Canada School of Public Service : In April 2004, the Canada School of Public Service (CSPS) succeeded the Canadian Centre for Management Development and incorporated training and development functions (including official language training for all public servants) that had hitherto been administered by the Public Service Commission. These legislative changes to mandate were secured through the Public Service Modernization Act of 2003 which was an omnibus reform of all the legislation governing Human Resources Management in the Government of Canada.
The Canadian Centre for Management Development (CCMD) was created in 1988 under the authority of Order-in-Council 1988-1669, to train senior managers, to train potential senior managers and to research into public sector management behaviour and philosophy. The first President, John Manion, set up initial operations under this authority until The Canadian Centre for Management Development Act was proclaimed on 1 December 1991. The Act created a departmental corporation and elaborated CCMD's role as the agency responsible for training top-level public service managers with the skills to meet present and future requirements of the public service.
CCMD reports directly to the Prime Minister, through a Board of Governors which is chaired by the Clerk of the Privy Council. The Secretary of the Treasury Board, President of the Public Service Commission (PSC), and President of CCMD are ex-officio governors. The President of the Centre, appointed by the Governor-in-Council, has the rank of Deputy Minister. Jocelyne Bourgon, upon resigning as Clerk of the Privy Council, became President of CCMD in January 1999. Her appointment raised the Centre's profile significantly within the federal government in the context of the La Relève initiative to renew and reform the public service. The expanded scope of the mandate of the Canada School of Public Service reflects the higher profile and extended activities of the successor agency and its governing structure is essentially unchanged from that of the CCMD.
CSPS like CCMD does not formulate or initiate federal policy in relation to executive development, staffing, or human resources management in general. Rather it works within policy frameworks and mandates defined by Treasury Board, Public Service Commission and two interdepartmental committees of Deputy Heads known as the Committee of Senior Officials (COSO) which advises the Clerk of the Privy Council in his/her capacity as "Head of the Public Service" and the Treasury Board Senior Advisory Committee (TBSAC) which can make recommendations on virtually any aspect of human resources management within the federal public service. The research and high level formal training programs of the CJSPS now incorporate the former management development programs of the Public Service Commission and continue to complement the "corporate management" of the Assistant Deputy Minister cadre and leadership network development administered through The Leadership Network (1998, and since incorporated as a semi-autonomous directorate in Treasury Board Secretariat). Since April 2004, this governance structure has been in flux as the role of the Public Service Commission has all but disappeared and the role of Treasury Board is now performed largely through a new agency, the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada (PSHRMAC).
The Canada School for Public Service continues to deliver the old CCMD mandate to train a professional management cadre with an awareness of public service traditions, a sensitivity to the ethnic diversity of Canada's population, and the ability to develop effective policy, to execute stewardship in relation to programs and public service values, and to manage people. CSPS accomplishes these goals through its mandatory duties to teach management theory and best practice as it applies to federal government agencies, research public-sector management, and foster public awareness of the role of the public service.
In 1988 CCMD superseded and absorbed the Centre for Executive Development which was one component of the executive development and training programs of the Public Service Commission. Prior to 1988, the Public Service Commission had been the main agency responsible for training and development of the Executive cadre of the Federal Government, an activity which originated in initiatives going back before the Second World War. In the years immediately before 1988, the PSC had recourse to programs wherein senior public servants attended courses in modern management techniques at Canadian and foreign universities to supplement in-house PSC offerings. The government of Prime Minister Mulroney established CCMD with the goal of creating a cadre of senior public servants who had been trained with skills directly relevant to the needs of the federal public service on the models of L'École Nationale d'Administration Publique of France and the Civil Service College of Britain. Initially the new CCMD took over the PSC executive training centre at Touraine, Quebec but in 1999 consolidated its activities at its Headquarters campus in Ottawa. Training facilities have once again expanded since 2004 with the transfer of all training and development functions of the PSC to CSPS.
In accordance with its mandate, CSPS, like its predecessor, sponsors research on public sector management by Canadian and international scholars. Much of this work is subsequently published and incorporated into agency course material. This research component of its mandate is delivered through a distinct organizational unit.
The reporting and decision making structure of the CSPS, like CCMD, incorporates a Board of Governors, an Executive Committee and a system of committees arranged in a two-level hierarchy. The Board of Governors meets twice a year and remains the final authority for overall strategic direction of the Centre. The Executive Committee, (known initially as the Implementation Committee before 1991, and then as the Management Committee until 1994) meets twice a month to coordinate program administration. Committees reporting to the Management Committee and chaired by the President are responsible for daily operations, course development, relations with other departments, agencies and associations, and departmental policy. Subsidiary committees oversee individual aspects of CCMD operations, such as research, information management, and health and safety. CSPS inherited from the CCMD its own interdepartmental advisory committee, The Executive Learning Programs Overview Council (ELPOC), which reviews and makes recommendations on course structure, content and delivery.
The Sivuliuqtit Program constitutes a distinct initiative from 1995 to 1999 in which 75 managers, almost all of whom were Inuit, were trained jointly by CCMD and Nunavut Arctic College in order to establish a core managerial group for the Nunavut public service. In this way the CCMD played a distinct role establishing the governance of the new territory on a firm foundation.
The primary sources for the data is the Archival appraisal report associated with authority 99/020, the associated Records Disposition Submission and the records of the CCMD accessed at the time of the appraisal. The administrative history has been updated on the basis of the changed legislative mandate of the Public Service Modernization Act as outlined on the Treasury Board and CSPS Web sites.
