Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman. My

question is specific to page 6-8. I thank the Minister and the staff for providing this layout as to the description of the positions. I find it very useful, and I appreciate that work.

A similar question to Mr. Abernethy’s is: if I could get some information as to what analysis was done to determine why a specific position was needed or not needed? Was there any specific analysis to weigh out whether a position was needed or not needed?

Minister Lee.

The analysis of the department

and my approach — I say it again and I’ve said it many times — is to minimize the impact on the front-line health and social service workers. For that reason, the largest brunt came in the headquarters positions. I really don’t want us to characterize these affected positions as ones that were not needed or that were not necessary. I think those are positions that had work to do, but under the circumstances and under the fiscal situation, we’ve had to reorganize the staffing to deliver the services but reduce resources where possible. Once again, it’s a choice between eliminating some of the positions in headquarters versus eliminating positions in front-line staff.

I appreciate, and I’ll make special

recognition of, the fact that the Minister’s

instructions were probably to ensure that whatever impact was going to happen…. I’m sure they were, to some degree, not focused on making sure we created as few ways as possible. I’ll recognize that’s probably an assumption on my part, but I would think that any reasonable person would say, Let’s try to make this as seamless as possible. Assuming that, we would have to come down to a reason as to why these specific positions were chosen over others.

With approximately 117 positions within the headquarters region of Yellowknife, when we would focus in on a specific area a couple questions arise, from my point of view. If I were in the management position of making this type of decision, something I would say to myself would be, “What impact, if I delete this position, would it have?”

I would have to take some analysis, in my mind — whether it’s strategic, where I lay out their job description and say, Well, what do they do and how will it be affected if I suck them out of the system…? I’m trying to get a sense of why these positions were determined as they are. Was that analysis done in any way as I’ve described?

Mr. Chairman, absolutely. I think

that’s what I’ve been saying. Once again, there are 17 positions impacted in the Department of Health and Social Services. It’s all in the department, not in the authorities. Out of 17, nine positions were vacant, which means there are no active bodies impacted there. Out of those impacted 17 positions…. In six positions there were incumbents there, and most of them have been reassigned

or

they have places to go.

We looked at whether there were vacant positions, whether any of those positions could be rewritten or re-profiled so it did not impact the program, delivery and services and, most importantly for me, we did not impact the front line. I feel very strongly about this, because I believe the department officials have done a really great job of minimizing the impact wherever possible under the circumstances. I believe this was done in a way the Members had been saying it should be done.

As we move forward, I continue to

share a number of Members’ frustration over trying to get the details on what type of work was done.

I’m just going to take a position here, and I want them to explain to me how it worked. It was already highlighted in the House that it was the communications position that’s been targeted for reduction. I’d like to know what analysis was done and the procedure of how they decided that communications wasn’t required or who is going to pick up those duties. That’s the type of analysis I’m trying to get to understand this.

Further highlighting the concern I’m raising is the fact that two of the positions are yet to be determined. So how do we know what analysis has been done on positions? We don’t know. And we don’t know if they’re filled; we don’t know. It sounds like a Donald Rumsfeld tongue-twister here. We’ve done analysis on positions we don’t know are going to be there, but we’re deleting them anyway and whatnot.

There are obvious questions here, Mr. Chairman. As I highlighted with the one communications position here: what analysis was done on the principle of what that job description offers and the evaluation of where those duties will be picked up?

Mr. Cummings.

Thank you to the Minister and the

staff for that answer. That’s the type of answer. It sounds like someone put some thought into it.

A number of Members are concerned about the approach we’ve used. Quite often that seems to be the answer that’s missed — how someone did some analysis on potential workload and where they can do this. That’s caused a lot of frustration and some pushback that not just this Minister but all those Ministers over there should be receiving so we get that type of detail.

The frustration we’re receiving here is that…. My fear is, the fear in the public — whether it’s the public service or just the people on the street — is…. The magic eight ball was approached on the fundamental process of going to find money within

a department. Should we eliminate a job? The answer is: only you will know.

That’s the type of answer I’d like on some of these, and I want to be assured that all the positions received that type of scrutiny to make sure we didn’t just tell somebody today, “We’re eliminating this position. And by the way, two seats over, you’re going to do all the work, whether you know it or not.” I think what happens is that we end up having fallout problems on top of this.

I’m running out of time here, but I certainly see there are issues as that falls out as well. I want to make sure that sort of a begin-with-the-end-in-mind approach happens with it. If you want to eliminate — go down from four positions to three…. I’m glad they’ve done some analysis to say, “Well, you know, we could spread the work out.” That was the answer I was hoping some thought had gone into.

Also, if I were a human resource specialist of some sort, my next fear in that area would be whether we have now burdened people with work they can or cannot do. On top of that, have we changed their job descriptions by now? Have we changed the phase of how we pay?

Those are other items. I’d certainly hope the Minister will have some feedback on that, to ensure we’ve done this from top to bottom, thinking it through.

I appreciate the Member’s

comments. I don’t believe there were questions there.

I’d like to take a

second to recognize Ms. Kathy Tetso in the gallery. She’s the CEO of the Health and Social Services Authority.

Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hate to

belabour this issue of staffing, but I do have a couple of questions.

Information that the standing committee was given by the department some time ago indicated that all 17 positions we have on the new table were to be eliminated in ’08–09. I just would like to get clarification from the Minister whether that’s a typo. If it’s not, how do we eliminate two people we haven’t yet determined?

Thank you,

Ms. Bisaro. Minister Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This

is the third month of ’08–09. We are, as the deputy minister indicated earlier, engaged in restructuring of the department, where the health side of the mandate is more specifically laid out. This is

probably my layperson’s explanation of that. I could have the deputy minister explain more of that.

We do have the remaining nine months to finish reorganizing the department and to make sure we do more in-depth research into how to re-profile and realign the positions so we minimize the impact on the programs and services.

I could ask the deputy minister for more information. It’s your call, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Cummings.

Thanks for the explanation. I just want

to explain that we have data that says 15 positions and then we had data that said 17. I think that’s where a lot of the confusion came from. I think I finally understand.

I did want to ask a question. There is an indication of reduction in the children and family services area. I wanted to ask how many social workers are currently employed within children and family services.

Mr. Ramsay.

Mr. Chairman, I want to ask a few

questions on the position reductions as well. Maybe

I could get a comment from the Minister on what her definition of “placed” means.

Minister Lee.

Mr. Chairman, those are people

who have been notified as affected status. If they choose to do so, they have to submit a resumé and ask to be considered for other options. “Placed” means they have either been placed within the department or government-wide.