Ottawa to hire more consultants because 34,000 staff ‘unavailable’

[CdnFox]

Ottawa to hire more consultants because 34,000 staff ‘unavailable’

Last year, it admitted it tripled consultant spending to $311.8 million — 6% of its total budget — because staff were “not available” or lacked the right skills.

“Does hiring consultants amount to using replacement workers instead of public servants?” one internal briefing note asked.

Officials claimed consultants allow for “flexible and rapid deployment of resources.”

The reliance on outside help has exploded across government.

 

What the actual hell. The size of the civil service has shot up faster than a rocket, yet somehow the staff is unavailable and unqualified.  

It's one thing to hire less staff and have to rely on consultants, or to hire more staff but cut the consultant budget.  But when you do BOTH, something is wrong. 

 

[Michael Hardner]

24 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

1. What the actual hell. The size of the civil service has shot up faster than a rocket, yet somehow the staff is unavailable and unqualified.  

2. It's one thing to hire less staff and have to rely on consultants, or to hire more staff but cut the consultant budget.  But when you do BOTH, something is wrong. 

 

1. They probably use permanent staff for dog-simple tasks.
2. They likely dedicate certain permanent staff to certain types of work, and consultants for others, ie. tech.

 

I had a discussion with a neighbour and we agreed that civilians of all kinds make bad decisions with regards to tech staffing.  The government is atrocious.  Delivery is owned by 'Deputy Ministers'.  Can you name a single one ?

They need to seed a bunch of private/crown companies to do work and slowly migrate over to that model.

Canada has a culture of incompetence and we hate working in this country, IMO.

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

1. They probably use permanent staff for dog-simple tasks.

You could make an argument for that model:  A small team that holds eveything together and then lots of paid consultants where needed as needed. 

But of that was the case why have they been hiring so many of the 'dog simple' people? So that makes zero sense 

Quote

2. They likely dedicate certain permanent staff to certain types of work, and consultants for others, ie. tech.

Same as above.  THere might be some very unusual tasks that require highly specialized skills, but by and large these guys know what kind of work they do and despite hiring massively they don't have the skills?

Quote

I had a discussion with a neighbour and we agreed that civilians of all kinds make bad decisions with regards to tech staffing.  The government is atrocious.  Delivery is owned by 'Deputy Ministers'.  Can you name a single one ?

They need to seed a bunch of private/crown companies to do work and slowly migrate over to that model.

I'm not sure I see how that would improve that situation. It seems like the people delivering would be even MORE remote and unaccountable. 

 

[WestCanMan]

Consultant fees are like payments to carbon-sink companies. 

They're not really payments for services rendered so much as they're a vehicle for getting gov't money into the hands of friends and family. 

[Michael Hardner]

6 hours ago, CdnFox said:

1. So that makes zero sense 

2. I'm not sure I see how that would improve that situation. It seems like the people delivering would be even MORE remote and unaccountable. 

 

1. No, your model makes sense.  I'm not sure what they're doing.  It might be jobs that can't be contracted, like police or some such.

2. It would get rid of the cronies.  You would have to convince Canadians to care about costs.

[eyeball]

8 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

1. They probably use permanent staff for dog-simple tasks.

I'm betting many of these could be accomplished with AI.

[CdnFox]

3 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

 

2. It would get rid of the cronies.  You would have to convince Canadians to care about costs.

Maybe in the very short term but I think it would be back and forth before long

[Michael Hardner]

4 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Maybe in the very short term but I think it would be back and forth before long

This is a major risk, maybe the major risk.

That's why it would be key to tie contract renewal to financial performance while pointing Canadians to monitor what is going on.

If course, this is what Canada Post is and nobody cares... 

 

[Barquentine]

16 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Canada has a culture of incompetence and we hate working in this country, IMO.

Whoa: too much of a blanket statement.

But unfortunately it is true that many gov't employees are entitled slackers who don't care about giving good service or working hard for their paycheque. Just putting in time 'til their pension.

But not all. The DMV here is a model of efficiency - you walk in, take a number and usually get called before you can sit down. And my recent dealing with the CRA was fast and easy- I called, they said I could hang up and they would call me. They did, within 5 minutes and fixed my problem quickly.

Having worked mostly in the private sector, but also a little bit in gov't, I can tell you there are almost as many slackers and incompetents in private industry, too. The main difference is most private sector workers don't have job security.

And most people I know are dependable hard workers.

 

[Michael Hardner]

1 hour ago, Barquentine said:

Whoa: too much of a blanket statement.

But unfortunately it is true that many gov't employees are entitled slackers who don't care about giving good service or working hard for their paycheque. Just putting in time 'til their pension.

But not all. The DMV here is a model of efficiency - you walk in, take a number and usually get called before you can sit down. And my recent dealing with the CRA was fast and easy- I called, they said I could hang up and they would call me. They did, within 5 minutes and fixed my problem quickly.

Having worked mostly in the private sector, but also a little bit in gov't, I can tell you there are almost as many slackers and incompetents in private industry, too. The main difference is most private sector workers don't have job security.

And most people I know are dependable hard workers.

 

Yes I fell victim to rant.  Of course there are areas where things work well in public and nonprofit sectors and vice versa for the private sector.

The media start looking at how to examine this culture more intelligently so that people know the difference.