PDF Version

September 12,

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE

The Committee met at 9:00 a.m. in the House of Assembly Chamber.

CHAIR (Bennett): Good morning, everybody.

This is a meeting I am not sure what we have called these yet; we have

called them hearings, meetings of the Public Accounts Committee of the

Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. This matter is dealing with the

Department of Advanced Education and Skills in the College of the North

Atlantic.

My name is Jim Bennett, and I am the Chair. I am going to ask each individual

if they would identify themselves. This hearing is being recorded and there will

be a transcript provided. So it is important for everybody, whenever they speak

the members all know this because we appear regularly, but it is important to

identify yourself when you answer a question. We will have people introduce

themselves, then we swear witnesses, and then we will proceed from there.

Mr. Brazil.

MR. BRAZIL: David Brazil, Vice-Chair.

I want to note, too, if you could note the little light in front of you. When

you identify who you are, wait for the light to come on and then identify who

you are, for the recording process.

MR. K. PARSONS: Kevin Parsons, District of Cape St. Francis.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Christopher Mitchelmore, District of The Straits White

Bay North.

MR. JOYCE: Eddie Joyce, Bay of Islands.

MR. PEACH: Calvin Peach, Bellevue district.

MR. CROSS: Eli Cross, Bonavista North.

MR. PADDON: Terry Paddon, Auditor General for Newfoundland and Labrador.

MR. WALTERS: Scott Walters, from the Office of the Auditor General.

MS RUSSELL: Sandra Russell, Deputy Auditor General.

MR. HUTCHINGS: John Hutchings, Vice-President, Finance, College of the

North Atlantic.

MS VAUGHAN: Ann Marie Vaughan, President, College of the North Atlantic.

MS TAIT: Mary Tait, Executive Director of Human Resources, College of the

North Atlantic.

MS MOREY: Annette Morey, Manager of Internal Audit, College of the North

Atlantic.

MS MURPHY: Elizabeth Murphy, Clerk of the Committee.

CHAIR: Our witnesses are sworn or affirmed as they choose, and Ms Murphy

administers the oath or affirmation.

Swearing of Witnesses

Mr. Walters

Mr. Hutchings

Ms Vaughan

Ms Tait

Ms Morey

CHAIR: In case witnesses are wondering, witnesses who were not sworn were

sworn previously and it is a continual process of the Public Accounts Committee.

The proceeding goes with question and answer. We use ten-minute intervals and

we alternate between whether it would be a government member or an Opposition

member. We typically take a break about an hour-and-a-half in, usually after all

members have had an opportunity to ask questions. Sometimes we go to the Auditor

General for clarification.

We like to provide an opportunity for anybody who is appearing, before we

start any Q and A, to make a statement if they want to make a statement or an

explanation. Sometimes it provides an overall framework. It certainly is not

necessary, but sometimes it helps with context for anybody who either may be

watching or sometimes it answers questions before they are asked in some sort of

an opening statement or explanation. Generally, I go to the Auditor General or

staff to see if they would like to say anything or have any observations.

MR. PADDON: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Terry Paddon, Auditor General. I will just make a couple of brief comments,

not to take up too much of the Committee's time. Again, I just suggest providing

a little bit of context around the report with the College of the North

Atlantic.

The objective of our review was to determine whether compensation and

recruitment practices were in accordance with government and College policies

and procedures, and a little bit of context around that. The College employs

about 2,000 full and part-time employees, I guess, between the Province and

their campus in Qatar.

The scope of our audit, we covered the fiscal years March 31, 2011 and March

31, 2012. We reviewed a sample of recruitment files, twenty-three of those,

eight of which were considered special hires by the College. We reviewed a

sample of sixty-five personnel files. We reviewed classifications for nine

positions and relocation expenses for six employees. We reviewed samples of

employee leave records and overtime forms as well, as part of our review.

I guess in terms of findings not to get into detail because everybody has

read the details of the report, but our findings were centered around a number

of areas. First, around recruitment, we found issues in terms of job analysis,

classification of positions, qualifications that were required for positions and

issues around screening and those sorts of things.

In terms of personnel files, we found issues around signing of contracts by

employees, conflict of interest forms not on file, those types of things. In

terms of leave and overtime, there were issues around leave balances carried

forward incorrectly, overdrawn leave, annual leave and sick leave, those sort of

things. Similarly, on the overtime, there was probably, fair to say, issues

around documentation, information in the files. We found instances where

overtime was overdrawn. People had taken leave when they had not worked the

overtime.

Generally, those were the types of things we found in our audit and that are

contained in our report. I guess, sort of in

summary, kind of issues around

documentation. Some procedural issues that we found led to some of the issues

around leave balances, overdrawing, and those sorts of things.

I will leave it at that.

CHAIR: Ms Vaughan, did you want to make a statement or have any

discussion or introduction?

MS VAUGHAN: Yes, please, Mr. Bennett.

I want to thank you for the invitation to the Public Accounts Committee. We

are very welcome to review the findings of the Auditor General and we really

welcome the participation of the Auditor General in College of the North

Atlantic in the review of our operations.

We are very committed to accountability and transparency, and I hope over the

next number of hours you will come to understand that we have done a

considerable amount of work on the findings since the Auditor General's report.

We are also thinking forward on how we can do preventative actions so this does

not occur again.

With me today because the AG report was primarily focused on Human Resource

practices is Mr. John Hutchings, who is our Vice-President of Finance and

Administration. John has been with the College for some years and also with the

school boards in the Province, and certainly has a good command of the financial

and administrative dealings of the College.

Ms Mary Tait, who is our Executive Director of Human Resources, has newly

come into this position. We have had a change in leadership in Human Resources.

She previously worked as the manager of budgets within the College of the North

Atlantic.

Ms Annette Morey is our Manager of Internal Audits. Annette has really done a

considerable amount of work of ensuring that we have responded to the issues

that have been identified. Internal audit, which has been with the college for

six or seven years now, maybe longer?

MS MOREY: (Inaudible).

MS VAUGHAN: Sorry. Yes, but the reporting relationship presence?

MS MOREY: (Inaudible).

MS VAUGHAN: The Internal Audit Division, being part of the President's

Office, has really proven to have some considerable benefits to the

organization, both on how it reports to the Board of Governors at the College

but also how it works at the President's Office, has taken on a number of issues

in a preventative way for us to understand what is happening in our operation.

Challenges in Human Resources are something that I am quite personally

concerned about. Our HR practices should be objective and they should be

accountable. Good leadership in Human Resources is critical to the organization

and function of the College.

What I hope you will see is that, while we have done some work now, it is a

work in progress for us. We have a way forward on how we want to be able to have

a more accountable and transparent organization and to be able to find internal

audit challenges in our processes before a review takes place externally to the

College.

In the immediate term, we have been working with the Public Service

Commission on a number of these items, but we have also started work towards a

Quality Management System for the College of the North Atlantic to be registered

to an ISO certified framework. This is similar to the Marine Institute, and

Distance Education Learning and Teaching Support at Memorial University. Such a

movement will really put an awful lot of effort on our records management and

documentation, which was certainly a highlight of the Auditor General and this

report.

My deep commitment as the President is not only to address these issues, but

to ensure that our human resource practices and, in fact, all our

administrative practices at the College of the North Atlantic are accountable,

transparent and consistent, regardless of where they take place throughout the

Province.

We look forward to your questions today. I need to advise you that for most

of us it is our first time before Public Accounts, so we may take a couple of

minutes to be able to answer your questions. We have gone through every item to

give you an update as to where we are, and various people will answer the

question depending upon the area that you are asking your question on.

Thank you and we look forward to your questions this morning.

CHAIR: Before we start with Mr. Joyce; Ms Morey, how do you spell your

last name?

MS MOREY: Morey.

CHAIR: Thank you.

Mr. Joyce, would you like to begin, unless anybody has any questions?

Mr. Joyce.

MR. JOYCE: Thank you very much, and I thank everybody for attending.

Some of the questions I am going to ask are some of the things I hear out

around Corner Brook and Stephenville about some of this recruitment. On many

occasions you hear out in Corner Brook and Stephenville: Oh, so-and-so got the

job because they knew somebody. This finding here comes to I am not saying it

is true, but you can see where a lot of people out our way used to always say at

the College of the North Atlantic the recruitment process is who you knows.

I am going to ask this question, I know the answer already. Was there ever

any influence in hiring people? Because obviously there are people here,

according to the Auditor General, who were hired that were not the best

qualified, or there are other times they can go was there ever any influence

in hiring people? Because we hear that all the time out around Corner Brook and

Stephenville, a lot of times it is who you know at the College of the North

Atlantic.

MS VAUGHAN: Mr. Joyce, I am going to pass the details of that response to

Ms Tait and Mr. Hutchings, but I do want to say upfront that I believe this was

the most troublesome finding in the report for me, as President. We would hope

that that is not the case in terms of our hiring.

Both Ms Tait and Mr. Hutchings will talk to you about the steps that we have

taken since the report. I think the best we can do is to ensure that our

processes are so solid that we can refute those rumours or suggestions about the

College and ensure that we are a very transparent and open organization. We have

done very specific steps, and I am going to leave that to Ms Tait and Mr.

Hutchings, then I can jump in as well.

MR. JOYCE: Yes, but before the steps and I am glad the steps are taking

place was there any influence in hiring, because obviously I know people who

applied for positions and other things, but the Auditor General's report now,

you can see that people were hired not through the proper process. Was there

ever any influence put on people to be hired in the College of the North

Atlantic before this report?

MS VAUGHAN: Well, Mr. Joyce, I have been with the College two years now.

It has never been suggested to me that there has ever been any influence in

hiring. Clearly, when people find evidence, as the Auditor General did, we are

quite concerned, but certainly there was never any suggestion to me; although I

am very concerned about the community conversation, as you are obviously

hearing. We need to ensure that our practices are so solid that that

conversation does not happen.

I can tell you I do not know of incidences of where pressure took place to

influence the hiring. However, the Auditor General found some things that we are

quite concerned about, and we have put steps in place. I think the most we can

do here, the things that we have to do, is to ensure to the community that our

processes do not allow that to happen.

One of the examples that Ms Tait and Mr. Hutchings will give you is that all

our administrative hirings are led out of St. John's. Our administrative hirings

are for headquarters in Stephenville. We try to ensure that our recruiters to

the competition are not from the community for which they are hiring, and they

are the selection board chairs. So, by trying to do things like that, at least

the perception of community influence is mitigated.

MR. JOYCE: Who was doing the hiring maybe you will get a chance to

answer prior to when you got the new steps in?

MS TAIT: Previously, all of our recruiters were located at various points

across the Province, and there was no particular determination of who would do

what competition. It would depend on volume. It would depend on the workloads of

the individuals. We did not really have a system that said you are the person

who will only do the administrative hiring's. It really was spread across a

number of the recruiters.

Now we have a different system in place for that. As Ann Marie has pointed

out, our administrative recruitments are done out of the St. John's office, and

the recruitments for various schools are done by specific recruiters. So there

is not just one recruiter that recruits only for Corner Brook, or only for Bay

St. George campus; it really is spread across and divided up that way.

MR. JOYCE: On the record I know what the answer is going to be also. Is

that from your experience there was never any influence on hiring out in the

Stephenville, Corner Brook way. Because there are rumours, I am sure John heard

it, that there are people it is all according to who you know, because the

best qualified was not hired in several of the job competitions. Obviously, the

Auditor General's report shows some of this.

Are you aware of any time that the best person was not qualified for other

reasons than the actual position that they applied for?

MS TAIT: I personally do not know of a situation like that.

MR. JOYCE: Okay, perfect.

On page 32 of the Auditor General's report, Positions not classified, "7 of

the 23 recruitment files reviewed

required classifications to be approved by the Classification and Compensation

Division of the Human Resource Secretariat. Qatar positions are not required

to be classified and instructor positions are classified by the faculty

collective agreement. Our review identified that 3 of the 7 positions were not

classified". Has that been taken care of?

MS TAIT: In each of the three instances identified in the Auditor

General's report, there is work going on, on all three of them.

For the Administrator of Applied Research, I think is one of them, that is

not normally a position that we would have in our College structure. It is one

that is in place because of a particular project we have with NSERC, and that

position we are looking at other models across Canada to put a model together or

to put a job description together for classification. So we are working on that

one.

In the other instances, there were job descriptions in place for campus

administrators. In the past they were called Associate District Administrators,

and in the past those positions sometimes were shared with, for example, the

Chair of Industrial Trades. Today, the workloads of those people have been

divided up and they are two different positions. We are currently working with

our academic team to determine and define specifically those two positions, and

we will have those classified as well.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

I will go to page 34 of the Auditor General's report. These are some of

things that we hear, and I am not saying it is factual or not.

"For 1 competition, 3 candidates were screened out but appeared to meet the

qualifications in the job advertisement and had more experience than the

individual hired. The reason given on the screening worksheet was the applicants

lacked the required experience, however, no explanation was provided on file to

support the reasons given. For example, one applicant had 6 years of similar

experience with a Government agency and 7 years of similar experience in the

private sector, a second applicant had 15 years of similar experience with

Government, and a third applicant had 11 years of similar experience with

Government".

How can this happen? This goes along with the notion out around our way that,

okay, no matter what you have, if you do not know the right person you do not

get in. This is a prime example of how people get screened out who are

well-qualified for the position and I do not know who got this particular

position but people are screened out, they do not even get a chance to get an

interview in the process.

MR. HUTCHINGS: Mr. Joyce, this is the most troublesome, I think, finding

that we received from the Auditor General in this review of the files, because

this is the entire integrity of our College and the system, would be how we

attract and how we screen our competitions. I think it is the one that, as we go

through, we will see that we have done the most work on.

When there is no explanation in the file and written down, whether it is

legitimate or not, we have no way to know after the fact, so we can only

speculate on whether there was favouritism or not favouritism. It is not an easy

one to deal with, however, it is one that we will find we have spent the most

time addressing in here, in terms of ensuring the proper paperwork is done,

people are screened properly, their qualifications are matched to the job, and

later on as each audit is done internally and externally, that we can say for

sure we followed the right processes.

MS VAUGHAN: If I could just elaborate. We have done training with all our

staff. The Public Service Commission is working with all our recruiters. In

fact, they are meeting one on one with each one of our recruiters to give them

feedback in terms of the hiring process.

We have put a lot of training and oversight into this with our recruiters to

ensure they understand their role as selection board chair, and to have a lot of

guidance from the Public Service Commission, as well as feedback, as to how we

engage in this part of our process, which as Mr. Hutchings has said. For me as

well, as President, the other items we will discuss are process issues that we

certainly have to address and have addressed. This one is very troublesome for

us, and it is one that we have taken numerous steps to correct.

MR. JOYCE: Did anybody take the time to go back and ask the person who

did this, why it was done?

MS MOREY: In some of the instances, the HR department has gone through a

restructuring as well. So a lot of the former managers who were responsible for

some of these competitions are no longer with the organization. The ability to

go back and question why

MR. JOYCE: Is there an ability to go back and see who actually signed

this here? I just want to read into the record and I hear this, by the way. I

am not saying it has not changed, and God bless you if you get it changed, but

over in Corner Brook and Stephenville you hear it all the time. I want to read

this for the record, and the same position we were just talking about.

"This screening process resulted in only 2 applicants being interviewed for

the position. One of the applicants interviewed had 21 years experience at a

Government agency, however, the applicant was not scored in the assessment

matrix. The document noted the applicant was not ranked but no explanation was

provided to support why the applicant was not scored. The hired candidate was a

current employee of the College with 5 years experience."

People who had more experience never got an interview. Someone who had

twenty-one years experience got written off the list and someone in the system

with less experience just took it and moved on up. Can you see why there is so

much scepticism?

There has to be someone in the College and I do not mean to harp on this

kind of thing. There has to be someone there to say: Well, here is who did this.

There has to be someone. You cannot just say: Oh well, everybody has moved on

now. There has to be someone who did it. There has to be someone who actually

signed off on it and there has to be someone to say, here is the reason why.

There has to be something on file for that. There just has to be.

MS VAUGHAN: Mr. Joyce, those individuals no longer work with the College

of the North Atlantic. So the recruiter involved in some of these hires no

longer is with the College.

MR. JOYCE: The recruiter, but was there a supervisor who approved it? I

am sure a recruiter just makes the recommendations to somebody. Some manager had

to approve this.

MS VAUGHAN: One of our challenges is that we have done a restructuring,

so most of the managers are no longer with the organization. The recruiter here

is no longer with the organization, and the Executive Director of Human

Resources is no longer with the organization.

MR. JOYCE: Is the person who signed this off, the manager, not with the

College of the North Atlantic now? There has to be someone who approved this.

MS VAUGHAN: Yes.

MS TAIT: I cannot answer that question. What I would like to do is go

back and have a look at that file, look at the signatures on it, and then I can

answer you honestly. I would think they are not, but specifically, we will look

at that particular competition.

MR. JOYCE: Can you get back to

MS VAUGHAN: Absolutely.

MS TAIT: Yes.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

CHAIR: Let's move on to Mr. Brazil. You notice I went a little longer

than ten minutes because we were involved in a particular subject. Rather than

cut it up and go back and forth, back and forth, have a disjointed transcript,

it is better for any particular member to finish an area and then move on to the

next area.

Mr. Brazil, please.

MR. BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Ms Vaughan and the delegation from the College of the North

Atlantic.

Unlike my Committee colleague, I do not worry about hearsay, and in this case

I do not even worry too much about what has previously gone on. We are at this

point because the Auditor General has identified a concern.

MR. JOYCE: Mr. Brazil, I do not appreciate your comments of hearsay

because it is backed up by the Auditor General in this position particularly.

Please do not say it is hearsay because it is backed up by the Auditor General's

report and we are going to get information on this. So this is not hearsay.

CHAIR: We do not observe strict rules of evidence. Hearsay is a legal

term which means it is not the actual witness who is saying it who saw it. We do

not object to hearsay evidence one way or the other. We are trying to look for a

more complete file. It is not cross examination. Hearsay is no problem. It means

someone heard someone else say. If it looks like it is not very reliable then

the panel probably would not pay much attention to it, but if it looks like it

is reliable but not supported then we may need to go back. As Ms Tait said, she

would like to go back and check the file and see exactly what the details are.

So, I do not see any sort of an issue there.

Mr. Brazil, we will extend your time to make sure you do not lose it.

MR. BRAZIL: Yes, it is his words, not mine.

Outside of that, I want to look at the fact of, on a go-forward basis,

because we have already identified there were some concerns from the Auditor

General's point of view. Legitimately, the questions that were put forward and

sent to Ms Vaughan to be answered by the Committee that were drafted are very

relevant to the concerns the Auditor had. I am pleased after reviewing these

that you have identified a number of, if not all, the concerns that were

identified and the practices that you would put in place.

What I would like to know, and I think would clarify for everybody, take me

through the new process, not the old process. We cannot change the old process.

We can implement something that addresses the transparency, the accountability,

and the consistency. That is the important issues I would want identified so

that when we do a review in two years from the Auditor General's point of view,

that everything has been covered off and we do not run into these situations.

Take me from a recruitment process now, being advertising, identifying there

is a position, to screening the applications and that, to the interviewing

process of scoring, to offering the contracts and the classification. Can

somebody take me through that so I am more familiar of where we are, with what

you have outlined in the new process, please?

MS VAUGHAN: Mr. Brazil, we cannot only do that, we have done a sample

test of our own records prior to coming in here today. We have actually done a

sample test of records to make sure that processes we have put in place are

being followed.

I will ask Mary and Annette to comment, but they will comment both on the

process and also comment on our own internal review of those processes now six

months after the report.

MS TAIT: First, let me speak a little bit about the process and how

things have changed. One of the very important pieces that has been placed in

the College is we have hired a Director of Talent Acquisition who oversees all

of the recruitment. All the recruiters report through to that position. That

individual is wholly responsible to make sure that the policies and procedures

as outlined are carried out. So that is number one, which was different than we

had previously.

Number two; there have been a number of training sessions and regular

on-going meetings with recruiters to deal with issues that come up, to ensure

that we have consistency across the Province in our application. The process of

hiring has not changed in terms of the Public Service Commission process. We are

committed to that. That has always been the case. Now what we are doing is

emphasizing, making sure we have the process nailed down, everybody is clear. If

there is any question it always comes back to our director and then to me, and I

believe that has worked very well.

As Ann Marie has pointed out, we have just before this session today, in the

last couple of days we went back and looked at the number of competitions that

have been in place since April 1. We have seventy-nine files. Out of that, we

took a random sample of eleven. In every one of those everything is in place the

way that it should be, and we very comfortable that our process is working.

MR. BRAZIL: What timeframe are we talking since you have implanted, since

February or March on, or are we talking March 31 on?

MS TAIT: Since February, I can speak about that piece. In February we had

a fairly stringent and I was not in this role at that time, but in February

there was a learning session, training session put on with all of the

recruiters, and all of these things that were identified in the Auditor

General's report were laid out at that time. The competitions we looked at are

the ones we have done since April 1, because the Auditor General's report covers

everything up to the end of March of 2012.

MR. BRAZIL: Okay, perfect.

Just take me through the process where you would start, so I am comfortable

that everything flows. I am familiar with the Public Service Commission's

process, being a former civil servant, but just so that I know everything flows

and if there are any inconsistencies, than I may have a query about that.

MS TAIT: I will do the best that I can and then I will ask my colleague,

John, to jump in if I miss something along the way. Basically, we identify a

need for an individual in the organization, whether it is a temporary

appointment, somebody we want to bring in on project, or it is a permanent

appointment. If it is a permanent appointment, normally we would have job

descriptions developed for that. Ads would be developed in line with the job

description.

The manager who is requesting that position be filled would be part of the

selection board that works with the recruiter, who is the Public Service

Commission Certified Chair, and oftentimes there might be a technical advisor

with that group. Normally, it is two to three people who would be part of that

process.

We would advertise, normally internally if it happens to be a position that

needs to go internally, and most of them do. We would advertise internally for a

period of time, probably a week or more, and then applicants would be screened,

interviews would be set up, and on the basis of those interviews then the

recruiter would guide that process. The matrix would be done; the file would be

properly documented with everything that should go in there, confidentiality

statements and all these different things.

Once that process is complete and the interviews have happened, we would

select, if we have three recommendable and qualified candidates in the file, we

would put forward three names to the Executive Director's position to approve

hiring of the top recommended candidate; or, if we are dealing with bargaining

unit employees and there is another layer that has to be considered in there,

there would be a secondary evaluation about whether it would be the top

candidate.

Does that answer your question?

MR. BRAZIL: Yes. One of the noted issues here, which may be coming back

from my public service background, it was not a big issue, internally for

checking references. If it is an internal position somebody

MS TAIT: Oh, I am sorry. Yes, I should have

MR. BRAZIL: Yes, somebody is in there that the Auditor General had noted

you only checked one in a lot of cases internally. I do not see it as a big

issue if it is somebody working within the confines of the organization, who you

are aware of their background, but have you changed that to follow up reference

check?

MS TAIT: We do want at least two references completed on every candidate.

On the rare occasion it will happen that we will only be able to do one because

it could be a long-term employee with the College whose supervisor is part of

the competition process, who is part of the selection board. So it might be

difficult to find a second person to do a reference check, but, yes, we are

committed to that. We have steps in place to make sure that the references are

included on the file. The Selection Board Report refers to those references that

they have been done, and so on.

MR. BRAZIL: Okay, perfect.

Mr. Chair, I am good with that. I may come back after some discussions from

my colleagues here but right now I am confident the information I have here

gives me a good idea as to where this organization is going in addressing the

concerns of the Auditor General.

Thank you.

CHAIR: Mr. Mitchelmore.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to know, there was some talk of HR being restructured, this

restructuring that had taken place, was it before, after, or during the Auditor

General's investigation?

MS VAUGHAN: Before and during; this was a structure that was in place

before I arrived and it was being carried out during the review of the Auditor

General.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Okay.

What restructuring had actually taken place prior to the Auditor General's

investigation?

MS VAUGHAN: It was an organizational design. The design model was done to

make the shift to a new model. That was being progressively put through during

my last couple of years with the College.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Can the Committee have a copy of this organizational

design that was put forward?

MS VAUGHAN: Sure. It was a report that was done by (inaudible). The

design work was done by an external firm. We can certainly get a copy of that

report for you.

MR. MITCHELMORE: That would be great.

In your response to Mr. Bennett's questions as Chair of the Public Accounts,

a letter that you had written on June 28, response number three references the

Executive Director of Human Resources held a teleconference on February 6, 2013.

I would like to question as to who was present on this teleconference of

February 6, 2013.

MS MOREY: Based on the notations I have, it says it was held with the

group, and normally that would be the talent acquisition team. So there would be

about six individuals, plus the Director of Talent Acquisition and the Executive

Director of HR.

MR. MITCHELMORE: The Executive Director of HR would be the most senior

person present?

MS MOREY: That person would be the most senior, yes.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Is it possible to get a list of who was actually on this

talent acquisition team?

MS MOREY: Yes.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Given the seriousness of all the problems that were

uncovered in the Auditor General's report, is there a transcript from this

meeting that can be provided to the Committee?

MS MOREY: I would have to check, I do not know for sure.

MS VAUGHAN: We would have to check and see if there were minutes from the

meeting, but we would not normally have transcripts for meetings that we would

have.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Right. Would there be minutes or notes that would have

been provided? Given the seriousness of it, would you, as the President and CEO

of the College of the North Atlantic, receive some form of

summary or update

from the Executive Director of HR that this meeting had taken place and to

provide you with the changes that were actually happening in this file?

MS VAUGHAN: What I can tell you, Mr. Mitchelmore, is as soon as I receive

the report even before we responded to the draft results I had a meeting with

the Executive Director of Human Resources, instructed him to deal with the

matters. I have checked in regularly to see what the status of the work would

be, and most of those reports would have been verbal reports to me during the

time. I viewed my role as oversight but also to ensure the work was happening.

We met in preparation for this, but we have also met infrequently over the

last number of months to make sure the work was happening. It was a priority out

of my office. It was a priority and a direction from me to the head of Human

Resources to deal with this matter.

It was identified that training was the first place to go, as well as begin

to look at documentation and where errors or items that were missing in

documentation, how we could do corrective action around that. It was a

combination of both process design, looking to see that our processes were valid

and carried out, and also training for all of our staff to make sure our

selection board chairs, in particular, and recruiters are abiding within the

rules and guidelines of the Public Service Commission.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Your response includes that primarily the meetings or

the information that transpired was done in a verbal manner. To me, that lacks

accountability and a paper trail on a very important and serious matter.

Are there actual documents that would have transpired from the February 6

meeting where there would have been a report or information via e-mail or notes

submitted to you, as the President, that the Committee could have access to?

MS VAUGHAN: We can look for the reports that were coming from the

meeting, if there were any. I can tell you, Mr. Mitchelmore, my focus has been

on ensuring that the results are carried out. This has been top of mind for me

in all the meetings that I have had within the leadership team. It is ensuring

things that are done, such as audits preparing for this meeting, that we are not

just saying we are doing the processes, but eleven files have been verified to

be carrying out the process.

So it is not just a combination of verbal between myself and Human Resources,

I want to see the evidence, as the head of the organization, that the processes

are actually carried out. For me, that has to go beyond the meetings. It is the

responses we have given to you, plus the follow up audits we have done, that

provide me with the evidence that the actual changes and process are working.

MR. MITCHELMORE: How many meetings have you had with the Minister of

Advanced Education and Skills on this particular matter and the findings of the

Auditor General's report?

MS VAUGHAN: I would have to go through my records on that. I can tell you

the department will be coming in to review our files themselves to ensure that

we are following this practice. We have set the processes in place. We have done

our own internal audit.

The Department of Advanced Education and Skills intends to come in to ensure

that we are following these processes well. We have also discussed it with our

Board of Governors. There has been considerable conversation at the leadership

level in the College to ensure we are addressing the items that were addressed

by the Auditor General.

MR. MITCHELMORE: What directives were given to you by the Minister of

Advanced Education and Skills to ensure that these matters are taken care of?

MS VAUGHAN: We have a letter that came directly to us from the Department

of Advanced Education and Skills outlining how they were going to measure the

accountability of the College to ensure that the changes were made in the

processes. We can provide you with a copy of that letter.

MR. MITCHELMORE: That would be great.

Are there additional costs that have been associated or resources provided to

the College in particular to deal with this audit, given the financial position

of the College in the financial statements that were provided in the report,

which highlights significant liabilities in the operating budgets of the College

of the North Atlantic? What are the costs associated with dealing with this

matter?

MR. HUTCHINGS: This would fall into the realm of normal operation at the

College, in terms of managing our Human Resources department and reviewing

policies and procedures.

I will take this opportunity, I think, to jump in and talk about some of the

processes and documentation you were asking for earlier. We have revised our

procedures and they are written down. They have been circulated. Those

procedures will include direction on how to follow the competition and check off

lists for files. So there is a checklist that says I have completed the

screening matrix and so on. So each of the files now has a checklist to ensure

it is in place.

So there is new documentation, and we have also created what are called

process maps, which will guide people through the processes and ensure that

along the way they follow the steps such as develop the list of questions and

develop the list of answers. As we go through the report, we see many places

where documentation is missing. That is written down and documented, and those

things are on file. We use that documentation to measure how well the recruiters

have done and the competition team has done on each file.

So when you ask about documentation, yes, the kickoff meeting February 14 was

the meeting that started this documentation process and we have created a

tremendous number of documents since then. That is one of the accountability

measures that have been put in place.

MR. MITCHELMORE: On page 51

CHAIR: Mr. Mitchelmore, before you go on to page 51, we should move on to

Mr. Parsons. Before we do that, you asked for, I think, two things and I am

unclear as to what it was. You asked for two paper-trail related documents?

MR. MITCHELMORE: Yes, I asked for a transcript, notes, or minutes from

the meeting that transpired on February 6 between the Executive Director of

Human Resources and the Talent Acquisition team, and also documentation that

would have occurred between the president during that time, written

documentation surrounding that matter, whether it is a report presented through

the executive director or HR on that particular matter. I believe the president

had also agreed to provide the letter that the Minister of Advanced Education

and Skills had outlined, the directives to fix things that the Auditor General

had outlined.

CHAIR: Okay.

Is that correct?

MS VAUGHAN: Yes, and I have been itemizing your requests.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Thank you.

CHAIR: Okay, thank you very much.

Mr. Parsons.

MR. K. PARSONS: Thank you very much.

Good morning, everybody. It is nice to see you all here.

I have to say that this is probably my fourth year, I think, on Public

Accounts and a number of meetings we have had. I have to commend the College,

because I think of all the responses I have seen lately, for someone being

really proactive on what the Auditor General has reported, you guys have done a

fantastic job with your responses and stuff like that.

I just want to go through a few things with you guys this morning. I know how

difficult it is in Newfoundland in particular, the changing times. I went to the

College of the North Atlantic and did an electronics degree in the 1970s, so

things, I would imagine, have changed a lot since then.

Just to go back, perhaps you can explain to us I mean, there are a lot of

changes that have happened at the College in the last number of years, and how

difficult it must be when you have employees there at the College who have been

there for a long period of time and all of a sudden the courses, or whatever

they offer, are not what the demand is out in the general public.

It must be difficult for you guys in recruiting and trying to I know the

guys who taught me over there were excellent, and it is a job sometimes. I know

Mr. Joyce talked to you about people with experience and the person who really

got the job was a current employee. I know there must be some loyalty from the

College to your employees right now. To see the changes that have been made and

the demands that are out there today, can you just talk a little bit about what

you are doing over there in terms of changes to what is required in the

workforce today? It must be difficult.

I know different courses over there with I am not sure what is not

available any more but when I went there, there was a lot of sheet metal

courses, a lot of autobody courses and stuff like that, so it must be kind of

difficult to keep employees who are there for a number of years. What do you do

with your current employees?

MS TAIT: There are number of things that happen. Obviously, one of the

things we would hope to be able to do is where we have needs for training in

areas that can use the skills of some of the faculty that might be displaced,

then that is a real opportunity for us. If we can make that happen, we do. Not

only do we want to make it happen as a College, but under the collective

agreement for faculty that is an absolute. We have to do that.

We have a couple of different challenges right now. Number one is the number

of faculty, yes, that we have had to see go out of the organization because the

programs are no longer there, but we also have had the opportunity to bring a

number of them back on a temporary capacity for things that we are able to do

that respond to the demands of the labour market today.

We have a big added challenge in trying to recruit faculty with the skill set

we need today, and the trades' environment is probably our biggest challenge

right now. The trades and the medical sciences environment, those two are big

challenges for us. So, we have a lot of challenges trying to recruit faculty.

MR. K. PARSONS: Are there a lot of challenges also in getting people I

know that I had a constituent of mine who was concerned about a heavy equipment

operator and there was a real difficulty, apparently, in getting someone to

teach the course.

I guess in the trades today where the money is out there in the Long Harbours

and the Bull Arms of the world, how difficult it must be to get qualified people

in for the trades to teach a course. Is that a huge issue?

MS TAIT: That is.

MS VAUGHAN: It is a very difficult issue for us in terms of the public

salaries that we can provide versus, in many times, what people can command in

the marketplace, privately. It becomes challenging as well based on location.

Some of our locations are away from the more industrialized projects that are

happening right now, so that becomes a challenge for us as well.

We are doing some really interesting and, I believe, cost-effective ways so

that we can bring programs into communities. We are using new technologies. We

are using one campus to teach a program at another, as opposed to having to

mount all the costs associated with the delivery at the other campus. One

example of that is in Stephenville Crossing and the offer of heavy duty

equipment training to Labrador West, we did that through video conferencing,

SMART Boards. We also worked with the industry in the area to be able to do the

hands-on training that was required.

We are doing a lot more new ways of delivery that are responsive to the

students and the local student market in the area, as well as the industrial

needs in that area, and at the same time being cost effective. The piece of work

that we did is out to win an international award. So, that is great for us, and

all the students who participated were successful in the apprenticeship exam.

It is not just the new ways of delivery; it is also how we measure that to

ensure that our students are successful and it is a more cost-effective way for

us to bring in skilled programs into a region and train people within that

region so they can take up employment opportunities within that region. We are

trying as much to take advantage of the seventeen campuses and to be able to

allow for that expertise to be passed from one campus to another.

MR. K. PARSONS: Okay.

There must be a lot of difficultly also I have a few young constituents of

mine who are in different blocks in electrical and different things like this,

and they find it very difficult to get in. They worked all summer and no matter

if it was in Fort McMurray or it could be in Long Harbour or some place like

that, coming back to get a block that is offered in September and then they

realize that they are not in until January's block. So they are left a period of

time that are there any steps to be made, especially in the trades areas where

there is such a high demand, especially when we look at electricians and stuff

like that, out in these areas to advance any of these blocks so we can offer

different programs or more programs?

MS VAUGHAN: I can tell you the work we have made on the direct entry in

terms of the initial entry. We have taken all our wait-lists at the College of

the North Atlantic and made it a provincial wait-list. We have called students,

they may have applied to one campus we will make them aware of vacancy or

openings at other campuses so they do not have to wait that long for a program.

Many of our students would apply to a campus, not to the College itself. We are

doing a lot of work to move all that to provincial based, and we have seen some

significant results from that.

The other matter you were talking about was apprenticeship based, which is

and I will let John and Mary comment on that and how those apprenticeship

programs are mounted.

MR. BRAZIL: Okay.

MR. HUTCHINGS: What we have done is increased the number of blocks

available on the entry level and the apprenticeship level. Again, a couple of

challenges are finding people to teach these blocks because our wages are not

competitive with Alberta. People can work in Alberta for six months and make

quite a significant amount more money than they can in the Province. Our biggest

challenge is finding the people to teach them, and also the space. The demand

seems to be all in one area, mostly on the Avalon. Space is a limitation and

budget is a limitation. So we have maximized our programs.

I think in Seal Cove we put in four sections of electrical extra. We are

increasing the sections to match the demand; however, it seems to be an almost

unlimited demand. Electrical is a great example. Our wait-list has varied

between 400 and 700 people. We have had how many blocks? I am going to ask the

question to our colleagues. How many blocks have we added in electrical?

MS TAIT: We have added four in the Seal Cove area. I believe we have

added in St. Anthony, that is a I am not 100 per cent sure of all of them, but

we really have increased the offerings right across.

MS VAUGHAN: We can certainly get you that data. We are running it this

week.

MR. K. PARSONS: I understand the challenges you guys have there with

like I said, since I went to College there are a lot of changes and demand for a

skilled employee, especially in the trades.

Getting back to the Auditor General's report, I have a quick question there

on letters of conduct. I volunteered at the YMCA, and any place that you

volunteer, it is almost a given that in any organization you would have to have

a letter of conduct. How did this happen that there were so many cases that the

letter of conduct was not required?

MS TAIT: At this point, I cannot tell you exactly the timing of when we

instituted the letter of conduct but there are different levels of requirement.

In some instances we absolutely need the letter of conduct because of the type

of profession or training that the individuals are going in. In those cases we

have contracted with a firm to actually do that for us, to make sure that does

happen.

In the other instances, colleagues have been with us a long time and it might

just be part of it is just getting files updated and making sure that those

things are on file.

MR. K. PARSONS: Okay.

Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: Mr. Joyce.

MR. JOYCE: Thank you.

I am just going to ask some general questions. On top of page 33 of the

Auditor General's report, about two positions being classified in 1998, the

Campus Administrator and Dean. Has that been taken care of, or was there a

submission for reclassification put in to government for those two positions?

MS TAIT: These are the two that we talked about earlier. These were

previously the Associate District Administrator and the Chair of Trades. Today,

those are two different individual positions. Earlier on they formed part of

one.

We are working now with the academic group, and work is underway, to define

what the specific job description should be for a Campus Administrator and then

a specific job description for the Dean of Industrial Trades. So, yes, the

answer is we are working on that and hoping to get it off for classification in

the near future.

MR. JOYCE: Then the next one, Minimum qualifications, it says here that

the Bachelor degrees or Masters, "College officials indicated that permission

was obtained from the respective profession's accrediting organization to change

the minimum qualifications due to the hard-to-fill nature of the position,

however, documentation of the approval was not provided."

Do you have that documentation now where permission was granted?

MS TAIT: We had another look at that situation. What really needs to

happen is the dean of the respective area needs to give their approval, and that

does happen. It happens through, not some formal document but rather an e-mail

coming back and forth, or minutes from a meeting where it was approved.

I would defer to Annette Morey, because she was doing some work on that

looking at the documentation. Annette, do you have anything to

MS MOREY: No, other than there were examples of documentation where there

was communication going back and forth between the Selection Board chair or the

recruiter and the particular dean in that area where they were talking about the

skill sets and whether or not they were acceptable.

MR. JOYCE: I will just ask the Auditor General: For approval for that,

should you have to go back to the department? You are saying in your report

here, documentation for approval was not given from the accredited

organizations. Should that be done internally or should you go to the board?

MR. PADDON: All we can go by is the information that was provided or the

suggestion that it required our understanding from employees at the College

was that they required the approval of the organization or the governing body of

the group you are recruiting for. If that was different, then that would be

different information now, but at that point in time it was our understanding

that they required the approval of the governing body.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

MS VAUGHAN: (Inaudible) who is responsible for the accreditation for the

College. So it is true, it would be to ensure it fits the accreditation. The

dean is the person on record for the College who is responsible for the

accreditation of all our programs, and we are accredited by various accrediting

agencies.

MR. JOYCE: When the qualifications were changed for these positions, did

it go back publicly again that the qualifications have changed?

MR. HUTCHINGS: We took some time to research that particular item and it

related to tradespeople. For instance, there are different ways a tradesperson

can get a Red Seal. You can come through our system, be trained at the College,

write your exams, and get a Red Seal. That would have been our minimum

qualification. However, what we found nationally is that there are other ways to

get your Red Seal. You can get it through a challenge.

When we wrote in our minimum qualifications you had to have an apprenticeship

program through the College, we were excluding a significant number of

instructors who had a Red Seal. So we went back and revised the qualifications

and said: We do not care how you get your Red Seal, if you are certified we will

hire you. That is the change in the certification we were mentioning here that

you would hear.

It was reasonable for us to go with the marketplace. We polled other

colleges. They were doing the same thing and it was: if you have reached the

standard, we will accept that standard. We had specified the route, which was

eliminating some people from applying. So we thought it was a good thing we were

doing.

MR. JOYCE: When you changed the policy, like you said, did you put it

back out in the public, advertised publicly saying we have changed this policy?

MR. HUTCHINGS: Yes.

MS TAIT: If I could just probably add a couple of other points to John's

comments. He is right. This is exactly the type of thing that ends up happening

when we look at our difficulties in trying to recruit faculty; however, in the

particular case that we are talking about now, and John is referring to, we were

faced with a number of candidates who did have the experience, who had the red

seal, but did not have that nine-month program at the College. Then, we

researched the activities, the way things are done across Canada, and we seemed

to be out of sync with the rest of the jurisdiction.

In that case, what happens is that we look at the immediate need today. We

convened a meeting of the academic group that makes the decisions and provides

advice to us on minimum qualifications. The decision at that point was, for

people who have the experience and who have the red seal, we have vacancies in

the classroom right now. We took whoever was qualified that we could put into

our trades programs and we were still short.

The next time that the advertisements go out to recruit trades faculty, that

qualification will be clear. We will not be looking for that certificate from

the College.

MR. JOYCE: Okay. Thank you.

I will just go on to page 35 and then I will just ask for clarification. The

government staffing manual says that "questions should include preferred answers

that support job analysis. Our review identified that 9 competition files did

not include the preferred answers to the questions asked during the interview

process."

Has that been taken care of now?

MS TAIT: Yes, it has.

MR. JOYCE: Perfect.

MS TAIT: All of our questions now that are developed have some

suggestions of the answers we would expect. In some cases, the answers are very

technical, very specific, and we look for that answer. In other cases, they are

very open-ended and we expect certain types of things to come through, but we

would not be able to determine exactly what we want a person to say.

MR. JOYCE: The same thing with the next one, with the matrix system: two

competitions, the matrix system was not prepared; the form was not signed. Are

most of those things taken care of now?

MS TAIT: That is absolutely taken care of.

That was always considered a very important piece of the competition process.

In some cases it fell by the wayside, but is very much high on our priority we

have an evaluation system now that a second evaluation system looks at the

competition file just to make sure all the pieces are in place. We are very

concerned to make sure that is done.

MR. JOYCE: I will just go to delays in competition, the next one there.

It says, "Furthermore, changing the requirements for a position after the

receipt of qualified applicants, may affect the perception of fairness and

objectivity of the competition process."

Can you tell me what that position was?

MS TAIT: I am going to ask Mr. Hutchings if he would respond to that,

please.

MR. HUTCHINGS: Actually, we were looking for a replacement for our

Director of Finance who had indicated he would be retiring. At the same time, we

were assessing the strength of the qualifications and credentials in our College

to make sure that we had the proper people in the Finance Division who would be

able to ensure that all of the policies and procedures would be carried out

within the College and meet the requirements of the Auditor General and others.

We did change the qualifications partway through the competition and

eventually cancelled the competition.

MR. JOYCE: It was not filled?

MR. HUTCHINGS: It was not filled. No, it was not.

MR. JOYCE: I think it was brought up earlier by my colleague about the

conflict of interest no, it was the form on conduct. Here on the bottom of

that page, "4 of the 5 competition files that had candidates recommended, other

than the top ranked candidate, did not have any reference forms or

documentation"

Is that taken care of now where reference forms will be included in the

application? It is on page 36. It was just that the "candidates recommended,

other than the top ranked candidate, did not have any reference forms or

documentation that a reference check was made for the recommended candidates."

MS TAIT: Yes, that process is in place.

MR. JOYCE: How long was that going without having to check people's

references?

MS TAIT: Well, it is not that people's references were not checked. In

many instances, we did not have three top recommended candidates to do reference

checks on; but if there were recommended candidates in a file, the practice was

to do reference checks on your two top recommended candidates.

In some cases that might not have happened, but it should have, and now it is

happening.

MR. JOYCE: Okay, perfect.

CHAIR: Mr. Joyce, let's move on to Mr. Cross.

MR. JOYCE: Sure.

MR. CROSS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In looking at it and I just want to reiterate probably a couple of comments

that some of my colleagues have made of the responses that your office has sent

with regard to the AG's recommendations and the thoroughness of some of it

there, that it sort of makes this job a little easier, since you read through

that. At the same amount of time, you trust what you are reading, but you still

want to sort of query a little bit.

When the AG makes recommendations for anything happening in your

organization, it is how you respond and how you wrap yourself around that is

what the true evaluation of your organization is. Eventually, the AG is going to

come back and re-evaluate it. That is when the true test is going to be.

We can ask whatever questions we want today, it sort of gives us a synopsis

or a picture, but I guess when that comes so what I did is I just picked two

or three examples of areas where I might have had an extra query, and I know a

couple of my colleagues from both sides of the House have touched on a couple of

them.

I want to go to the paper trail, really, with regard to hiring. In my past, I

was part of an HR team at one of the school boards as a principal, part of a

school board team for hiring. We went through a whole pile of criticisms because

we did not have the actual papers in place to prove we were doing things in the

hiring, when all of this is in so currently right now, what I hear is that the

interview matrix and you have created rubrics for these to follow, so in this

case you have sort of tightened that up, adjusted it such that it is pretty

transparent that the most deserving or most qualified person is going to inherit

the job.

How are these records kept now? In a future position or if someone else comes

to a team, how would they get the training or the work that you do for this? The

team, the actual resource team that hires, how would you

MS TAIT: If we hired a new recruiter, do you mean? Is that your question?

MR. CROSS: Yes. So sometimes it is okay when you are hiring instructors

and whatever

MS TAIT: Sure.

MR. CROSS: but when you are putting the recruiters in place, what

procedure do you go for these?

MS TAIT: If we were hiring a recruiter, the first thing we would have to

do is make sure that they are qualified and trained under the Public Service

Commission. They have to be a certified Chair in order to Chair selection

committees of the College. So, that would be the first thing.

Again, we do have a Director of Talent Acquisition who has been hired in the

College and is responsible for that team. That individual would make sure that

this person, this new recruiter that we are hiring, is fully trained and aware

and part of the group, is sitting in on meetings with the rest of the

recruiters. I would suspect, although I cannot say that for sure she is not

here for me to ask today but knowing Corinne Napier, she would be aligning

that individual with the current recruiter that we have so that there is a

mentor, there is somebody to talk to.

That is something that Corinne and I have talked quite a bit about in terms

of how we make sure that our records are pristine from here on in. We want to

make sure that every single thing that is supposed to be done is done.

MR. CROSS: Okay. Thanks.

A totally different topic, I am jumping to relocation expenses on page 42,

and it is just to sort of get a sampling of all three areas. The comment was

made here, in travel claims on the bottom of page 42, if you have the book, that

certain things were included by a person who had made claims for relocation that

were not allowed. Then in another case, on the next page, page 43, it referred

to someone who had relocated and they could actually claim for family members,

but they did not claim for them. In both cases, how have you tightened up this

whole picture around relocation expenses?

MS TAIT: I will speak to the second one, and then I will ask John to

respond to the first case.

The second one, we went back and had another look, did the audit trail again

on this and looked at the invoicing, the claim from the employee, because that

was very troubling to us. We wanted to make sure we did pay the employee

whatever they were entitled to do.

Having a look at it and searching down the through the records, what appears

to have happened is that the invoicing was a bit unclear. The employee was not

entitled to another $711 because they did not have to pay it, and we went back

and double-checked with the employee. The spouse and child both travelled for

the $711. It was not two separate amounts. That has been done. We have

documentation and a response back from the employee confirming they did not put

out of pocket any more than what they were reimbursed.

MR. CROSS: Okay. I guess what I wanted to hear is there is a procedure in

place that checks in both directions.

MS TAIT: Oh, absolutely. Yes, we do.

MR. CROSS: Okay.

My third quick area of concern is on page 48 with the overtime. I just read

through this, and I can see how it probably happened. There were two employees

of the same name and one actually was benefitted in their account time off in

lieu of overtime; the other person actually took it.

The first question in your mind you ask is: How would someone take something

that belonged to someone else and use it? At the same point, it took twenty-one

months to detect it and whatever. What is in place now that again, these

internal mechanisms will not drag on for twenty-one months and not be seen? I do

not really know if that is a fair question.

MS TAIT: No, it is a fair question. In that particular instance, I do not

think there was any malicious intent on the employee who actually took the time.

People try to manage their time but they really do lose track of it, and they

just fill the form in and send it on.

On the other side, in a manual system of tracking with just the paper

documents, it is easy to get behind. It is easy to not get things straightened

out as fast as we would like. We have been working on an electronic system for

quite some time now, and it is the Time and Labour and Absence Management. We

are very close to having Time and Labour completed, and that will really help us

an awful lot in tracking time and being able to make sure that we have accurate

records up to date.

MR. CROSS: Okay, thanks.

I will defer now to another member, but I reserve to come back if something

tweaks me as we go along.

Thanks.

CHAIR: Mr. Mitchelmore.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Thank you.

I would like to ask about the firm that was contracted for the Code of

Conduct forms. Is it possible to name the firm, and if it went through a public

tendering process for the services provided?

I believe it was mentioned by Annette when Mr. Parsons had made questions

that a firm had been contracted to do the Code of Conduct.

MS MOREY: Do you know the page number it is on?

WITNESS: Page 39.

MS MOREY: Page 39, because I think I have that here. Provincial

Investigative Services is the name of the company. In terms of tendering, I do

not know the answer to that question. I would have to find out.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Okay. Was there any type of analysis to determine that

this was more effective than trying to do it internally with the resources that

exist?

MS MOREY: If I understand correctly, the issue was to ensure that we

received the certificates of conduct. This is the way that it was happening, so

it was no longer left to the employee.

What normally happens, if I understand the procedure right, is that once a

candidate is selected that name is passed on to this Provincial Investigative

Services. They contact the employee who makes payment to them. They get the

certificate of conduct, and then it comes over to us. It really shortened the

amount of time in terms of relation of receiving the documents and ensuring that

we did get them.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Okay.

On page 42, Mr. Cross had just talked about relocation expenses. It says in

the Auditor General's report there was $137,989 for six employees. Do you have a

total of the relocation expenses for the overall employees during the 2011 and

2012 fiscal year? Is that something that can be provided?

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

MR. MITCHELMORE: Right.

Also, if that is possible, I would like a report to the Committee of the

relocation expenses for the current year as well, to date.

On page 51 now I finally get the chance to get here this is in response

to reference forms not on file. The response by the College states, "When

considering existing College employees who have been identified as recommended

candidates for a competition it is College practice not to conduct reference

checks provided the recruitment for the positions were within a reasonable

period of time."

Can you define what a reasonable period of time is, and does this comply with

the legislation of the College Act or the Public Service Commission Act, which

the College is supposed to be complying with?

MS TAIT: I know what the response is. I am reading the response, and

again, I am new into this position.

In my view, there would be very few circumstances where we would not do

another reference check, very few circumstances; but, one that might work, that

might apply here, if we were advertising and recruiting for a Clerk III, for

example, and we had a competition that concluded today, and then two weeks later

we have the same type of position in the same department with the same skill

set, then I think it would be reasonable to say if that is a candidate in there,

and they are a top recommended candidate, that we would not have to do the

reference check again because the time is so short. There would be very few

circumstances, in my view.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Yes, I fail to see why somebody who is a Clerk III would

apply for a Clerk III position in the same department at the same salary scale.

MS TAIT: Oh, they would, and here is why. Here is an example of why that

would happen. We have people again, this is because the collective agreement

comes into play. We have situations where candidates apply, they do not all have

the same seniority. If they are determined to be relatively equal and that is

a term that is difficult to define, but if they are determined to be relatively

equal, even though the number one candidate would be the best candidate for the

job, maybe it is candidate number three who has the most seniority. If they are

recommendable, the most senior might be the individual who gets the job

because we do have environments like that. The next opportunity that comes up,

the person with the most seniority is already in a job, is not competing, then

this next individual really is able to get the next job, but they still compete.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Okay. I am not completely clear on that, but I would

rather ask a different question

MS TAIT: Sure, okay.

MR. MITCHELMORE: to get into the crux of what I am looking for.

MS TAIT: Yes.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Further in that paragraph, "It is also College practice

that at least one reference should be from the candidate's immediate supervisor,

however, as the supervisor is often the technical advisor or the departmental

representative on the selection board; in those cases they cannot act as a

referee. This often results in only one available reference."

Is there a potential conflict of interest where you would have the technical

adviser or the department representative that would be on the Selection Board

for internal hires because you are not getting particular references?

MS TAIT: When that is the hiring manager, it is very difficult not to

have them on the Selection Board, if they are the hiring manager.

MR. MITCHELMORE: I guess you had mentioned about this Talent Acquisition

team; that would only be particular for new hires, correct?

MS TAIT: No, any hires, but the Talent Acquisition team are the certified

Chairs by the Public Service Commission. They are the ones who Chair the

competition, who make sure that everything is done in compliance with government

and College policy, and they are the ones who lead the competition. In addition

to that individual, the hiring manager is on the Selection Board.

MR. MITCHELMORE: In that case then, wouldn't there be an option to look

at having a different person in the hiring process due to a potential conflict

of interest, of skewing a preferable candidate or somebody that they are

familiar with, as Mr. Joyce had started initially with hiring who you know type

thing?

MS VAUGHAN: It depends upon the skill sets required for the position and

who can actually verify that the person has the skill sets. If it is someone in

PeopleSoft or a particular technology that we require for a position, oftentimes

it is the supervisor or the leader of that unit who can certify technically that

those people have the skill sets required for the position.

MR. MITCHELMORE: This highlights that often only one reference is

available, but in some cases there were no references checked, based on the

findings of the Auditor General's report. How, in this situation, can this

happen, where you are not following process and procedure?

CHAIR: In response, please identify yourselves because we have had both

Ms Vaughan and Ms Tait answering questions, and it may become problematic for

the person who is transcribing.

Continue.

MS TAIT: First of all, let's be clear about what this means. We never

hire anybody without reference checks. That does not happen, so that is the

first thing.

The second thing is, when we have recommended candidates, more than one in a

file, I think the issue was we do not often have the references for all of the

recommended candidates. That can happen; but the person who is going to be

recommended for the job, there is absolutely at least one reference check on

that person.

The difficulty in getting two reference checks sometimes is because the

person does not have another supervisor because they have been long-term with

the College. The current supervisor is part of the Selection Board and there

would be a conflict there. Rather than use the person who is on the Selection

Board as their reference, we would go to another supervisor that individual had

in the past.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Page 36 says, "4 of the 5 competition files that had

candidates recommended, other than the top ranked candidate, did not have any

reference forms or documentation that a reference check was made for the

recommended candidates."

MS TAIT: Other than the top recommended candidate other than the top. I

would say that is the finding; that is accurate. Today, that is not what we

accept. The process today requires that you have reference checks on your

recommended candidates.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Why would a hiring committee look particularly at a

resume or whatever is submitted when you have five qualified candidates and only

do a reference check on one individual?

MS TAIT: It might be in the expediency of time because if you do the

reference checks on one individual and that is your top recommended candidate,

that person gets the job.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Could we see this type of, I guess, poor HR practice

happening again based on, oh well, it is expedient, we really need to get

somebody in this position, we are not going to comply with the rules that exist

and we are just going to do the one reference check on the candidate that we

want?

MS TAIT: Can I tell you that everybody will do everything they are

supposed to do always? I cannot confirm that. What I can tell you is that that

is a must. Our process now does not leave any room for discretion. Do it. If you

have recommended candidates, you are to have references on those candidates.

MR. MITCHELMORE: When you did your review, since the findings of the

Auditor General's report, why were there only eleven of the seventy-nine files

reviewed? Those eleven that were selected randomly, which is a small sample, had

said that everything is there, but we have no idea of what could be in the other

sixty-eight files.

MS TAIT: If we wanted to do a comprehensive review of all of them, we are

prepared to do that, but in the interest of time and testing, normally and I

am not an auditor, but I could defer to Annette. What we did was look at a

starting point, take a number, and just randomly select. Then we sent those

number of competition numbers to our Director of Talent Acquisition and had her

go in and review each of these files. She had no input into what files would be

assessed. We did not know which files could hold what. We just randomly selected

eleven competition numbers and said: Can you look at those?

Some of them were in process, some of them were complete, but for everything,

where they were at that point in time, the ones completed were all in order. The

ones that were still in progress at the point they were in the competition,

things were in order for them.

CHAIR: Mr. Mitchelmore, can we move on to Mr. Peach?

MR. MITCHELMORE: Yes.

MR. JOYCE: Could we have a break?

CHAIR: Yes, we can.

Mr. Peach has not asked any questions in the first session.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

MR. PEACH: Okay, thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

It is certainly a pleasure for me to be here. It is my second time sitting on

the Public Accounts Committee. I am really enjoying it and it is very

interesting. It certainly is a learning process.

I certainly want to say that I read through the response you sent back to the

Chair on the questions that were asked previously. I must say that you have been

very thorough in your response and a lot of things have been answered for me

there.

I just have a couple of general questions. Basically, on page 34 when we were

talking about the person who was hired and the candidate who was a current

employee of the College within five years experience, I am just wondering: Was

that a new position that was there or was it a position that had already existed

and had to be filled?

MS MOREY: That was an existing position.

MR. PEACH: So if that was an existing position, the other question that

comes to my mind, just for clarification, is: Why was it not posted internally

before it went publicly?

MR. HUTCHINGS: The Public Service Commission process is to first post

jobs internally and then externally to give existing members of the Public

Service the first opportunity at jobs, unless it is determined ahead of time

that we are unlikely to get many candidates, and then it will be posted

internally and externally simultaneously. The process is first internally and

then externally, unless there is a reason to post simultaneously internally and

externally. That is the practice within the public service.

MR. PEACH: Okay. Thanks.

One question I have now that we are here, with regard to the College of the

North Atlantic and I get a lot of questions from constituents with regard to

apprenticeship when an apprentice or a person is finished the course and goes

out to the apprentices looking for a job, they have a lot of concerns with

regard to the logbook, not being able to get their logbook until after they find

work, find employment. They say that sometimes that has deterred them from

getting a job. They have to go back to the College and get their logbook, after

they received the job. Is that practice still there or what is the reason for

that?

MS VAUGHAN: We would have to look into that, Mr. Peach. We would have to

look into that in more detail to be able to give you a well-thought-out

response.

MR. PEACH: Okay.

I have no further questions, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: We can take that much anticipated break; ten minutes should work.

If we take breaks too long now, we will be looking for time late in the day.

There are facilities back behind the wall and also out in the hall, if anybody

has any questions or want to make any phone calls. We will see you back here at

10:46 a.m.

Recess

MR. JOYCE: (Inaudible) what department would have a person with five

years experience? What department was that? Was that in Stephenville or Corner

Brook?

MS VAUGHAN: That was in St. John's.

MR. JOYCE: Was it St. John's?

MS VAUGHAN: (Inaudible).

MR. JOYCE: In the what?

MS VAUGHAN: In advancement.

MR. JOYCE: Is that person still in that position?

MS VAUGHAN: Yes, they are still in that position.

MR. JOYCE: Page 37, "In our sample of 23 competitions, 5 competitions did

not require a Selection Board Report" and you can read it. "Our review of the

18 files that required a Selection Board Report identified that 10 reports were

not adequate as follows: 2 files did not have a Selection Board Report; 1 file

for 5 positions did have a Selection Board Report, however, it did not include

the names of 2 of the successful candidates; 7 files did not have a signature

for the approval of the recommendations of the Selection Board."

Can I ask what positions they were? Were they all throughout the Province or

one area?

MS VAUGHAN: We will have to get the specifics. Could you ?

MR. JOYCE: Page 37.

MS VAUGHAN: Right.

MS TAIT: I do not know the answer to that. What we can do is go back and

look at the files specifically to see which they are. We really do not know that

answer right off the top.

MR. JOYCE: I do not mean to be but if you do not know the answers, is

it corrected? That is the bigger thing.

MS TAIT: Absolutely, yes. This is about a process. The Selection Board

Reports now are part of the process that defines what must be included in the

Selection Board Report. Certainly, all the things that are referenced in here

are now included in all competitions. Your question about: Where are these

competitions, where did they take place? I do not know that without going back

and seeing whether I can extract that from the report.

MR. JOYCE: Part of the report, "signature for the approval of the

recommendations of the Selection Board." Can you tell us who was on the

Selection Board? If there are people selecting seven positions across the

Province and never signed off on these selections, how can anybody who even

applied for the positions be assured it was done in a fair and proper manner?

MS TAIT: The Selection Board Report is one piece of documentation. A

signature not on it would not necessarily mean the rest of the protocol after

that did not happen properly.

MR. JOYCE: It does not mean it was, though, either.

MS TAIT: No, but I would have to go look at these particular competition

files to answer your question because I do not know who would not have signed,

who the Selection Board Chair was. It may be somebody who is not even with us

today.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

MS TAIT: So if you want that information, we will go back and extract it

from these files.

CHAIR: Mr. Joyce, Mr. Paddon indicates he might be of some assistance

there.

MR. PADDON: The only point I would make is that when we select files for

review we would do them on a random basis, so they are not concentrated in any

one area. They would likely be throughout the Province and they would not be

concentrated in a particular discipline. They would likely be concentrated

throughout the various disciplines that the College would have.

MR. JOYCE: It shows a bigger problem if it is all throughout the whole

system throughout the Province. It shows a bigger non-compliance of some of the

issues that people were discussing in the College of the North Atlantic if it is

all throughout the Province, not just one particular area or one particular

discipline.

I will just go to the

CHAIR: Mr. Joyce, Ms Tait says she could supply that background and get

that background

MR. JOYCE: Yes.

CHAIR: because it seems like you would want to have a look at the

documentation or whatever it was.

MR. JOYCE: Yes.

CHAIR: Is that where we agreed to so this is not one person not

approving whatever, this is a systemic thing. I am saying it seems it is

corrected, but Mr. Joyce is looking for the backup on that.

MS TAIT: Yes. My understanding, Mr. Joyce, is you are asking for

specifically what are the parameters around these eighteen files.

MR. JOYCE: Yes.

MS TAIT: If that is what you are asking, assuming that I can get the

competition numbers, we can go back and look at them and identify X person was

hired, even though the Selection Board Report was not signed, that sort of

thing. We can look at the eighteen files and address the findings found here.

MR. JOYCE: Two of the files never even had a Selection Board Report. If

you do not have a Selection Board Report, how do you know the best qualified

candidate was accepted or interviewed?

MS TAIT: Again, I will answer

MR. JOYCE: I know I am putting you on the spot; that is fine.

MS TAIT: I do not feel on the spot.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

MS TAIT: We will look at it and we will answer your question.

MR. JOYCE: Okay, thank you.

We will go to Hiring and Personnel Documentation, and you can go through a

list of concerns here. Are most of those concerns taken care of now? Someone

mentioned certificate of conduct, conflict of interest forms.

There is one here, "50 employees did not have a conflict of interest form in

their personnel file." Then it went through, "26 employees were working at Qatar

of which six were in executive" Is all that taken care of now with the conflict

of interest forms?

MS TAIT: All new employees that are hired sign and complete a conflict of

interest form.

MR. JOYCE: How about the ones in this report who never signed? Did they

go back and ask them to sign it?

MS TAIT: Can I defer to Annette? Do we know that these particular ones

were asked?

MS MOREY: I guess to add, the ones who are related to Qatar are covered

by a clause in their contract in terms of conflict of interest. I think that was

mentioned in the report.

The others, we went back and talked about the conflict of interest forms and

I talked to the staff regarding what process they follow now in terms of

obtaining that information. Obtaining a conflict of interest form is part of an

orientation checklist. So, as a new employee comes on board, they are obtaining

that information and there is a secondary sign-off on that orientation checklist

to make sure that all the documentation

MR. JOYCE: The ones who never signed it prior, that is identified in this

report, has the College of the North Atlantic went back here, for example,

there are nine people in executive or senior management. Did the College go

back, after this was identified, and ask those people to sign the form who never

did it or it is not in their file?

MS MOREY: I do not know that they have gone back and asked. We did select

some and there were conflict of interest forms on file based on some I did not

check all of them; I checked a few.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

So when someone tweets saying that we have the problems at the College of the

North Atlantic taken care of, we are not sure if all of these conflict of

interest forms I just ask the Auditor General: Would it be proper protocol to

go back, if people in senior management do not have it signed or it is not in

their file? Now that it is identified, would it be proper procedure to go back

and say okay, it is not on file, let's get it on file for those individuals?

MR. PADDON: I guess it would be our expectation that if there was a lapse

in procedure and there was a question of documentation, there should be a

process put in place to ensure that the documentation is adequate. Yes, I would

expect that you would go back and ensure that all the documentation that is

required would be in place.

I just make a comment on the conflict of interest forms for Qatar employees.

I guess the witnesses have indicated, and we had indicated in our report, that

Qatar employees do have a clause in their contract that talks about conflict of

interest; but the point we were making is that the College's conflict of

interest guidelines contain broader concepts than just the ones that are in the

contract. So, we thought it would be useful for the Qatar employees to also have

separate conflict of interest documentation.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

I do not know if you want to take it as just a question: Should you go back

to those employees to ensure that is done?

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

MR. JOYCE: Okay. Thank you.

MS VAUGHAN: Mr. Joyce, we absolutely will go back and verify that has

taken place.

Ms Morey has identified that she did some review in preparation for this

session. Some were assigned and some were not. We will certainly go back to make

sure that has been taken care of and we will report back to you that it has.

MR. JOYCE: Thank you.

I will go on to page 41 now. This is not in the Auditor General's report:

page 41, about compensation.

CHAIR: Mr. Joyce, before we go into another subject, I think we should go

to the next member because it is running about eleven minutes.

MR. JOYCE: Sure.

CHAIR: Mr. Brazil.

MR. BRAZIL: I just have one quick question for clarification. On the

PeopleSoft model process that you are hoping to put in place, are we on

schedule

for that to happen in November? Are there any unforeseen issues that you ran

into why it could not be implemented for the whole of the College system?

MR. HUTCHINGS: Anybody who has been involved in implementation of systems

knows that schedules are sometimes off. The module is actually two modules. One

is called Time and Labour and the second is called Absence Management. The Time

and Labour module is nearly complete. I think September 23 is scheduled for

testing of that module. The Absence Management module now is scheduled to be

complete January 29. I had an update yesterday.

Right now, the information is kept in PeopleSoft, but it is entered manually.

So, we do have a system. The reports we talked about earlier, there is a time

lag between when it gets entered and when it shows up in the system. The new

system will be on time, so information will be entered daily. The time lags we

talked about will be gone. That is one of the things we are doing right now for

PeopleSoft.

MR. BRAZIL: We can say, with a fair bit of certainly, that by the next

fiscal things will be up and running and tested and the glitches worked through

it.

MR. HUTCHINGS: Absolutely.

MR. BRAZIL: Okay, fair enough.

My last little comment is I know the Public Service Commission is doing an

audit. Is there any update? Do they do periodic updates or do they wait until

they do the complete audit to come back to you guys?

MS MOREY: Based on my discussions with the Director of Talent

Acquisition, she has had some preliminary discussions with the Public Service

Commission auditor and they have been talking to each of the individual

Selection Board Chairs, our recruiters, but the official report is not due to be

released until sometime in November, from the understanding.

MR. BRAZIL: Fair enough. Okay, I look forward to having a look at that at

that point also.

Right now, I am comfortable with the answers that have been given. I do not

foresee having any other questions. I want to thank everybody for their openness

and their professionalism, and we look forward to some of the information that

has been requested.

Thank you.

CHAIR: Mr. Mitchelmore.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In earlier discussion, I believe it was Mr. Parsons who had asked about

wait-lists and Mr. Hutchings had made a comment about 400 to 700 on the

wait-list. In particular, is that for the overall College of the North Atlantic,

or is that particularly for the electrical program?

MR. HUTCHINGS: That would have been for the electrical program only. It

is a very high demand program and we have more than doubled our capacity;

however, keeping up the demand is most difficult.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Is it possible that the College of the North Atlantic

could provide us with a list of programs that would have a wait-list of more

than ten students?

MS VAUGHAN: We absolutely could do that, Mr. Mitchelmore.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Great.

When it comes to the conflict of interest forms, it was noted that the

College is now going to go back and review these that are outstanding. My

concern is this is a very small sample and we have no idea of how many other of

the potentially 2,000 employees do not have conflict of interest or particular

forms and documents signed. Is there going to be a broader review or an audit of

current employees to deal with that and make sure that it does comply with the

legislation?

MS TAIT: Again, the process in place now requires that for the employee

file to be properly documented it must include the signed documents that are

required, such as the conflict of interest document, along with their

confidentiality, along with all code of conduct, and all the other things that

need to be put in place.

MR. MITCHELMORE: My particular question deals with the past, and it asks

about employees who are currently working or have been working with the College

of the North Atlantic, who have either been dismissed or whatnot, who do not

have conflict of interest or do not have confidentiality forms signed, these

types of things, and it could be detrimental to the organization and the

reputation of the College of the North Atlantic should the forms and documents,

contracts, those types of things, not actually have particular signatures.

Is there a more comprehensive review going to be taken to deal with those

particular matters to ensure that the College is in compliance with the

particular legislation?

MS VAUGHAN: Mr. Mitchelmore, at the start of my opening remarks I talked

about us moving to a Quality Management System. We are moving that way with the

College of the North Atlantic, and Human Resource and payroll functions is one

of the first functions we are doing. One of the big assets of a Quality

Management System is documentation and audits that take place on a very regular

basis of records that are held by the organization.

In moving with an ISO certification, it will also be audited by outside

agencies and, of course, maintaining that standard will be extremely important

for the College because it will be part of our reputation that we want to have

through our whole organization. We will be moving with that process, and as we

do audits, and people are trained to do audits, those audits will ensure that

all those documentations that are required will exist.

The Quality Management System will have our process, our procedures, and

write down the checklists, and we will do our own audits as well as external

audits to ensure that we are meeting what we say we need to do and that

everybody is working within the parameters and requirements of any process that

we have within the College.

I cannot speak to the past, although you have made an excellent point that we

need to go back and review this. I can say for the future that Human Resource

and payroll is our first function we are doing. We are also looking at elements

of our advancement function. We will be moving all of those towards an ISO

certified and recognized system.

MR. MITCHELMORE: The Auditor General just made reference to what I

believe is a recommendation for CAN-Qatar to have a separate form signed rather

than just the brief clause in the document. Is this a practice that will be

implemented for new hires, that they would be also signing a separate form when

it comes to the confidentiality agreement?

MS VAUGHAN: Mr. Mitchelmore, we can certainly go and look at that

recommendation from the Auditor General. We would have to make sure that

whatever we put in it does not contradict the comprehensive agreement. The

process that we have currently here in this Province may not be easily

transferable, but we would have to go and look to see what we would need in

excess to ensure that not only is it within the parameters of what were abided

by but ensure that it meets the requirements and what is required of us of the

state in our duty in the state of Qatar.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Page 27, a list that the enrolment was 24,720 attending

the seventeen campuses: Can you give me the particular enrolment as it is today?

MS VAUGHAN: For each campus?

MR. MITCHELMORE: Overall.

MS VAUGHAN: I can only give you the enrolments that we have seen in the

first seven days of the start of the academic year, and I believe that number is

5,689. Is that right?

WITNESS: That sounds right (inaudible).

MS VAUGHAN: I will have to check for you. As you know, Mr. Mitchelmore,

given the time of the year that you are asking this, this number changes every

day. It goes up and down. Perhaps, if you want to ask that question in a couple

of weeks' time, we will have a better sense of what the stability factor looks

like there.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Okay.

MS VAUGHAN: Just to give a further point of the request for conflict of

interest forms for Qatar, we also have new employment contracts. At the time

that this was audited, we had an old employment contract; we have new employment

contracts for every single employee who is in Qatar. We will go back and review

that, check the validity of the conflict of interest, check it against the

comprehensive agreement and confer to see if we need something further.

MR. MITCHELMORE: I appreciate that response, Ms Vaughan.

In the report it highlights that during this year, when the Auditor General

did this review, there were 2,000 full-time and part-time employees. Can you

give us what the status is right now of the staff by classification in terms of

management, union, non-union, full-time, part-time, casual, and contractual at

the College of the North Atlantic?

MS VAUGHAN: Again, Mr. Mitchelmore, we would have to go look at that. If

you could give us a date that you want that that is changing; I mean, we are

in the start of the academic semester. We are hiring and we are responding to

where extra students are coming, so it is a very fluid number in the last couple

of weeks.

If you want to give us a date that you would want that number of, we can

certainly give that to you; but in asking for registration numbers and employee

numbers, we would have to be clear to you that that and even in wait-list

numbers will be current of the date that you make the request.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Of course it will fluctuate.

MS VAUGHAN: Sometimes we get questions if the next number does not match.

It is because we can only look at our files versus that day. If you want to give

us a date, we can absolutely give you that information and check.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Great.

CHAIR: Did you want to ask for today's date?

MR. MITCHELMORE: I guess the best possible is there a recommendation by

the College as to when it would be more stable in terms of enrolment? Would it

be best to look at maybe mid-September?

MS VAUGHAN: Yes, we have some reports on full-time programs that we will

have this week. The apprenticeship numbers, however, are not as easy to get for

you in this week period. We have some information on our full-time programs that

I should know by tomorrow. The question would be the other movements, and John

is indicating September 30 for all other programs. Right now we are heavily

tracking our full-time enrolment in our twelve-week and beyond programs.

CHAIR: Ms Vaughan, is there a report you have internally generated that

we could use so you do not have to do extra work for something? You may have

something that you have today or you said September 15, or whatever, that you

could simply supply that, whatever it is? We do not want you to have lots of

extra work for something, one day or the other.

MS VAUGHAN: Oh, but it is extra work regardless to be able to answer

this, Mr. Bennett, however

CHAIR: Is there something that you generate for internal purposes so that

you know and that would actually may be an even better document for us because

it is a source document or it is a document like a usual, regular business

record, that is not created for the Committee, something that if you pump out

whatever it happens to be, put it all together with whatever is the least amount

of inconvenience and that would be probably a high level of accuracy as well?

Mr. Paddon, do you have a thought on that? So, do you have weeklies that you

do? I would understand with your wait-list or your enrolments, and it is

September, so we understand that.

MS VAUGHAN: Right. So what we would have is a report. Because of the

changes in the College, we have been really monitoring what has been going on

with the longer-term programs. I have been told yesterday would have given us a

better stable number for our full-time programs. September 30 is the normal date

we would use as a measurement; however, this year, we are doing far more

monitoring of enrolment. As of yesterday, we would have the numbers for

full-time programs.

We could give you the average of apprenticeships that would happen normally,

but whatever date we give you because there is continuous learning happening

all the time. Some of our programs are open access, so the number is

continuously changing. We will give you what we have because we are going to be

reporting on that next week, as of yesterday's date, and we will also give you

on September 30 what we see those numbers to be. That is the normal point we

would look at, but this year we are actually looking earlier to ensure the

conversion rate for the students we know are coming, we are actually getting

the conversion of those students from application to attendance.

CHAIR: Mr. Mitchelmore, does that satisfy your request if she were to do

that?

MR. MITCHELMORE: As long as the numbers are cumulative, which would

include for the fiscal year, showing the number of people who not only just

enrolled in September. I would like to see a more comprehensive review of the

students that are enrolled throughout the year, just like how it is reported

that during this time of 2011 there were 24,000 students attending College of

the North Atlantic. In 2013, how many students have basically enrolled?

MS VAUGHAN: Mr. Mitchelmore, our annual report to the House of Assembly

does a good breakdown of how many students are at the College of the North

Atlantic. We do that by academic year, as you can imagine. If we had to shift

that to fiscal year, that is not normally how one would report student data, but

we do have an annual report that will be tabled on September 30, I believe. That

is the due date for all our reports. That will give you last year's number.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Yes. I would like to have an update, I guess, from last

year's number, as to what is being tracked now, because

MS VAUGHAN: Right.

MR. MITCHELMORE: that will provide last year and not this year, and I

would

MS VAUGHAN: All I could say to you, Mr. Mitchelmore, is that would only

be that point of time. Apprenticeships happen on a very regular basis; blocks

happen on a very regular basis. So to look at a particular point in time may not

match that point of time

MR. MITCHELMORE: Right, of course.

MS VAUGHAN: from the previous year, right?

MR. MITCHELMORE: Yes, of course.

MS VAUGHAN: So it will not match the annual report because it is only

going to give you the snapshot of that date. So the annual report you will get,

and we can give you as of September 30 where we are, but that would be my only

caution to you, that there is an awful lot of movement as we get late into the

fall and then to the winter for apprenticeship numbers that would shift the

number overall.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Absolutely.

On page 38 there lists and it talks quite a bit about upscale hires. There

were a number of employees, one of which had received over $15,000 beyond the

collective agreement, and there are other examples there as well. I would just

like to know as to what type of supervision would permit, without getting

documents properly signed or approved by the Treasury Board in some situations,

or the President in particular, how this can go forward. It lacks any type of

accountability when it comes to doing hires, overpayments, and things like that.

That is very systemic as to how it has been portrayed in the Auditor General's

Report, and I find it very disturbing.

MS VAUGHAN: So, Mr. Mitchelmore, we actually have a letter from the

minister that allows us an ability to be able to sign upscale hires. I will let

Mr. Hutchings elaborate what is in that letter, but we have a very formal

process to be able to provide that. As you can imagine, in some of the skill

sets we are trying to hire for we just cannot get someone to teach a program

without paying a certain wage to do that. It is within a very prescribed format

and it is from a letter we have from the minister, which according to our act

allows us to have a different process.

MR. HUTCHINGS: I would like to speak a little bit about the upscale hire,

and in particular how it has been portrayed in the report, because I do not

think it tells the entire story, which I guess is the reason we are here today.

The report talks about the limits within the collective agreement. It is very

specific. It says we can only go to a certain step on an upscale. However, we do

have another process, which mirrors the Treasury Board policy, but we have an

exception to the policy under 15(1) (

h) of the act that allows the President to

hire people up to the top of the scale. Here we say we can only go to step 4 or

step 7; however, the President has authority to go to the top of the scale.

Also, the collective agreement contemplates that. The collective agreement

has a contractual

section in it which allows us to contract people over and

above the salary, so that is written right in the collective agreement.

This is not a case of anybody was overpaid. There is no case. Each time the

contract was negotiated, people were paid exactly what they were intended. There

is no case of where people were paid more than was intended, and there are

either signed contracts or appointment letters that match the amounts that are

in the report.

A good example is the collective agreement may only allow us to go to $55,000

for a trades' instructor, and they come to us and want $100,000. We say we

cannot give you $100,000, but the top of the scale is $65,000, and the President

has the authority to hire at $65,000. That has been delegated by the minister to

the President.

If there were any areas where we have deviated from the letter is that it

also requires us to report to the Public Service Secretariat that we have

upscale people, and we have not always reported, however the documentation is in

place. It is not a characterisation of people being overpaid by any stretch.

People are contracted for these amounts and within the parameters of the

correspondence from the minister.

MS VAUGHAN: Mr. Mitchelmore, we also have a very defined process. Before

it comes into me, it must be signed off by the Director of Talent Acquisition as

well as the Executive Director of Human Resources that they are making this

recommendation and the rationale is clearly provided in that form. It is a very

deliberate and consistently followed process in terms of what I am looking for

before I sign off on that. So I am conscious of the fact that authority has been

given to me as the President, and that I am ensuring the due diligence is done.

In particular, in the last year we have done a lot of work to make sure that

there is proper documentation that comes in that backs up any recommendation to

do an upscale hire.

CHAIR: Mr. Mitchelmore, if you want to come back to that subject you can,

but we should go on to Mr. Parsons.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Okay.

MR. K. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just have a couple comments I want to make here. In the Auditor General's

report, there was a lot on employees' leave and overtime. One of the

recommendations was what you guys are going to do to monitor and record employee

leave and overtime. I would like you to explain to us what we are going to do in

both cases.

MS VAUGHAN: We actually have done that, Mr. Parsons. I will leave it to

Ms Tait who can report on the actions that we have taken on each one of these

cases.

MS TAIT: In all of those cases we have gone back and done a comprehensive

review of every single file that has been noted in the Auditor General's report.

We have either recaptured the amounts owing when people have been overextended

or we have set up receivables from them; or in some cases we have recovered it

through the accrual for the current year for that individual, which will be

reduced by the amount of the overage. So in every case it has been addressed and

recovered.

MR. BRAZIL: What steps are you taking so this does not reoccur?

MS TAIT: Again, as part of our due process, there is a process in place

that there is paperwork with every single individual who has overtime accruing.

It has to be signed off by the appropriate parties, filed in the individual's

file, and updated in the PeopleSoft system manually, as John has referred to

earlier. As time goes on and we have a full online system for doing that, this

will make the task a lot easier. Right now it is very manual.

MR. BRAZIL: Okay.

So all the overdrawn leave, for example, has been fixed?

MS TAIT: It is all being rectified in some manner, either through a

receivable being set up, the employee is aware they owe us money, or if there

has been an error in the file, that has been corrected. Every file has been

addressed.

MR. BRAZIL: The same as with all the overtime?

MS TAIT: Yes.

MR. BRAZIL: The procedures that are in place now to make sure that this

does not happen in the future are all in place right now?

MS TAIT: Yes.

MR. BRAZIL: Is that under the new system that John talked earlier about?

MS TAIT: Yes, it will be part of.

MR. BRAZIL: Okay.

I have no further question.

Thank you.

CHAIR: Mr. Joyce.

MR. JOYCE: Thank you.

I noticed they had compensation and this is part of it, but what I

understand is you do not have the information or it is not even included.

"Compensation is governed by the collective agreement for unionized employees",

and then it goes on about were employed by the Qatar Campus.

I understand there was just an end-of-service compensation paid out to

employees from Qatar. Was that paid in accordance with the regulations of the

collective agreement for unionized NAPE and CUPE employees or government

personnel employees?

MS VAUGHAN: Well, Mr. Hutchings can elaborate because he knows this file

quite well, but we do not have a collective agreement that governs employees in

Qatar. There is not a union

MR. JOYCE: I know. That is why I was asking. Is it covered under this?

From my understanding, there was just an end-of-service agreement paid out to

some employees.

MS VAUGHAN: Right. So there was a policy in place previously, and in

order to really explain this well we would have to go into a lot of detail

around the end-of-service compensation issue. There were payments that were

given to employees as the mitigation of what we thought was the potential risk

to the organization. We had commitments made to employees and we have fulfilled

all of those commitments at this point. The end-of-service compensation issue or

end-of-service gratuity matter has been resolved.

MR. JOYCE: Am I allowed to ask how much was paid out?

MS VAUGHAN: Would you like to answer that question?

MR. HUTCHINGS: The amount paid out actually can be found in our audited

financial statements. There was a liability of $1.54 million and we paid out

just under that amount to employees. It was accumulated in our accounts over a

period of years. It was booked as a liability and it came from the funds in

Qatar, not from funds in Newfoundland. So this is part of the contractual

arrangements we had with employees in Qatar. We discharged the amounts in the

contract plus the amount over and above the contract as per policy.

MR. JOYCE: So how much was paid out?

MR. HUTCHINGS: Pardon me?

MR. JOYCE: How much was paid out?

MR. HUTCHINGS: About $1.5 million and this was Qatar money, not

Newfoundland money. We have to make that distinction because the money paid to

Qatar employees comes from Qatar.

CHAIR: Mr. Joyce, I am unclear as to who is paying that.

MR. JOYCE: Pardon me?

CHAIR: I am unclear as to who is paying that. Does that mean the

Government of Qatar is paying it or

MR. HUTCHINGS: The Government of Qatar pays. We are simply the paymaster

for them.

CHAIR: Okay.

Does that flow through or something?

MR. HUTCHINGS: Yes. I can elaborate, if you like. Money is transferred

quarterly to Newfoundland, we pay the employees in Qatar, and the quarterly

amount is reconciled with our payroll each payday. It is really their money paid

to our employees.

CHAIR: Did that result in any difficulties for the College in your

relationship with Qatar?

MR. HUTCHINGS: No, basically we are a payroll service. We operate their

college.

CHAIR: Okay. Thank you.

Continue, Mr. Joyce.

MR. JOYCE: I will just go back to the overtime. You mentioned that there

is going to be a system put in place for overtime. When will that system be up

and running, or is it up and running now? We hear today the systems are going to

be up and running. Can you give us some idea when there will be this much

overtime and for the recruitment?

MR. HUTCHINGS: The basic system is in place. The front-end of the system

is manual. For an example if I put in a leave slip today or an overtime slip

today, the clerk may enter it today, next week, or so on and we can have lag

times. The new system will be an immediate system

whereas the time is put in

immediately so there will not be any lag time.

Many of our issues have been improper data input, lag time in inputting

information, and lag time in reconciling. We have the capability now but the

manual process is where it breaks down, so we are looking at automating that

manual process.

In the interim, what we have to do is monitor the manual system a bit better

so people are getting their things entered on time and they are doing the work

they should do manually. It is the transition from manual to automated.

MR. JOYCE: What type of overtime would come up with $2.7 million? What

would be needed for the overtime for $2.7 million at the College of the North

Atlantic?

MR. HUTCHINGS: As you can appreciate, our budget in the Province is

around $150 million and overtime can be for many reasons. For instance, people

working in contract training can be working overtime and we are compensated by

outside agencies for that; our internal staff can be working overtime to cover

for people off. We may not cover a clerk who is off but if there is an

instructor in the classroom who is off, we have to put another instructor in the

classroom.

There is systemic overtime that occurs and there is overtime when we have a

lot of vacancies. Right now we have a lot of vacancies at the College and other

people are filling in and doing the work, so that creates overtime. There are

many reasons for it, and $2.7 million, which sounds like a lot of money by

itself, is not a large percentage of our overall budget because we are a very

large operation.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

Just another question on the ABE program that was cancelled, I know some of

the schools are looking for the marks of the ABE students, when the College of

the North Atlantic dropped it, and the marks are with the College of the North

Atlantic now. Are people working overtime to try to get the marks out to the

students, like what level they finished or what grade they finished, because a

lot of them who approached me cannot get the marks?

MR. HUTCHINGS: I am certainly not the expert in ABE or the academic side;

however, that issue was discussed earlier in the summer. There were a very small

number of students whose marks were not transferred. That was taken care of very

quickly; it was just a matter of updating a few files. To us, that was a very

small number, maybe fifteen or twenty students out of 800.

MS VAUGHAN: Just one campus (inaudible).

MR. HUTCHINGS: Yes, one campus, I think it was.

MS VAUGHAN: It was one campus, Mr. Joyce, where someone was on leave at

the time that it was asked. So, there was data missing for twenty students or

less, and we fixed that right away.

MR. JOYCE: Can I just make a recommendation that you go back and check to

see if all the students and institutions have the upgrades, because I can assure

you as of yesterday they do not. I do not know what the lag is. Because when

those people were laid off, there was no one there to supply the upgrade of

where the people are their status. That is just something you can check into.

There is no need to get back to the Committee, but you could just look into it.

MS VAUGHAN: If you could be specific about a campus that would make it

easier.

MR. JOYCE: Yes and individuals.

MS VAUGHAN: You can imagine that is a huge file for us to look at. So, if

you can be specific about a campus if you do not want to get specific about the

individual

MR. JOYCE: Yes.

MS VAUGHAN: we can certainly look into that, but to try to do that

across all students would take us a lot of time and we would not be able to

address the

MR. JOYCE: I will ask the students if I can get permission for you to

contact them.

MS VAUGHAN: Absolutely. We would need the individual and we can

absolutely look at those.

MR. JOYCE: Okay. Thank you.

The other thing on the overtime is most of the overtime I am not saying

there is anything happening, because it is such a big system sometimes you are

going to have a few things that fall and go astray. When do you expect to have

the electronic system up and running?

MR. HUTCHINGS: I guess I will give the same response I gave earlier. Our

full system, signed off, is scheduled for the twenty-ninth of January. It is two

modules: Time Labour and Absence Management. Time Labour looks like mid to late

September for finalization; Absence Management, a few months later in the end of

January. However, that is the automated system. Our manual processes still are

being monitored as we go, because we cannot wait and let things fall behind. So

we are monitoring the manual system as well as we go.

MR. JOYCE: I just to through the College response on page 49 and give an

opportunity to give us an update since the Auditor General's report. The first

one, Recruitment, "The College acknowledges there were weaknesses in some of its

recruitment activities and documentation procedures. Since that time

considerable effort has been made" So we know that is not fiction and that is

not hearsay. It is recognitions by the College.

What has been done to improve that?

MS VAUGHAN: Could I ask you to repeat the question, Mr. Joyce? I was

trying to find the

MR. JOYCE: It is on page 49, just Recruitment. There were weaknesses in

some of the recruitment activities and documentation. I just give a chance for

the College on record to explain what has been put in place to ensure that has

been taken care of, the recruitment process.

MS VAUGHAN: I will ask Ms Tait to comment on the processes. What I can

tell you, Mr. Joyce, is that we did speculate, or I did as President speculate

or determine that there was one area that was more challenging than the others,

and then that recruiter was no longer employed with the College. So I can tell

you