Civil service hit by top-level retirements

The federal public service hiring watchdog acknowledges the government is finding it harder to replace senior bureaucrats amid an exodus of retiring civil servants.

Top-level bureaucrats are departing at a rate of about nine per cent a year, said Maria Barrados, president of the Public Service Commission.

Barrados told CBC News that hiring freezes in the 1990s have left a smaller pool inside the public service from which to draw new executives. She said the government will suffer if people are promoted without proper training and supports in place.

"I think what's really important is we don't want to put people in jobs that they can't do, move them up too fast so the individual fails," said Barrados, whose agency oversees the integrity of the civil service's hiring and promotion system.

"Nobody gains. The organization loses," she said.

John McWhinnie worked in the public service for exactly 35 years. Now retired, McWhinnie, a former assistant deputy minister, works as a leadership coach.

He told CBC News that people are being moved up quickly to replace retirees like him.

"It's a risk," he said. "I have seen people promoted ahead of their time, and it causes problems for them and for the organization."

Government plans downsizing

Treasury Board President Stockwell Day, the minister in-charge of the federal bureaucracy, said training and developing the public service will continue, even with looming cuts to departmental budgets.

"We do not see deficiencies there that will be unmanageable," he said. "We have good professional managers there. We have a number of very good mechanisms in place to make sure that programs that need to be delivered will continue to be delivered."

Day said no hiring freeze is planned, but added federal departments will be downsizing and departmental managers will have to decide where to cut.

To contact Julie Ireton about this story or another issue, send an email to Julie.Ireton@cbc.ca