Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have a Return to Oral Question asked by Mr. Roland on February 14, 2001, regarding the chief of staff position and the pay range for executive assistants working in the Government of the Northwest Territories.
The chief of staff position, like many other senior level positions, is an at pleasure appointment and does not have a formal job description. These types of positions do not lend themselves to traditional job descriptions upon which to base a Hay point evaluation. Instead, salary and benefits are negotiated and established through an employment contract.
Similarly, executive assistants do not have formal job descriptions and are not evaluated through the Hay Job Evaluation System. Again, this is because duties of and qualifications for these positions vary widely with the different functional and political requirements of each Cabinet Minister.
The salary range for executive assistants to Cabinet Ministers is $63,139 to $71,592. In some circumstances, the salary range is exceeded. For example, where an executive assistant is there on a transfer assignment from a position in another department at a higher salary, he or she will continue to be paid that salary.
Mr. Speaker, the GNWT is aware of the anomaly that is created by including positions such as executive assistants and the chief of staff in the public service. It is for that reason that the GNWT is currently considering amendments to the Public Service Act to bring clarity to the issue of political staff.