and Equipment; did someone get some really nice digs in 4.1.03?

MR. HEFFERNAN: No. Property, Furnishings and Equipment for us is one of those other areas that's a little bit different for OCIO. Typically under P, F and E you would find hardware, so IT hardware for network equipment, for storage, for just running our wide-area network across government. That's where you would see those typical costs show up.

In this particular case there was some critical computer equipment that had to be replaced that we never budgeted for initially. So that's why you would see that little bump in '18-'19.

MS. COFFIN: Do you guys all have standing desks?

MR. HEFFERNAN: No.

MS. COFFIN: That's too bad. Those are healthier. Sitting is the new smoking, right?

Okay, let's see. What else do I have here?

Revenue, again, under Operations and Security, dropped off a little bit. What is the revenue for Operations and Security? Do you charge for anything in particular there?

MR. HEFFERNAN: There was a drop-off here because in the past we used to host the mainframe system and storage that Bell Canada was supporting for us. It was actually housed in our data centre. They've since moved that to Dorval, Quebec, and so there was a small revenue that we would get from that.

We no longer get that because they're maintaining it themselves in Dorval. Then we get some revenue from agencies like the Municipal Assessment Agency, Legal Aid and the RNC for some of our security tokens they're called, that allowed them to connect into our systems.

MS. COFFIN: Okay, great.

MR. HEFFERNAN: So there was a reduced need for that.

MS. COFFIN: It's too bad we lost that stream of revenue. That's unfortunate. Interprovincial trade, right, and all. I see Salaries jumped in Corporate Services and Projects. Now, that's Salaries in Capital. How does that correlate? It's almost doubled there?

MR. HEFFERNAN: As part of our zero-based we identified that for the Digital Government program, the salaries that were associated with that had to be capitalized. Basically, it's offset from our Professional Services budget and we needed an increase in the salaries for the Digital Government program.

MS. COFFIN: Right. Okay, excellent. Let's see here, Professional Services kind of captures that as well. I noticed that's an exceptionally large number that's dropped off by almost $800,000 from the '18-'19 Estimates to this year's Estimate. You're expecting to use that a little or were those Salaries that we found in the line above offsetting some of the Professional Services there?

MR. HEFFERNAN: Yes, that's correct. The Salaries above are offsets from there and there was removal of a one-time funding of $100,000 for Digital Government that was no longer necessary.

MS. COFFIN: Very good.

Speaking of the Digital Government, what do I see here? Can we have an update on the Digital by Design project? Apparently, there was $2 million committed for six projects in 2018. How are they making out?

MR. HEFFERNAN: I believe we answered that question when we first got started here.

MS. COFFIN: I was late coming in, can you just very quickly …?

MR. HEFFERNAN: Digital by Design is proceeding. Several initiatives were identified earlier this year. There was a public announcement around the rollout MyGovNL, which was sort of the portal where citizens can now come and start – if you log into your bank you can access a number of services. That's the goal and intent of MyGovNL.

That was just rolled out in March. That now includes two of the services that were identified for this year: vehicle and licence renewal registrations. If you log into that portal, that's where you can do those now. The other services, once we get final decisions on those services, they'll roll out and be included as a part of that as well.

MS. COFFIN: Lovely. I've actually gotten emails on that already. Way to go, it is working.

Something that is a little closer to my heart is the Community Accounts. Do you manage that website? I know that's populated by the Economic and Statistics Branch and the folks over in the Newfoundland Stats Agency, but do you manage that?

MR. HEFFERNAN: If it's part of the websites that we set up and maintained, we would just maintain the infrastructure behind them. The departments would maintain the content on those websites.

MS. COFFIN: I understand they do the content and they do a fabulous job of the content, but it's a bit of a clunky interface; the drop-down menus are a little bit difficult. I know there's a tremendous amount of data stored in there, but sometimes it tends to be a bit sluggish and it's not quite user-friendly. I'm just wondering if you have any involvement with that, if there's, potentially, a nicer way to use it? No?

MR. HEFFERNAN: No, I don't think we have.

MS. COFFIN: Okay, I'm just trying. Data is a good thing, right?

MR. HEFFERNAN: It may be a good project for digital to look at user design and user experience.

MS. COFFIN: All right, thank you.

Go back to the pension very quickly. That work has been completed? We did speak about the movement to Provident10, so that is done, yes?

MR. HEFFERNAN: We're actively involved in the transition process right now, so it is not yet complete.

MS. COFFIN: Soon, she says, with a big question mark at the end?

MR. HEFFERNAN: I don't have an answer. I'd have to defer it to my ED of Corporate Services and Projects, Craig Harding.

MS. COFFIN: All right, I can certainly fill in with them. I don't know what I can fit in, in five seconds, so thanks.

CHAIR: Mr. Wakeham, any further questions?

MR. WAKEHAM: Yes, a couple of more questions.

I wanted to go back for a second to an opportunity, and I wonder if OCIO was still involved with it. Back in '16-'17 there was a lot of movement afoot about trying to consolidate and streamline the information systems in this province. We have a very small population. Yes, we have a large geography but, at the end of the day, every single regional health authority had its own operating system for back of office, Memorial University has it and government has its own payroll system, for example.

There was a lot of discussion around, at that time, about how we would try to consolidate all of these back-of-office functions and information systems, so essentially have one for the entire province. OCIO were a critical part of that discussion. I'm wondering: Are those discussions still ongoing?

MR. HEFFERNAN: Yes, they are. It's an ongoing process that we go through. As part of our annual planning and our regular planning process, we'd look at the number of applications we have, we would try and identify if there's duplication or opportunities across government to consolidate applications. It's an ongoing process that we go through.

MR. WAKEHAM: Yes, I know the minister has referenced it on a couple of occasions, the opportunities in the back-of-office functions in this province of combining everyone who is on some kind of government payroll or pay cheque or purchasing, there is an awful lot of opportunity there to certainly be more efficient and how we do it.

Thank you for that.

Back to 4.1.01, briefly. Again, I was talking about the Supplies and you were talking about the projects. I was wondering which projects are driving the $709,000 cost.

MR. HEFFERNAN: As my executive director mentioned when he spoke earlier, there are typically anywhere from 30 to 40 active projects underway at any one point in time. I don't have the list here with me that I can tell you exactly what's identified for '19-'20.

MR. WAKEHAM: Can we get the list?

MR. HEFFERNAN: As part of the commitment made earlier, the list will be provided.

MR. WAKEHAM: Okay. Thank you so much.

Under Professional Services, again, in the same heading, 4.1.01. In '18-'19, there was savings of $ 612,000. In '19-'20, we decreased the budget by $889,000. I was wondering if you can explain.

MR. HEFFERNAN: In '18-'19, there was less money needed just due to the nature of projects. There were a number of large projects that didn't get off the ground as quickly as initially anticipated. That's sort of the project world, if you will, there are always reasons for delays, whether it's in getting departments ready, whether it's in getting procurements on the street, delays in procurement, delays in the implementation, so there are always reasons for those projects to be delayed. So, the result there was a number of projects were delayed and didn't get as far long as initially anticipated in '18-'19.

As for '19-'20, there was a $1.4 million one-time funding that was no longer there, so there was a drop in funding of $1.4 million for the Digital Government program there. There was $638,000 as part of our zero-based review we didn't think we are going to need, just based on the projects that were going to happen this year.

MR. WAKEHAM: Okay. Thank you.

In '18-'19, Purchased Services went over budget by $246,000. Again, can you explain why that happened?

MR. HEFFERNAN: That was a result of an increase – again, Purchased Services here is related to a computer service that we purchased from Bell Canada for our mainframe service and there was an increase in cost to that service, which are typically born in our Operations and Security Branch; however, the increase wasn't able to be all absorbed there and so there was an ability here in our Purchased Services to absorb some of that cost here to the software service that we purchased from Bell for our mainframe support.

MR. WAKEHAM: Under Property, Furnishings and Equipment, again, this line item went over budget by $159,000. I was wondering how you determined the budget for '19-'20 of $221,000?

MR. HEFFERNAN: Again, PFE here, Property, Furnishings and Equipment is typically for hardware related to projects that we do. So, again, it'll fluctuate, depending on the projects, where they are in our timing if we need to purchase the equipment in the current fiscal year. If a project is too late then you can't purchase it in that year. So this is typically a result of the nature of the projects and where they are in their time.

MR. WAKEHAM: Okay, thank you.

4.1.03, in the Salaries section, in '18-'19, there was a salary savings of $353,000. I wonder can you explain that variance.

MR. HEFFERNAN: Yes, again, we had some planned vacancies there because we knew we had some pressures in other areas of the OCIO, and there was actually some offsetting increased costs there as well from retirements and severance. So, at the net was a $353,000 lower cost.

MR. WAKEHAM: Okay.

Under the Supplies section, a significant expenditure. Can you outline what type of supplies that would be?

MR. HEFFERNAN: Yes, again, this is the real big one that stands out when you look at Supplies, but, again, it's not pencils and papers; it's software.

OCIO is a shared service for all governments so this is not OCIO's software per se, this is software that OCIO operates on behalf of all departments. It will include things like our Microsoft Office desktop software that we support on 10,000 computers. It'll include things like the support software agreements for Microsoft servers and for Microsoft Exchange and the email system that we run.

So, it's the large corporate software subscriptions and licensing that we incur for all departments and some very specific ones for certain departments as well. There are over 150 different types of software that make up that number.

MR. WAKEHAM: Is there any advantages of scale when it comes to purchasing this software from large companies like that? For example, I'm thinking you were purchasing on behalf of all government departments. What about the ABCs, for example, who probably purchased this very same software, I'm not sure if there's actually any economies of scale to be had.

MR. HEFFERNAN: Yes, there are economies to be had and that's one of the things that we will be looking at as part of shared services. We think over time that's where you can find some of the economies, through the consolidation of those agreements. It takes time, but you can.

MR. WAKEHAM: I'm glad to see that's continuing to move forward.

Let's move down to 4.1.04. Again, the Salaries, there's a significant increase in that particular category from $490,000 to $1,000,000.

MR. HEFFERNAN: Yes, and I believe I mentioned that one earlier. This is a result of – we knew that the Digital Government program needed additional salaries. Instead of hiring external contractors, we used internal staff, and so we have to capitalize those salaries. So that's where you see the increase there. We needed less in Professional Services but more in internal staff.

MR. WAKEHAM: Okay. Thank you.

On the Supplies area there, there was only $260,000 spent out of $1.3 million. Again, can you explain that variance?

MR. HEFFERNAN: Yes, again, it gets to the nature of the variability of projects. So, typically, Supplies here is for software that you need on projects, and due to the large number of projects that were either late getting started or didn't need what we originally estimated for software, we've seen a reduction there, but we've seen an offsetting increase in the amount of hardware that we needed for some of the projects. So, you'll sort of see lower Supplies but increased PFE as a result.

MR. WAKEHAM: Okay.

Lastly, under Property, Furnishings and Equipment, in '18-'19, this line item went over by $1.2 million, and for '19-'20, there is a planned increase. Can you explain the variance there?

MR. HEFFERNAN: Yes, in '18-'19, there were a couple of critical pieces of hardware that we needed to purchase, and that's why you see the bump there, that was part of our server upgrade program. There were two critical pieces of server hardware that run a lot of our applications that we had to upgrade. So, that's why it was a significant there.

Then, in '19-'20, as part of the projects that we have underway as part of our zero-based budgeting, we're looking at the projects that are coming. We identified and anticipated increasing in the amount of hardware with an offsetting lower amount on the software.

MR. WAKEHAM: Was that an unexpected purchase, as it hadn't been budgeted in the budget? It's something that came up that you had to …

MR. HEFFERNAN: Yes.

MR. WAKEHAM: Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: Ms. Coffin, you got any further questions?

MS. COFFIN: No, I'm good. Thank you.

CHAIR: Mr. Lane?

MR. LANE: Yeah.

CHAIR: I'll give you a few minutes.

MR. LANE: Thank you.

Pretty much everything in the line by line has been covered, but I had a couple of questions, so …

On the digital-by-design initiative, is that just applying to core government or would that apply to ABCs? I'm thinking Newfoundland and Labrador Housing and those areas, as well.

MR. HEFFERNAN: I believe the intent is core government, right now, but that's not to say that it can't extend further later.

MR. LANE: Okay, so not at the moment.

How long will it take to roll out digital design in core government so we can get to the ABCs, or is there a reason why the ABCs can't be doing the same thing now with their people that you're already doing?

MR. HEFFERNAN: There's no reason why they couldn't be doing that today. I suspect some of them are already doing that themselves in what they do, just not collectively across the ABCs. I would say digital had a five-year road map, but it will be an ongoing thing forever. Changing a government to be more digital is not a once-and-done thing, so our plan right now involves a five-year road map, but we suspect that it will become day-to-day business as we move forward.

MR. LANE: Okay, thank you.

I guess that ties into what my colleague, Mr. Wakeham, has said. I absolutely support the idea of bringing everything together. I can't see why there wouldn't be one sort of gigantic data centre, IT centre if you will, for the whole province, as opposed to having everybody doing their own thing. From what I think you answered in response to Mr. Wakeham, there is a plan at some point in time getting to that. Is that correct?

MR. HEFFERNAN: Yes, that's correct. That's a part of shared services and leveraging the existing assets that we have, especially our big data centre that we have across the way here.

MR. LANE: Okay, that's good.

By the same token, without physically moving people and so on, again, the question about the software is there any reason why that couldn't be done now? If there's certain software that you're using and there's software that the health care authorities are using and the agencies, boards and commissions, why couldn't, I'm going to say the IT guys, for lack of a better term, all get together, have a conference call, and say: Yes, b'ys, this year instead of a thousand copies of this, we're going to order 2,000 copies and just do it and be done. It may not be that simple but you know what I'm saying.

MR. HEFFERNAN: I wish it were that simple. It sounds that simple on the surface; the challenge is when you're dealing with vendors like Microsoft and Oracle and all those larger vendors. They look at the entity they're dealing with. They would look at Newfoundland and Labrador Liquor commission or Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Health Information and say: You are a completely separate entity and you cannot use the licences that OCIO owns. While it sounds easy enough, you have to get to a place where you have a common entity that you can purchase for.

MR. LANE: Okay.

My final question – and I believe my colleague, Ms. Coffin, sort of alluded to it when she talked about the sit-stand desks and so on – obviously, the people in OCIO spend a lot of time, I would imagine, in front of a computer screen. I'm just wondering what your stats are when it comes to workers' compensation claims with neck, shoulder, carpal tunnel and those types of injuries, and if you have, I guess, through occupational health and safety, a good ergonomics plan in place?

MR. HEFFERNAN: I would say to the latter part of that question, yes, we have a good focus on occupational health and safety in the organization. We encourage people to get up and move around, we have lots of activities all the time to do that. Not everybody has stand-up desks; as much as we would love to, it's pretty expensive to have stand-up desks. Since my time here I think I've seen one occupational health and safety incident that was not related to that, it was more related to the slip and fall type things.

MR. LANE: Okay.

All right, that's good to know. I highly recommend checking out Genoa Design. They have it all down pat. I was down there for their grand opening. The sit-stand desk, the lighting, even the colours on the wall and everything, I mean it's just they have it down pat.

CHAIR: I think Mr. Wakeham has one more question.

MR. LANE: That's it. We're done.

MR. WAKEHAM: Yes, I have.

You mention a lot of your budget seems to be based on project work, when it will start or when it will finish and any delays and the variable nature of those projects. I'm wondering if you could give us an overview of two or three of the biggest ongoing projects that you have, what the status is and where they're to or what I might expect.

MR. HEFFERNAN: I'd say one of the bigger ones is our Digital Government program; that's a pretty significant project and lots of potential benefit and efficiencies that can be gained from that. I would have to defer to my executive director of Corporate Services and Projects to speak to specifics on some of the other larger projects that are underway right now.

MR. HARDING: Some of them are direct project related and some are program related; for example, we have an AMANDA program, which basically is a permits and licensing solution that we're rolling out across multiple departments. There's a program to do that for electrical permits and mobile inspections, those types of things. It's a fairly significant project that's rolling out throughout. It's a couple-of-year project.

Also one for the Department of Education for PowerSchool, getting their new system – it is a cloud solution –up and running and getting ready for September of this year. They're probably two of our biggest projects that are on schedule right now.

MR. WAKEHAM: Okay, thank you.

CHAIR: Any further questions on 4.1.01 to 4.1.05?

There are none.

Shall 4.1.01 to 4.1.05 inclusive carry?

All those in favour?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: Opposed?

Carried.

On motion, subheads 4.1.01 through 4.1.05 carried.

CHAIR: Okay, that concludes it. I thank the staff and Minister Osborne.

Now, we'll do a quick switchover again and we'll get into Human Resource Secretariat.

Recess

CHAIR: I will ask Minister Osborne to introduce his staff, please.

MR. OSBORNE: Okay.

Hi, Tom Osborne, Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board.

I'll ask our staff to introduce themselves.

MR. SIMMONS: Robert Simmons, Deputy Minister.

MS. TRICKETT: Wanda Trickett, Departmental Controller.

MS. FOLLETT: Tina Follett, Assistant Deputy Minister, Human Resources operations and governance.

MS. LANE: Elizabeth Lane, Assistant Deputy Minister, HR Client Support and Consulting Services.

MR. BUDGELL: Marc Budgell, Director of Communications, HRS.

MS. ELLIOTT: Susan Elliott, Executive Assistant to Minister Osborne.

CHAIR: Okay, we're going to deal with items 3.1.01 to 3.1.12 inclusive.

I just ask Committee Members, when they're asking questions, if you're dealing with a particular clause item, just identify which line item you're dealing with.

Ms. Coffin, why don't you start off?

MS. COFFIN: Sure, please. Let's start with some line-by-line stuff.

Executive Support, Professional Services was almost $50,000. What was that for?

MR. SIMMONS: It was cost associated with a recruitment activity for the deputy minister position.

MS. COFFIN: I'm sorry?

MR. SIMMONS: Cost associated with an external recruitment firm; recruitment for the deputy minister position.

MS. COFFIN: Is this normal that you use external hiring firms when we have a Human Resource Secretariat, an Independent Appointments Commission and the Public Service Commission?

MR. SIMMONS: I wouldn't say it's abnormal, but it doesn't happen frequently.

MS. COFFIN: Okay, $50,000 is an awful lot of money for a recruitment firm.

Professional Services, Collective Bargaining, so 3.1.02, I notice that there was an underspend of about $50,000 from budget to revised, and that number bumped back up again. You under spent for some particular reason, what was that?

MR. SIMMONS: If you look at the Professional Services and the Purchased Services –

MS. COFFIN: Yes.

MR. SIMMONS: – arbitration costs come down during a round of negotiations, typically, and printing costs go up for collective agreement renewals, so those are just offset. We have a –

MS. COFFIN: Okay, but budget revised – okay, because collective bargaining concluded halfway through the year, which is why you didn't need the $143,000, but then printing came in at what it should be, and then there's no printing, so you just used the amount that you needed there.

MR. SIMMONS: Correct.

MS. COFFIN: Are we expecting more collective bargaining in '19-'20?

MR. SIMMONS: '19-'20, yes. The cycle would actually start in again.

MS. COFFIN: Who's up for negotiations now in this fiscal?

MR. SIMMONS: For '19-'20?

MS. COFFIN: Yes.

MR. SIMMONS: RNC – well, there are still, I think, six collective agreements outstanding for –

MS. COFFIN: Still outstanding. How long have they been outstanding?

MR. SIMMONS: They vary, but they would be in that same cycle of the large group of 35 where the majority have recently been concluded.

MS. COFFIN: Can we have a list of the outstanding collective bargaining that – I know that Memorial has a number that they were waiting for, the NAPE and CUPE here in government, and that then trickled down and then there were a number of other issues at the university, why some of those had gotten delayed, but I was under the impression that a great many others had been resolved.

Do you have a list of what is outstanding and for how long?

MR. SIMMONS: We can, yeah.

MS. COFFIN: Yeah, that would be wonderful. Thank you very much.

So, by the time we get through some of those, are we anticipating the return to bargaining with our main bargaining group, NAPE, as well as CUPE, over the next fiscal?

When does their term finish?

MR. SIMMONS: A large majority of the NAPE, CUPE agreements would expire March 31, 2020.

MS. COFFIN: Okay, so we're going to move into that by April 2020?

MR. SIMMONS: Yeah, there's a –

MS. COFFIN: So we'll see that show up in the next fiscal.

Are you anticipating finishing up the outstanding ones over this fiscal?

MR. SIMMONS: Yes.

MS. COFFIN: That's nice to hear.

Let's see, Purchased Services are good. Classification and Organizational Design, I notice that there was an underspend from budget to revised and a drop down.

What does that capture?

MR. SIMMONS: Sorry, where was that one again?

MS. COFFIN: 3.1.04, Salaries?

MR. SIMMONS: For the revised, there was a period of time where there were some vacancies. If you carry this story across, we've actually transferred some funds to the Public Service Commission to fund the adjudicator position that's responsible for the JES appeals. So there was a bit of just movement of money to fund that.

MS. COFFIN: JES?

MR. SIMMONS: Job Evaluation System.

MS. COFFIN: Right, sorry, yeah. I'm just getting back to government and I need a refresher on my acronyms, right?

Thank you.

I'm sorry, can our Chair give me the numbers again? Where are we concluding?

CHAIR: We're doing all of 3.1.

MS. COFFIN: All of 3.1?

CHAIR: Yes.

MS. COFFIN: Fun times. Okay, here we go.

Let's continue with Classification and Organizational Design. In 2018, you noted plans to clear the backlog of job evaluation appeals.

How has that been going? Has the backlog been cleared?

MR. SIMMONS: I'm sorry, where –

MS. COFFIN: That's just a general question under Classification and Organizational Design.

In the last year's Estimates, it was noted that there was plans to clear the backlog of evaluation appeals. Have they been cleared?

MR. SIMMONS: Not cleared entirely, but we have put additional resources and staff on that throughout this year, and we do have a plan to continue that in an even more earnest way now in the current year.

MS. COFFIN: Okay, that's great.

How many are still outstanding?

MR. SIMMONS: I'd have to confirm the exact number, but in JES it would be in that 2,500 range.

MS. COFFIN: How many staff are required to do that?

MR. SIMMONS: Depends on how fast we can get through them I guess.

MS. COFFIN: What's the normal time from when an appeal goes in to it actually being resolved, on average? I know these things vary based on the complexity of it all and the uniqueness of the situation.

MR. SIMMONS: The time can vary. I think the issue right now, it's a bit of an abnormal period where there was an initial large influx with the implementation of the system. So, it's really trying to get through that backlog, and that was what created the issue over the last couple of years.

MS. COFFIN: Yeah.

MR. SIMMONS: That's why things are kind of building up behind. So, the plan is to kind of remove those roadblocks now and get them cleared out.

MS. COFFIN: Okay. Lovely.

Do you have plans to develop a new appeal mechanism? If yes, what's the status of that?

MR. SIMMONS: So, for the Job Evaluation System, JES, the appeal mechanism is in place. There's an adjudicator hired. That's that transfer of funds over to the Public Service Commission.

MS. COFFIN: Okay.

MR. SIMMONS: So, that's up and running. For Hay, the management classification –

MS. COFFIN: Yes.

MR. SIMMONS: – that's always been up and running. That's also actually run through a partnership with the Public Service Commission.

MS. COFFIN: Right.

Can you tell me what caused that big backlog? What happened for 2,500 people to just – was there an initiative overall where everyone said, hey, there's an evaluation process or an appeal process that's happening. Was there an event that triggered a mass submission of appeals?

MR. SIMMONS: It's going back a ways. If you're looking at anything specific, I can probably get some more info, but my understanding is that it's in that implementation phase. So, when it first went in there would be a number of folks who, on that new rating, would've wanted those ratings reviewed.

MS. COFFIN: Okay.

MR. SIMMONS: So, it's that initial blitz of a large number of people with all new ratings.

MS. COFFIN: Okay. Interesting. I was just kind of wondering if there was a triggering event for that, because this was a tremendous amount of work. It's obviously been a burden on your division, so I was just wondering if there was something that was the catalyst for causing all of this because if there was, maybe we could avoid that in the future, right?

MR. SIMMONS: Well, it would be the implementation of the new and improved system.

MS. COFFIN: Okay.

MR. SIMMONS: So, it's really just the growing (inaudible) –

MS. COFFIN: So, it just made it a little easier, so everyone said now that we can, let's go do that. That's a classic example of making work for oneself, hey? Which is good. No, it's good that the appeals mechanism is in place, I'm not questioning that at all. I was just wondering, how did we get to here and how can we potentially address it, but it sounds like it's well in hand at this point.

The Centre for Learning and Development, 3.1.05, Salaries there were overspent in 2018 but then underspent in '19-'20. What was the anomaly there? Was that severance that was included, or is the attrition model being captured here somehow, or is it some combination of both of those things?

MR. SIMMONS: It's both. For '18-'19, it would be the severance for two employees, and then in '19-'20, it's actually a reduction of two temporary positions.

MS. COFFIN: Okay.

How are your attrition plans going? Did you meet your targets?

MR. SIMMONS: For the official attrition plan, yes, we have.

MS. COFFIN: Oh, good. Well done then.

Supplies started off at almost $8,000, it went to $45,000 and then it dropped back down again. What kind of Supplies do we get for $45,000?

MR. SIMMONS: I may need to double-check, but I believe that was actually for training. It was the purchase of some expensive equipment for first-aid training, the –

MS. COFFIN: The AEDs?

MR. SIMMONS: Not the AEDs but the –

MS. COFFIN: NARCAN? I mean, what kind of an office do you have if that's going on but …

MR. SIMMONS: The ACTARs for the –

MS. COFFIN: Yeah, the chest compression things. Oh, handy. Great. I might want one of those at my hockey dressing room as well, right? We always check in, like, who's gotten older, we all have.

Federal revenue – we did not get the anticipated $60,000, but we have it budgeted again for this year. Is that the same amount that just wasn't received and is getting rolled over into the next year, or is this some consistent amount that the feds chose not to pay?

MR. SIMMONS: It's for services offered and there was just no uptake in the '18-'19 year. It's for French services training that we offer to the federal government.

MS. COFFIN: Oh, okay.

CHAIR: Ms. Coffin, your time has expired.

MS. COFFIN: Thank you.

CHAIR: We'll get back to you.

Mr. Wakeham.

MR. WAKEHAM: Staying with the attrition plan for a second, I noticed in the salary detail some of your salaries by department, comparing 2018-'19 and the list, there seems to be only two less employees and the actual salary cost has gone up. I'm just wondering how you reconcile that with your attrition plan.

These are the summary of salaries by department as of, I think, April 1, 2018, and I'm looking at a similar summary of salaries by department for April 1, 2019. They're showing 7,178 as the total number of employees for 2019 and 2018 is showing 7,180 as the total number of employees by department. I'm just trying to figure out what this means. The total salary numbers are there, too.

MR. SIMMONS: Sure. I'm not following exactly where you have that, but for the salary details themselves, that number would be a bit dynamic. That's a snapshot or a point in time.

MR. WAKEHAM: Right.

MR. SIMMONS: April 1 is where they get that snapshot and it's actual salaries on payroll at the moment. So you could have any number of variables that come in on that day. You could've had a certain number of vacancies, a few more vacancies in one year than the other when the snapshot was taken. You also still had people moving up their scales and people moving in and out of roles and they may get paid at different rates. All that across a large department could impact those numbers.

For our attrition plan, we were looking at savings of $114,000 over the two-year window. So we've actually reduced two positions for that plan: A position in the staffing division and a position in our Employee Safety and Wellness Division.

MR. WAKEHAM: I was thinking of it more in terms of the total government attrition plan –

MR. SIMMONS: Oh, total government.

MR. WAKEHAM: – not just your HRS department.

MR. SIMMONS: Okay

MR. WAKEHAM: These snapshots are both taken at a same point in time: One is in April of 2018 and one is in April of 2019. They talk about how these are active employees.

MR. SIMMONS: Yeah.

MR. WAKEHAM: It lists every single department and the total number of positions. I'm trying to understand if there's only a difference of two. All of those variances you talked about, yes, are part of that, but at the same time comparing the snapshot you took at April 1 one year, compared to the snapshot you took in April 2019, only shows a reduction of two.

That's overall. I'm just trying to understand. Have the numbers gone down or are they held steady?

MR. SIMMONS: They have gone down. The same logic would apply in terms of dynamic numbers. It's probably one of the most difficult things to try to get a clear picture of in terms of counting heads or counting people in an organization. It's always a moving target. I could give you a number this morning and I guarantee it'll be different this afternoon across such a large organization. But, yeah, the numbers – we actually had a target of $2 million in attrition savings for last fiscal and that was achieved and there were positions associated with that savings.

MR. WAKEHAM: Is there a percentage each year, a number of positions that you're targeting to go down by?

MR. SIMMONS: No. It's primarily fiscally based so it gives folks the flexibility, because certain positions are valued higher than others. Within the departments you can kind of scan your needs and figure out where you can achieve those savings.

MR. WAKEHAM: If we were to look at this for previous years, we would see perhaps a lower number of employees as of April 1. Do these change from year to year? You would expect it to change. If there were a significant number of people having left, one would expect that on April 1 you would still have a difference in the number.

MR. SIMMONS: You would expect it. Like I said, that method of tracking it is a little tricky because of the dynamic nature of the workforce. If you're looking at a difference of a hundred, we have currently 224 active recruitment files, so depending on the timing of when they're filled and how that interplays with April 1, the number could be off.

MR. WAKEHAM: Yeah. Can you provide the fiscal target for all departments for last year and this year?

MR. SIMMONS: Yes.

MR. WAKEHAM: Thank you. I appreciate that.

In my next question, there was $854,500 transferred from Education and Early Childhood Development to Executive Council in 2019-'20. Why was that transferred?

MR. SIMMONS: Sorry, that was the Employee Safety and Wellness? Is that…?

MR. WAKEHAM: In Appendix II, page A-2 of this year's Estimates book, it lists an increase of $201 million in the Consolidated Fund Services as a “provision for severance, accrued leave and redundancy awards that may result from retirements or restructuring within Government.” Can you give us a breakdown of this figure? How much is for severance, how much is for redundancy? Are you planning to restructure government?

MR. SIMMONS: The first one was there for ESW, for the Employee Safety and Wellness, that you want the $25,000. Was that your first question, sorry?

MR. WAKEHAM: No, I'm just wondering. There's $201 million in the Consolidated Fund Services as a provision, it says, “for severance, accrued leave and redundancy awards that may result from retirements or restructuring within Government.”

I'm asking if you could provide me with a breakdown of this figure. It's Appendix II, page A-2 in the Estimates book.

MR. SIMMONS: I don't have that with me here.

MR. WAKEHAM: Can we get that breakdown?

MR. SIMMONS: I'm not actually understanding the question but I'm sure we'll take it and have a look.

MR. WAKEHAM: You've got $201 million allocated for a “provision for severance, accrued leave, and redundancy awards that may result” – and I'm quoting here – “from retirements or restructuring within Government.

I'm asking for a breakdown of that particular figure. It's a budgeted figure and I'm asking for a breakdown of it.

That will be provided to us? Thank you.

In the 3.1.01, Salaries, again, they were under budget in '18-'19, but are showing an increase back up in '19-'20.

Just wondering what that was about?

MR. SIMMONS: In Executive Support?

MR. WAKEHAM: Yeah.

MR. SIMMONS: There were two vacancies in the executive organization there through '18-'19. The deputy minister position was vacant for about nine months and one of the ADM positions was vacant for a period of time as well. There was also, I think, a shorter vacancy for another position in the division as well. So the $640,000 now is just really rightsizing that based on the current incumbents.

MR. WAKEHAM: Just the filling of the vacant positions?

MR. SIMMONS: Correct.

MR. WAKEHAM: In relation to my honorable colleague in terms of the current unions, can you give us an overview of which unions have the no-layoff clause in their contacts? What does that mean for government's ability to use attrition or budget management, et cetera? How many of your current unions have the no-layoff clause?

MR. SIMMONS: Not sure of the exact number, I think most have something along those lines.

MR. WAKEHAM: Can you provide that to us?

MR. SIMMONS: Sure.

MR. OSBORNE: Any of the agreements that have been ratified would have that clause, but also as part of the agreements, business as usual can continue. So, we've had layoffs, for example, at the Collage of the North Atlantic since that agreement was ratified because it was business as usual. It doesn't affect our ability, through business as usual, to lay off. What the clause essentially guarantees is that we won't have a mass layoff of 500 people. Business as usual can continue, it has no effect on attrition measures.

MR. WAKEHAM: Thank you for clarifying that.

CHAIR: Okay, Ms. Coffin?

MS. COFFIN: Thank you.

Let's go to Centre for Learning and Development. Has there been an evaluation of the current trend towards private trading venders and online modules?

MR. SIMMONS: Has there been a review – sorry?

MS. COFFIN: An evaluation of that?

MR. SIMMONS: Nothing official, no, but we are constantly evaluating the programs and material that we roll out.

MS. COFFIN: Can you give me a sense of the types of programs that were offered in house versus the things that are outside and what's coming from private organizations? What are we contract out versus what we can have inside, and sense of what some of those trading modules are?

MR. SIMMONS: If it's helpful, we can provide you with a list of what's offered from –

MS. COFFIN: Yes.

MR. SIMMONS: Sure.

MS. COFFIN: That would be excellent.

Can you also tell me what the Organizational Development Initiative is? The description there is pretty generic.

MR. SIMMONS: Sure. The Organizational Development Initiative, that's 3.1.06?

MS. COFFIN: Yes.

MR. SIMMONS: It's money set aside to assist in the development of employees to fill, typically, roles that are either hard to fill or may have a long lead time for filling, and then also just to develop the applicant pool across government in key areas. So, it's really to enable somebody to come out of their current role and get that training or exposure without having to leave a hole behind them, if you will, that needs to be filled.

MS. COFFIN: Right. So, it's more of a continuity of employment?

MR. SIMMONS: Correct.

MS. COFFIN: Okay. That seems to have a lot of staff support to do that.

Nothing was spent in Transportation and Communications, Supplies or Purchased Services?

MR. SIMMONS: Sorry, and just – that's not for staff support, that's the actual amount that's used for the program, the Salaries, because it's actually used for salaries of the people who participate in –

MS. COFFIN: Okay. It's not clear because everything is called salaries, right?

MR. SIMMONS: Correct.

MS. COFFIN: So, one would assume that it's the support for the program

Okay, so, it was budgeted at $340,000, but you only had just a, I guess, very small number of individuals that were using the program, if the total salary expenditures were $89,000?

MR. SIMMONS: Yes, that was mainly a pick-up in the latter part of the year. The program was a little dormant in the first part. There was a lot of changes ongoing, some within HRS and then across organization.

MS. COFFIN: Right.

MR. SIMMONS: But we did pick it up and plan to use it in the current fiscal.

MS. COFFIN: Excellent. Thank you.

Let's go with a more general question here. This is, perhaps, something that I found interesting earlier.

Can you tell me the relationship between the Public Service Commission and the Human Resources Secretariat?

I know a long, long time ago, the Public Service Commission was the conduit for hiring in government. You wanted to get a job in government, you went through that, and the Independent Appointments Commission had the appointment to agencies, boards and commissions. It seems now that the role of the Public Service Commission is morphed into the Human Resources Secretariat.

Is there a relationship between those? Is there a division of: you do that and we do that? Can you explain that relationship to me?

MR. SIMMONS: Sure.

They are separate entities. The Public Service Commission still exists and it has a piece of legislation that governs its activities. The main role that they would have with us would be oversight on our staffing activities. They would set out the policies or the processes by which we select folks through a meritorious process, if you like. They would hear any appeals, so if somebody had a complaint or would like to appeal a recruitment activity, they would appeal it through the Public Service Commission, and they would come in and investigate our staffing division activities.

We also partner with them on those classification activities that we do, so the Job Evaluation System appeal process and the Hay appeal process.

MS. COFFIN: Okay, that's interesting.

Do you know why the move or why there was this shift in, I guess, the way that this was done? Do you have that history?

MR. SIMMONS: I don't have the history.

Tina, if you would like …

MS. FOLLETT: I can speak to that, Ms. Coffin.

Back in around 2013, there was a government decision made to consolidate a number of HR functions, particularly the transactional functions, so staffing was integrated into what was created, at that time, the Human Resource Secretariat. The oversight and governance pieces of staffing remained then with the Public Service Commission.

MS. COFFIN: Right. Okay, so it was just a matter of –

MS. FOLLETT: That organization.

MS. COFFIN: – they thought reorganization was going to be better.

MS. FOLLETT: Yes.

MS. COFFIN: I have enough of a history of government to have seen, let's try and move this here and then here.

Were you here through that whole process?

MS. FOLLETT: Yes, I was.

MS. COFFIN: You were. How do you feel, and, I guess – am I allowed to ask you a subjective question? Have there been any glitches, how about that? Have there been any glitches associated with that, or do you find that relationship is working well?

MS. FOLLETT: Are you speaking specifically to the staffing component or the full integration of –?

MS. COFFIN: I guess the organization of that. Has this resulted in improvements in how workflow happens and how the hiring process goes and then, of course, the separation of the appeals process? I'm all about separating the actual functions from the monitoring because you need an independent oversight committee. That's how that works. Just getting kind of your perspective from an internal point of view.

MS. FOLLETT: Sure.

Yes, overall, in general, there's been an improvement from that reorganization because, to your point, with the segregation of function, it allowed the Commission to focus solely, or for the most part, on the governance piece and turn their activities to setting the standards for how we recruit and ensuring that merit was being applied across the entire public service. And then allowed, through delegated authority, other bodies, such as the Human Resource Secretariat, to put their efforts in behind the transactional or the staffing activity. So we found overall that, yes, it has provided improvement in those areas.

MS. COFFIN: Lovely. That's good to hear. It's reassuring.

Can I have a sense of the number of grievances that are currently outstanding and the number of arbitrations that are ongoing or impending? I know my last organization, I think our grievances hit about 110 over the course of a year and we had the highest for our organization across Canada. I'm just curious how that's working here.

MR. SIMMONS: The total number of grievances outstanding currently across government would be about 800.

MS. COFFIN: Wow.

MR. SIMMONS: The number of ongoing arbitrations, I don't know. That number fluctuates a bit.

MS. COFFIN: Of course.

MR. SIMMONS: I couldn't give you an estimate there.

MS. COFFIN: Yeah, I just know how onerous that process is. It's legally heavy and there are a lot of complications. Of course, there are a lot of implications for staff because when there's an arbitration, a lot of staff get involved in that. I'm just kind of curious as to how that's sorting out.

Here's another question that I've never really been able to get a good sense of: How many people work in government?

MR. SIMMONS: In the core government it's about 7,600.

MS. COFFIN: Right and core government we're just talking about, no agencies, no committees and no corporations. School boards are not counted and health authorities are not counted in that, we're just talking about direct government, right?

MR. SIMMONS: Correct, core government.

MS. COFFIN: Core government.

Do we have a sense of the nature of those and perhaps a sense of how that's changed over time? What I'm thinking about is the number of full-time versus the number of part-time individuals. I know it's very difficult to capture those because casual is a different thing and then your students are a different thing. That's why I understand how hard it is when I ask the question, how many people work in government, no one can really answer that perfectly.

I'm looking for a sense of that but also a sense of executive positions, management positions, kind of that in-between position where we have directors and we have managers, but we also have a whole range of individuals that are non-bargaining but are non-management as well. I know for a long time there was an abundance of policy and program analysts, so a sense of how many people are in that position and also in the unionized and non-unionized position; the HS scales versus the Hay scales and all of that, just getting a sense of those. How has that composition of employment in government changed over time?

MR. SIMMONS: I'm not sure. That's quite a broad question.

MS. COFFIN: It is, yeah.

MR. SIMMONS: I don't know that I could give you a story with 100 per cent confidence in terms of all those sub-segments.

MS. COFFIN: Sure.

MR. SIMMONS: I could give you a snapshot, for example, of what's in the system today.

MS. COFFIN: Right.

How about – and maybe this could be your homework for later, a teacher – perhaps, a breakdown. How detailed a breakdown are you able to provide?

Are you able to do that breakdown of unionized employees versus temporary staff versus contractual versus people in that middle ground of you're not unionized, but you're not really management, although you funnel in the management scale; directors and executive support.

Can you break that down over time, so maybe over the course of a five- or six- or 10-year period? Can you give me some sense of how those numbers have changed over time?

MR. SIMMONS: I'm not sure how easily that's obtained, but I do –

MS. COFFIN: Oh, I don't imagine it's very easy.

MR. SIMMONS: If I can maybe take that away and (inaudible).

MS. COFFIN: Yeah, so your homework will be due, say – no, I'm kidding.

CHAIR: Okay, your time is expired.

MS. COFFIN: Thank you.

MR. WAKEHAM: I want to go back to 3.1.05 and ask: What is the priority for the Centre for Learning and Development for the next 12 months?

MR. SIMMONS: I don't know that there's anything new or a new program or anything they're rolling out in the next 12 months. Their priority is really to maintain the programs that are in place.

There's a suite of basic programs that are required – so whether that be regulatory training, some of the mandated training that we have across the organization – and then they effectively respond to the needs of each of the departments throughout the year. Their priority would be making sure that the mandatory stuff is complete and then to achieve the programs and needs of the departments.

MR. WAKEHAM: Thank you.

In the past year there has been mandatory online training introduced for public service workers. Has all this training been completed? What process is in place to ensure that new hires complete their training?

MR. SIMMONS: I don't have the statistics on completion here with me. They do have a tracking system both for existing and as new hires come on. There's a process to pick up most mandatory training through the orientation process.

MR. WAKEHAM: You can provide that to us?

MR. SIMMONS: Sure.

MR. WAKEHAM: Thank you.

MR. SIMMONS: Just to be clear, what training program was it you wanted?

MR. WAKEHAM: It's the one related to the mandatory online training, respectful workplace, those programs.

MR. SIMMONS: Do you know the number? Tina knows the number.

MR. WAKEHAM: Okay.

MS. FOLLETT: I can speak with respect to the harassment training. That particular mandatory training was completed last year with pretty much a hundred per cent completion. Again, that's a moving target because our staff turnover requires that those that are new, obviously, take that training as they come in, but with that particular module it was 99 per cent.

With respect to the conflict interest, we're at about probably 60, 65 per cent, and so we'll be sending a reminder to have that completed in the future months as well. The in-person training that we conducted on harassment for executive was attended at a hundred per cent as well.

MR. WAKEHAM: Thank you so much.

MS. FOLLETT: You're welcome.

MR. WAKEHAM: Under 3.1.07, last year the ADM mentioned that government was exploring a new health and safety system for government. Can you please provide some information or an update on that particular program?

MR. SIMMONS: Sure.

There is a safety management system. That's a program that's based on a number of elements. That's being rolled out across departments. In addition, we've taken a bit of a prioritized approach outside of that program to really go in and focus on key areas to drive our safety performance.

The management system program is being rolled out across departments. I don't have the exact percentage of who has them, but it certainly has improved significantly since last year.

MR. WAKEHAM: Can you tell what the cost was last year for workplace injuries within core government?

MR. SIMMONS: Don't have that stat here in front of me. That would be a pretty dynamic number, as well. It's really …

MR. WAKEHAM: Is it possible to get a number or a cost?

MR. SIMMONS: I think I could commit to having a look to see what we could pull out of the system, yeah.

MR. WAKEHAM: Okay. I appreciate that.

3.1.11, under the Strategic Staffing section, yesterday when we did Finance Estimates there was a significant savings in Salaries associated with regular salaries – we kind of had a little joke about it, because they kind of said they were kind of waiting on HRS to fill positions. So I was just asking: Can you give an overview of how long their recruitment processes take? After need to hire is identified, how long does it take to fill the positions?

MR. SIMMONS: I think some of the vacancies that you would have heard of through the other departments – I heard some of that, I think, yesterday, as well – some of that's by choice. So, through trying to reduce the overall cost and trying to achieve some of our attrition targets, we may defer hiring in certain areas.

If you were looking to hire a given role, it really depends on the role. Certain roles we can hire very quickly. I think the outside would probably be around that 6-month mark, if it was a more complicated process. The average would be less than that, but that's kind of the range on recruitment.

I would say, as well, we've put some new efforts or processes in place, internal to that division, to try to make that process a little more efficient. We did have, by way of example, about 500 or so outstanding recruitment files last year. As we sit today, we have about 224, which would be a normal number of vacancies, I would suggest, for the size of the organization in terms of the turnover that we would have on a month-over-month basis. So, we've kind of caught up to that process.

Like I say, some of them would actually be kept vacant deliberately for short periods of time to help with the overall budget savings.

MR. WAKEHAM: Right. They indicated that they needed to get all of their positions filled. They have budgeted for them again this year, so they're putting a little plug in to get them all filled.

Is there a wait-list or individuals enrolled in the Opening Doors Program who do not have placements?

MR. SIMMONS: The way the program would work is there would be an inventory of individuals who are looking for placements, and then there's also the assessment that takes place to find the roles within government. So, there is a matching process that has to take place. It's not so much a: I'm waiting for a given role. It's really about trying to match the individuals with the needs of the organization.

There are about 82 positions that we have available in that program and, currently, all but 10, I believe, are actively filled today.

MR. WAKEHAM: Thank you.

No more questions, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: Ms. Coffin, do you have any further questions?

MS. COFFIN: Yes, please.

Let's go back and chat about Opening Doors. That was my next question, so excellent segue. Thank you very much.

You say there are 82 positions that exist in government to accommodate individuals that have disabilities. Is that …?

MR. SIMMONS: The program has 82 positions funded, so it's not so much to necessarily accommodate folks with disability, because we would accommodate anybody with disability, but this program is meant to encourage or assist folks to enter the workforce, so it's a specific program for persons with disabilities.

MS. COFFIN: So it's designed for individuals who had just finished some sort of training or who have a marginal attachment to the workforce, to get them in and kind of give them that work experience. Is that correct?

MR. SIMMONS: I don't think it would be that restrictive, I think it's something that's pretty open.

MS. COFFIN: Okay.

Within this program, if you have an individual that comes in with a disability, then accommodations are put in place; there's money to accommodate the individual. So, say you are hearing impaired or you have a visual impairment or you might need, I don't know, a particular work station set up, that's included in this program?

MR. SIMMONS: Those sort of things we would do, even outside of this program. If you're looking at this program, for current fiscal, it's $3.7 million total. Those are salary dollars for individuals, that's how we pay a portion of their salary in those roles.

MS. COFFIN: All right.

MR. SIMMONS: It's offset by some funding we get down below from the federal government the (inaudible) program.

MS. COFFIN: Yes.

MR. SIMMONS: Separate from that, there would be $100,000, which is really a cost-share program we use to help within core government. That actually also extends out to the ABCs to help provide subsidies to encourage folks to bring in individuals with disabilities into the workplace.

MS. COFFIN: Okay, that's the subsidies. Okay.

MR. SIMMONS: So that's what that money in this budget is for. For somebody who may need specific accommodation, that would happen anyway, there's not a specific budget in this section for that.

MS. COFFIN: Yeah, if an individual came in under Strategic Staffing and they had particular limitation, then you would accommodate that, normally. Okay.

I say this because on the campaign trail I meet a number of individuals who were hearing impaired and a couple of wonderful young women who had been looking for jobs but had not been able to find the right in in that. So if I sent them over to Opening Doors, there might be a possibility that that would be that transition into the labour force that they needed.

Would that be a reasonable use of that?

MR. SIMMONS: So if you have anyone who's interested in the program, absolutely, contact the Opening Doors Program, there's a fantastic individual over there who can help them out.

MS. COFFIN: Right, lovely. I'll pass that along. I think I had the name of the program wrong when I suggested that.

Grants and Subsidies were down by almost $30,000 – $25,000 there. What was that about?

MR. SIMMONS: So that's the grant program that we would provide to departments and, in some cases, ABCs. I believe that was just related to the timing of a – so an arrangement that we had in place but the timing was a bit off towards the end, so it's really just an accounting issue.

MS. COFFIN: Okay, that's nice to know.

Staying with Opening Doors, it's kind of an interesting thing here, what percentage of participants transition out to permanent positions in government or even elsewhere because I assume that this doesn't mean that they're just going into this program to move into another government program but this is providing them with that, I guess, gateway into full time or a larger labour market attachment.

So getting at the success of this program now, has that transition happened and what's the success rate?

MR. SIMMONS: My sense is it's successful. I don't actually have that stat.

MS. COFFIN: That would be a handy thing to have, right. It would be nice to see if it's not at a very high rate then perhaps what would be that impediment, right? Just to make this program more successful this would be another perspective that we could have a look at.

Corporate Services, I see a big spike in Salaries there and then they drop off again. Is that your attrition model, the severance first and revised and then attrition in the second one?

MR. SIMMONS: Under –?

CHAIR: What number are you on?

MS. COFFIN: 4.1.01.

CHAIR: Sorry?

MS. COFFIN: Did I get excited and go on?

CHAIR: Yes, you're gone too far.

MS. COFFIN: I did, I went on. Okay, my bad. Very sorry about that.

I think that might be all my questions in this section. Sorry about that.

CHAIR: Thank you, Ms. Coffin.

Mr. Wakeham?

MR. WAKEHAM: I have no more questions, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to thank the officials for coming twice.

CHAIR: You have a couple of quick questions, Mr. Lane?

MR. LANE: Yes, I do.

My first question relates to the 10-week emergency hire process that occurs. I've had people raise concerns with me in the past over that, that a lot of people feel it's abused in the sense that it's a foot in the door for people by getting hired through departments without having to go through Public Service Commission, without having to go through proper processes, hiring processes and so on.

I understand that emergencies can happen from time to time, but I guess the question is: Is that process monitored to ensure that it is not being misused, if I can put it that way, and to ensure that we don't see situations where you hire someone for 10 weeks and extend them for another 10, another 10 and another 10 and that type of thing happening?

What kind of monitoring is taking place to ensure that wherever possible – except for the case of emergencies, which is why it's supposed to be called emergency hires – to make sure it goes through the Public Service Commission?

MR. SIMMONS: There are a couple of checkpoints. For bargaining unit positions it's actually contained in most of our collective agreements, so certainly the ones within core government. There's a 13-week window where folks can come in without competition when there's a short-term need or an emergency as you say. For management positions, it can go upwards of six months and that's in accordance with the Public Service Commission policies.

The collective agreement has the rules in there for a bargaining unit. The Public Service Commission also oversees our hiring activities and they are the ones who do the check and balance there. Then, just generally ourselves, there's value in actually going through that recruitment process, so it's not something we would try to avoid. We would be pushing and looking for those competitions to occur as well.

MR. LANE: Yeah, okay.

Again, it is something that I've had some constituents in the past – and very recently actually – come to me. They felt there were opportunities that were – and I guess sometimes you get a situation where somebody comes in through the 10-week program, then they apply because then they can apply for other jobs. They go in and all of a sudden there's someone who's been working there for a number of years, seeing that person surpass them that, in their mind, got in through the back door, so to speak, and I guess that's where some of that comes from.

It was an overall sense of why doesn't everybody go through the Public Service Commission is really the theme of it. It's supposed to be for emergency situations but there seems to be a lot of those emergency situations occurring throughout government. That's been an ongoing thing I believe.

MR. OSBORNE: If I could.

MR. LANE: Yeah.

MR. OSBORNE: Yeah, I don't think it's as common as you think. Tina, you may be able to elaborate on that. The vast majority of those are either a director up to the manager, up to the ADM level but, anyway, go ahead, Tina.

MS. FOLLETT: As you mentioned, Mr. Lane, the 13-week placements are normally for emergency or operational needs within the organization. As Robert has alluded to, we within HRS, monitor the activities associated with those temporary arrangements. The Commission also has a function wherein they monitor what's happening. At one point they actually would reach out to respective employers by flagging positions that were in excess of 13 weeks and asking for our plans associated with that.

They do conduct a fair amount of diligence around that. I appreciate the concern, obviously, that someone may have expressed to you, but we normally are pretty diligent in ensuring that if we have individuals that are in there in temporary arrangements, that we're then going on to conduct a broader competition.

Normally we'll have people that come in for less than 13 weeks because it's really short work, a short period of time; it's a piece of work that has to be done fairly quickly. Oftentimes, it might be a situation where a position needs to be staffed and it's going to take a period of time to staff the position. Someone might be required to go into that role because of operational need, but we proceed on with the competitive process.

We normally require our hiring departments that if they're in that situation – and it's a short-term, temporary arrangement, we have to go to competition – that they make the requests for both those staffing needs at the same time, so that while the position is filled temporarily, we can proceed on with the competitive process as well, so that we're not exceeding those 13-week timelines.

MR. LANE: Let's say if you have an emergency-hire situation. How does a member of the general public know so that they can put in a résumé? Do you know what I'm saying?

MS. FOLLETT: Yeah.

MR. LANE: Because in theory, if not, a department says, oh, we have a position open here for 10 weeks now and they can call up whoever and say: Give me a résumé. I suppose they have to be qualified. I don't even know what screening – I mean, I would imagine they would, but I don't know what kind of screening, what competition or what, in theory, happens in that.

I'm just wondering: How does that process work and how, if there was a 10-week position or a 13-week or a half dozen 13-week for a short-term project comes up, how does a member of the general public have the opportunity to apply for that 13-week opportunity?

MS. FOLLETT: Right.

MR. LANE: How do they even know about it?

MS. FOLLETT: First of all, we have inventories within our staffing division whereby if short-term, temporary work arises we'll normally go back and seek candidates through that process. I can assure you –

MR. LANE: Through what process, sorry?

MS. FOLLETT: Through the inventories that we have in the staffing division. We have inventories –

MR. LANE: Oh, résumés that people had already –

MS. FOLLETT: Right.

MR. LANE: – handed in.

MS. FOLLETT: Yes.

MR. LANE: Okay.

MS. FOLLETT: Yeah, exactly.

So, we'll seek assistance through those inventories.

MR. LANE: Okay.

MS. FOLLETT: But I can assure you that with any position that HRS is involved in, in the placement of an individual, qualifications are in the fore. You have to be qualified in order to enter into any position within the public service. Our HR staff are normally assisting hiring departments in that regard as well.

MR. LANE: All right, thank you.

On temporary positions – and this is another issue I hear all the time. Somebody's on a temporary position for two, three, four years. Really, everybody knows it's a permanent position because the person has been doing the job forever and yet they are still temporary. What is the rationale?

Why is it that once you get to a point where you know it's going to be an ongoing position, why do you leave them temporary for numerous years? If I could get you to explain that?

MR. SIMMONS: There are a couple of factors at play.

One of the more predominant ones is a bit of a daisy chain that occurs when somebody moves. There are numerous examples; we have a lot, unfortunately. I think out of our just under 200 staff within HRS, I think close on 80 are actually in some temporary capacity right now. They're often permanent employees but they're moving around in those temporary roles and it creates that system where folks own that permanent role but they're moving into different opportunities.

We are looking at ways to make that a little more efficient or in different ways, but it is where folks have that ability to maintain rights to previous roles when they take on temporary roles.

MR. LANE: All right.

The last question I have relates to Opening Doors. I have sent a couple of people in the past to the program, and the expectation I had or thought was that it would be around obtaining employment within the provincial government. Basically, the least experience I was told of was more of we'll do some résumé writing and some coaching on how to get a job occurred through that office, but it wasn't about getting that person a job in the provincial government.

I'm trying to understand. If you said there were 62 positions – I thought you said – and there are10 not filled, how does one go about applying for one of those 10 jobs under Opening Doors? Are they permanent jobs actually working within government? Is that for people with a physical disability or what about someone with an intellectual disability?

MR. SIMMONS: In reverse order, it's for any disability.

MR. LANE: Yeah.

MR. SIMMONS: The positions are there. As I mentioned earlier, it's a bit of a matchmaking exercise.

MR. LANE: Yeah.

MR. SIMMONS: It's not about just coming in and then trying to fit an individual into an existing role. There has to be that match in terms of the skills and abilities required to do what's required from the department, and then finding that individual who can fill the role.

In terms of what the division or what the office or the program offers, it does look to match up those individuals and roles. It does look to try to use that grant money to leverage that within departments and ABCs. In addition, like you mentioned, that additional service is there to help people find employment elsewhere. It's a place where folks can go to get help with résumé writing or interview prep or whatever that can be done to help, if not within our program, in other areas of society essentially.

MR. LANE: Okay, thank you.

CHAIR: Your time has expired.

MR. LANE: Could I get a list of (inaudible)?

CHAIR: Is the Committee okay to give him extra time.

MR. LANE: (Inaudible) request for some information. Can I get a list? Are we able to get a list of the 62 positions in government, what they are and the 10 that are not filled?

MR. SIMMONS: Sure, it's 82 positions.

MR. LANE: Or 82 and the 10 that are not filled.

MR. SIMMONS: I think so. Yeah, that should be –

MR. LANE: Okay, thank you.

I appreciate that.

CHAIR: Hearing no other questions, shall 3.1.01 to 3.1.12 inclusive carry?

All those in favour?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those opposed?

Carried.

On motion, subheads 3.1.01 through 3.1.12 carried.

CHAIR: Shall the totals for the Executive Council carry?

All those in favour?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those opposed?

Carried.

On motion, Executive Council, total heads, carried.

CHAIR: Shall I report the Estimates for Executive Council carried without amendment?

All those in favour?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: Opposed?

Carried.

On motion, Estimates of Executive Council carried without amendment.

CHAIR: Before we adjourn there are a couple of little items.

MR. OSBORNE: Mr. Chair, if I could?

CHAIR: Sure.

MR. OSBORNE: Just on your request, I just want to ensure – if somebody has a disability and we identify the position, we may be identifying somebody with a disability.

MR. LANE: How about the 10 (inaudible) –

MR. OSBORNE: Yeah. I think that would probably be–

MR. LANE: – that doesn't have anyone attached –

MR. OSBORNE: Yeah.

MR. LANE: – so that I know what's available, basically, is all I want to know.

MR. OSBORNE: Yeah. Fair enough.

CHAIR: I just want to thank Minister Osborne and hisֹ staff.

We have a couple of quick items. We did appoint a Vice-Chair; however, the person we appointed is not on the Committee so we have to appoint a new Vice-Chair.

Can we call for …?

MR. WAKEHAM: I nominate David Brazil.

CHAIR: David Brazil has been nominated.

All those in favour?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: Opposed?

Okay, David will be the Vice-Chair.

The next item, a call for a motion to accept the minutes of the Government Services Committee for June 17 and June 18 as circulated.

MS. STOODLEY: So moved.

CHAIR: So moved by Sarah.

A seconder?

MR. WARR: Seconded.

CHAIR: Brian Warr.

All those in favour?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: Carried.

On motion, minutes adopted as circulated.

CHAIR: If there's no other business I'll call for a motion to adjourn.

Sarah Stoodley.

We adjourn.

On motion, the Committee adjourned.