Public Service Commission of Canada : The Public Service Commission (PSC) is the successor body created in 1967 under provisions of the Public Service Employment Act (SC 1966-67, c. 71, RSC 1993, c. P-33) to replace the older Civil Service Commission created under provisions of the Civil Service Act of 1908 (7-8 Edward VIII c. 15). With the new Act in 1967, the reconstituted Commission absorbed from the earlier Civil Service Commission the core mandate and function to regulate the staffing process and ensure the integrity of an independent (non-partisan) public service based on merit. The Public Service Commission also retained the essential organizational structure of an independent agency reporting directly to Parliament.
Before 1908, the functions of the Commission were diffused among departmental heads and deputy heads, the prerogatives of Privy Council and Governor-in-Council, and two small sequential antecedent bodies whose limited sphere of activity in administering civil service examinations represents in embryonic form a separate body regulating appointment to and within a permanent civil service. The Civil Service Commission of 1908 absorbed the complete jurisdiction and function of the salaried Board of Examiners appointed at pleasure and originally established by the Civil Service Act of 1882 (44 Vict., c.4, s. 3) just as the Board of Examiners had absorbed the jurisdiction and functions of the rotating Civil Service Board (composed of any 5 of 14 designated senior Deputy Ministers) which was established by the Civil Service Act 1868 (31 Vict., c. 34, s. 25). This latter entity was in turn modelled on the Civil Service Act of the United Province of Canada, 1857 (20 Vict., c. 24) and for many years after Confederation this statutory Civil Service Board continued to constitute itself the Board of Examiners of the Civil Service for purposes of conducting periodic examinations of candidates.
Before 1908, the earlier boards with legislative mandate to regulate the staffing of the federal
civil service operated in a highly circumscribed scope of activity and virtually no independence from the government of the day; the conventions of patronage appointment were the norm despite the nominal board authority to create a list of qualified candidates and to administer entry level and qualifying examinations (measuring basic levels of literacy, numeracy, dictation skills, and specialized knowledge as determined by the Board). In 1908, the "merit principle" of appointment and promotion effected through competitive examination and the administrative form of an independent Commission were implemented for the first time; however, the jurisdiction of the Commission applied to the then very small (inside) service that operated out of the Ottawa headquarters facilities of each department. More than two-thirds of the civil service was still excluded from the strict conventions of the merit principle.
The reconstructed Civil Service Act of 1918 (8-9 George V, c.12) established a mandate for the Commission to administer a centrally regulated staffing process that rigorously enforced the merit principle throughout the entire government of Canada by employing strict procedures and liberal use of examination and other methods developed over time to provide objective measures of relative merit. Civil servants were explicitly forbidden to engage in partisan political activity. In addition, the Civil Service Act of 1918 gave the responsibility for the efficient departmental organization and classification of the entire civil service to the Commission. In part, the Commission exercised this mandate up to 1966, though as early as 1925 (P.C. 194, 7 February 1925) Privy Council and Treasury Board used control of expenditure to prevent the Commission from exercising effective control over classification or scientific reorganization of government departments.
The Public Service Employment Act (PSEA) of 1967 was an important departure in the mandate and function of the older Civil Service Commission. The new Act redefined the framework of human resource management, implicitly acknowledging Treasury Board supremacy in all matters of personnel management, except staffing and its related ancillary functions such as audit and appeal. With the introduction of collective bargaining in which an independent Public Service Staff Relations Board acts as umpire and the Treasury Board acts on behalf of the Government of Canada as employer, the scope of the Public Service Commission as the key arbiter of the Public Service of Canada was clearly diminished. The whole era, 1967-1992, was marked by successive administrative clarifications in the ambiguity between the Treasury Board and PSC legislative mandates and responsibilities in which much of what the PSC actually delivered in form the programs were explicitly acknowledged to be delivered by the Commission under delegated authority from the Treasury Board.
The Public Service Reform Act of 1992 refined the mandate governing the core staffing function and formally revised the mechanism by which merit was measured (to permit greater delegation and flexibility to senior departmental management). According to its modern mission statement, the Public Service Commission is the agency responsible for ensuring that the people of Canada are served by a highly competent Public Service that is non-partisan and representative of Canadian Society (in respect to groups designed for consideration under policies administered by Treasury Board). Taken together, the notion of "individual" merit, merit measured against a standard of competence, appointment to level (Executive category only), classification simplification and deployment procedures virtually transform the foundations of the Public Service. Merit remains the guiding principle of the Commission and the foundation of delegated staffing to Deputy Heads but it has become a principle subject to interpretation rather than a shibboleth enforcing procedural rigidity.
During its long administrative evolution, the Commission's core internal organizational structure has always clustered around staffing programs, external recruitment, staff development, the related functions of staffing audit and appeals procedures, training, including language training since 1964, and executive development programs since 1937. Prior to 1967 there were operational units dedicated to pay and benefits research, classification, and a form of program review focused on organization and effective practices in departments. The system of regional and district offices of the Commission originated in 1941 with four offices and it has matured into a network of 14.
Since 1992, the Commission has experienced radical redefinition of its structure and business lines. The Commission is engaged in an on-going process of re-engineering itself into something more akin to a central agency administering an accountability regime of enhanced staffing delegation and ending its traditional role of an independent centralized regulator. Under this renewed regime, public sector managers in operational units of departments will increasingly execute the staffing function with high levels of autonomy under Commission defined guiding principles and circumscribed appeal recourse. The designated statutory head of the Public Service since 1992 is the Clerk of the Privy Council. Consequently, the role of the PSC will increasingly approach that of a "coach" in the staffing and staff development functions, with a continuing but reduced independent reporting role to Parliament. The business lines of the Commission, like its administrative structures, remain in a dynamic period of change.
