Thank you, Madam Chair. I am pleased to present the Department of Human Resources’ main estimates for the fiscal year 2013-14.
The department is proposing an operations expenditures budget of $42.1 million. This reflects a decrease of $697,000 from last year’s main estimates, or a 2 percent reduction. The reduction is largely attributed to the transfer of specialized human resources programs, positions and associated funding aimed at health and social services professionals to the Department of Health and Social Services.
The department’s budget is proposing funding in 2013-14 for three new positions for ongoing service stabilization, as follows:
1. a benefits position, located in Yellowknife, to
meet the increased reporting requirements of our third-party service providers to ensure employees receive appropriate benefits.
2. two positions to work with managers to support
employees who need accommodations to enable them to remain in the workplace or return to the workplace. Working as a team with the existing duty to accommodate advisor, these new positions will be located in Inuvik and Fort Smith.
The mandate of the Department of Human Resources is to provide leadership and direction to the Government of the Northwest Territories, its boards and agencies in all areas of human resource management. The department’s leadership on human resource management supports all departments and agencies in effectively recruiting, managing and retaining their staff.
Through this mandate, the department ensures that the public service is managed as a corporate resource in a way that promotes human resource stability, employee retention and maximum effectiveness. In turn, this supports the interests of the government, and the vision of Believing in People and Building on the Strengths of Northerners.
Of the department’s 2013-14 budget, $9.703 million, or 23 percent, is allocated for direct support to members of the public service, including dental benefits, medical travel assistance, recognition awards and the Employee Family Assistance Program. In our role as a shared service provider, another $2.7 million, or 6.4 percent, of the budget is targeted to provide funding to departments and agencies for associate director/superintendents, as well as intern and summer student programs under the Maximizing Northern Employment Initiative.
To strengthen the foundation of human resource management services across government, the department’s 2013-14 main estimates identify some departmental restructuring. First, the creation of a new labour relations division, combining all labour relations functions in one place within the Department of Human Resources ensures service, support and advice to client departments, boards and agencies is timely and consistent across the GNWT. It will also ensure a consolidated approach to functions related to labour relations, duty to accommodate, investigations and collective bargaining.
Second, the creation of a new business performance unit to focus on human resource management qualitative and quantitative measures, and business performance metrics and analysis will drive the department’s performance management approach, leading to improved and consistent service delivery and are critical to the success of the service partnership agreements that are currently being piloted with the health and social services system.
In building a strong and sustainable future for our territory, the GNWT is preparing for the imminent devolution of responsibilities from the Government of Canada and is moving forward on decentralization initiatives. The Department of Human Resources has a key role to play in both devolution and decentralization, recognizing the importance of people issues in these strategic initiatives.
The department has a major responsibility in the successful implementation of devolution by ensuring a smooth welcome for affected federal employees into the GNWT public service, ensuring fairness and equity for all impacted employees, including existing GNWT staff, minimizing service disruption and developing a northern workforce.
In support of the 17
th Legislative Assembly’s priority
to increase employment opportunities where they are needed most, by decentralizing more GNWT positions, the department will continue to provide corporate advice and guidance to GNWT management on organizational design and impact analysis. Within the department, direction action in support of decentralization is well underway. First, as previously mentioned, the proposed addition of two regional duty to accommodate advisors to work on this important issue with our existing staff, and second, the Department of Human Resources has taken steps to regionalize three positions where it functionally makes sense. These include:
• decentralizing to Inuvik a functional recruitment
officer position with the allied health unit;
• establish a helpdesk supervisor position in
Inuvik to enhance support for the Human Resources’ helpdesk; and
• decentralizing a professional development
initiative training officer to Inuvik. While this move is being implemented this fiscal year, it does not show up in the department’s complement of decentralized positions given that it is part of the Health human resource transfer which I mentioned earlier.
In addition, the department is developing a Regional Recruitment Strategy that is intended to enhance regional employment and development opportunities, and includes strategies to align the available labour force with public service employment needs.
Development of the public service remains a key priority and there are many initiatives underway that support this under the flagship of 20/20, the Public Services Strategic Plan. In addition to the key priorities of devolution and decentralization, the department will focus on the following actions in 2013-14:
• succession planning and corporate knowledge
transfer strategies, given that our demographic information confirms an increase in the number of public servants who are eligible to retire;
• continued efforts to ensure a representative
workforce by encouraging diversity and supporting the recruitment, development and advancement of Aboriginal employees;
• we will also explore the enhanced use of social
media, both as a means of communication with current and potential employees, and also as a specialized tool for targeted recruitment strategies;
• rigorous occupational health and safety
strategies continue to be critical in order to minimize the risk of our staff being injured on the job;
• continued training and support for mangers in
order to ensure understanding of department and agency accountability and responsibility for human resource management such as accommodations, respectful workplaces and occupational health and safety;
• greening the workplace continues to be a key
priority to ensure environmental and resource management within the public service;
• implementation of service partnership agreements remains critical through ongoing engagement and collaboration with departments and agencies, including a pilot with the health and social services system; and
• resolution of commitments in new collective
agreements, including successfully concluding agreements on safe disclosure, or whistleblower, and rest periods, as agreed to during bargaining negotiations with the Union of Northern Workers.
Our investment in the public service through 20/20, the NWT Public Service Strategic Plan, has created a positive foundation of human resource management practices and services. The Government of the Northwest Territories was nationally recognized as one of Canada’s top 100 employers for 2013, based on the terms of employment, programs and numerous opportunities available to our employees. This is a tremendous achievement that we all, as leaders, need to be proud to have been recognized for.
I am proud of the good work that the Department of Human Resources does which serves the interests of the entire GNWT as well as the people of the NWT.
In closing, 2012-13 has been a productive year so far for Human Resources, with significant milestone accomplishments, and I am confident that 2013-14 will also yield great results. Together with Members of this Assembly, I look forward to continuing to achieve the vision of the 17
th Assembly by believing
in people and building on the strengths of Northerners.
That includes my opening remarks and I would be pleased to answer any questions Members may have. Thank you.