Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Hackett report took a look at what the operations plans were for how they were planning to restructure the department. Because remember, the department is right now less than a year old. So the Hackett Group came in early in the process to give us a third-party view of whether or not the process that was proposed was good. They confirmed that the structure that we were moving towards was generally the right way to go, provided some recommendations for improvement, and we have started to move to implement. There are changes that are underway as recently as this week. There are job competitions underway within the department to bring people into new positions and new roles. Maybe I could ask the deputy minister to talk about some of the more significant details along the way since the Hackett report.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Ms. Elkin.

Thank you, Ms. Elkin. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the deputy minister for that. That's helpful. Another question in this area I have is because we have varying degrees of workers that Human Resources looks after, such as our health boards at Stanton and the Beau-Del, we have the North Slave Correctional Centre and areas like that, wouldn't it make some difference if pay and benefits officers were assigned to a specific class of workers instead of going by the alphabet? I think, and this might be something the department has looked at, but it would seem to me that if a pay and benefits officer had a specific group of employees to look after, it would be able to look after them better and getting a call from an office worker who doesn't work any shift work than a gentleman or a lady at North Slave Correctional Centre who does work shift work. I'm just wondering, has the department given that any thought? It's especially critical, I think, in the health care field that pay and benefits officers are designated to look after a certain area of our operation so there's consistency there. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent. Ms. Elkin.

Thank you, Ms. Elkin. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to switch gears for a brief second here and I wanted to talk about an overall plan for the future. I had a discussion with

the Minister on this this week in regard to the settlement of outstanding land claims here. There's some that have already been settled and will go towards implementation of these claims. The fact that I really do believe the government, the GNWT has to work with the aboriginal groups, self-governments, as well with the UNW to try to come up with a comprehensive plan of where we go from here. We're, as Regular Members, we go through a process, the business planning process every year and there seems to be no end to the request for new positions in whichever department. Some of them are justified and some of them get a bit more rough ride than others. But I'm suggesting that the Department of Human Resources and the Minister responsible for Human Resources should set a goal or target to try to get some type of plan for the future. I think it's vitally important and if we don't pay attention to where we spend half of our annual budget, almost half, then I think we're missing something. I know in the past I believe the deputy minister and the former Minister have talked about developing a plan or looking at something, but I haven't seen anything yet. I know the department is in its infancy still and it's going through some growing pains, but I would really like to see some work started on this. because it's very important at the community level. I'm talking about the smaller communities. This is where we should be looking at plugging in front-line workers and if there's job growth, it should be happening in the small communities. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The department has been intimately involved in the development of the government's position at the negotiating tables about or with self-government negotiating tables and is working at or has always worked at providing an analysis of positions to self-government entities so that they get an understanding of what positions this government has that are delivering services in their communities and where those sorts of responsibilities lie.

In terms of developing an overall government-wide plan for how positions develop, the department is prepared to work with every department. So the Department of HR has, for instance, worked with Health and Social Services on an overall human resource plan. It's working with FMBS at developing an overall human resource plan. But it's difficult to take it on a government-wide basis to say this is where the plan should be, because as legislative priorities change, for instance as we put more money into nurses or into teachers, that changes the priority for what hiring takes place. So it's difficult to say from a centralized position that this is where your human resource development is going to take place. As we have, for instance, this year said with reduction of the PTR, we know that's going to lead to more teachers in the communities. It's not going to happen, I mean, that's where the teachers are going to wind up if that's where the schools are because we've already committed that, you know, our government has said that the smaller communities will see a preponderance of the value in that PTR reduction.

So HR is prepared to work, but it really needs to be on a department-by-department basis because we have to react to priorities that are set by this Legislative Assembly, because this Assembly changes directions sometimes on which departments are priorities for development. So we have to be able to follow that.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess that's food for thought and this government only has six months left to go before the next election and then there will be a new government. It's something I think that people really need to pay attention to, because we have to set up a plan. We have to set up some priorities. We can't have an unlimited amount of priorities because if you have an unlimited amount of priorities, then you have none, really. I mean as a government I think you have to identify some areas of your operation that you're going to concentrate on and if there is position growth, that's where it happens. The life of government is only four years. It's not a tremendous amount of time. Sure, there will be some instances where you're going to have to do something. Those are extraordinary things. But I think when the next government -- and it should be part of the transition document that's developed by the current government -- that the next government come in and develop some type of strategy to set a couple of priorities. Where are those priorities? Probably education and health care. You know? What I think is happening far too often is we're allowing administrative, policy, things like that to eat up a tremendous amount of what we have left to spend in priority areas. Like I said, if everything becomes a priority, then you don't have a priority. I really think that's what's happened with this government. Again, I certainly would like to see the department start work on something, a plan for the future on how you're going to work with aboriginal governments. It's vital to our very existence here that we get a plan for the future. If you don't have a plan, then what do you really have? I mean we're flying by the seat of our pants. We have been for four years on position growth. The numbers prove it. Sure, some of them have been spent in the health care field and education and areas like that, but there's a tremendous amount of that growth that hasn't gotten into the communities. So I think that's where we have to pay attention to this, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. I take it as more of a comment. I didn't hear any questions there. At this time on the list I have Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the history of Personnel, by my memory, was that it was basically blown up in 1995-1996 by the government as a cost-cutting measure. All the functions were farmed out to the various departments and they were going to deal with it. Deputy ministers were going to be held accountable. Affirmative action was parcelled out. At the time the majority of us that weren't on Cabinet didn't support the move, but it was done anyway and for nearly 10 years, or nine years, we kept raising the issue of fragmented, uncoordinated services, the way hiring was done or wasn't done, the ineffectiveness of the affirmative action policy. So finally there was agreement to bring back the Department of Personnel to, in fact, coordinate, to integrate, to do a better job hiring, to be able to link the government initiatives across department.

The Grant Thornton report was done and one of the pushes -- because I remember being a Regular Member at the time -- was the need for a government-wide HR

plan, and the commitment was made to do that. That was now almost six or seven years ago. Commitments were made to work on that. It was kept being put forward.

As we talk about a macroeconomic policy and the need to have a frame around all the different initiatives that we're doing, so too do we need a broad HR plan that sets the frame about how this government is going to do business when it hires. Flowing out of that, each department should have their own HR plan. You cannot expect, and that was a problem before, all the departments had individual plans. They didn't even have HR plans. In fact, I would submit to you, most departments still don't have HR plans. Health and Social services maybe does, but I would think they would be the exception rather than the rule. So this government, and the government before this, made a commitment to a general, broad HR plan for this territorial government, but it has yet to be delivered. It is a failure. It is something that was promised, and I know there's been work done on it. It's like the affirmative action review: It came late to the table so it's going to get transferred down to the 16th Assembly. However, we should be clear of the value of this; the need of this, the support of this by the previous Legislative Assembly. The fact that it's undone, unfinished business and, most importantly, the need for it is still there as a government.

I mean we talk about PeopleSoft systems where we're hooking all the pieces together; that was bastardized beyond belief when they first put it in so that it became almost non functional, and the millions we spent to get a system-wide information system back in place to link all these departments together. So my question to the Minister would be that it is unfinished business. It's not just department by department; we do need that broad frame, and it has been in the works. He's recently new to the portfolio, but it should be there somewhere and it shouldn't be a new piece of work. When would that be done and how far along is it? Is there at least a draft? I remember talking about this in the last Assembly. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. I'm just going to check the dictionary to see if bastardized is a word in the dictionary. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Over the past few years, bits and pieces of a government-wide approach have been brought to the table. One of the key pieces that this government came forward with was the approach to change from affirmative action to employment equity. The reason being is that we saw employment equity as a process that would allow a proactive approach rather than the reactive approach used, or seen, in affirmative action. So we have been struggling, since there hasn't been a widespread acceptance of that -- which is one of the key pieces of the government-wide process, or one of the key pieces that we saw as a government-wide HR plan -- we've been struggling with where to go from there and don't have a lot of manpower to invest in follow-up. So it hasn't moved very much since that proposal was advanced.

It isn't something that's been forgotten. It is something that is still being worked on and we're still working at bringing things forward to the deputies' table and then on up the ladder, but it's an issue that's going to take us some time to work around because we had thought we had one of the key pieces there and that doesn't appear to be well supported.

Thank you, Minister Dent. I guess bastardized is in the dictionary here, so I guess it's parliamentary language. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for that ruling. The issue of this government-wide HR plan, if we expect it of departments, we should have an outline in our mind of the key pieces of what we would expect each department to have as part of an HR strategy. So too would those pieces be expected of the government as it lays out its broad plan of how you do business, the criteria, the issues, the focuses. Affirmative action is but one relatively small piece. I know that it's been in the works for a long time, because the push to review that goes back to the 13th Assembly that it's been in government. So to say in the last five months of this government that they've only done a few little bits and pieces of work, I find truly surprising. I would ask the Minister if he could outline for us -- since they've talked about how they're prepared to work with the departments on their HR plans -- what are the key pieces of an HR plan, in his mind, and how long would it take the government to flesh those out as a government so that the departments would have a clear idea of what is expected of them? Or are we expecting the departments to wander off on their own and do this plan? There should be a relatively simple outline available where you fill it in by department with your respective program content and hiring requirements. Our need and our desire to employ northerners, to focus on certain activities, how one develops staff, the support to staff, all those should be consistent across government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Did I hear a question there? Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Department of Human Resources does have a framework that it uses when working with departments in terms of what you need to have in order to make sure that you've got the right person in the right job at the right time. That's really what an HR plan is. In terms of a framework, it wouldn't be much different for a government-wide framework. Fleshing out the key parts of that is where we've stumbled right now and one of the key parts, as I've said, we had thought, was an employment equity process. So that's where we were in terms of moving this forward.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, from the time of the Grant Thornton report even, I mean that's six years ago. Once again I'm somewhat surprised to hear that we're still stumbling. The affirmative action review, or the equal employment review was what was done but was hung on to so long that it's not going to get acted on by this Assembly. Would the Minister be willing to share what work has been done on this particular key issue besides the employment equity piece and outline for us what are these key pieces and the trouble that they are having fleshing out which pieces? Because I'd be more than happy to provide my support and input to help them fill in the blanks if they're finding that difficult. Thank you.