Letter to DM: HR Delegations

2 August 2024

 

Ms. Stefanie Beck
Deputy Minister
Department of National Defence
101 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa, ON K1A 0K2

 

Dear Ms. Beck:

Congratulations on your recent appointment. I look forward to meeting in person to discuss items of mutual interest and to establish a productive working relationship.

I would like to draw your immediate attention to the matter of financial and human resources delegations for the Office of the Ombudsman. Recent updates to our office’s delegations have left problematic gaps and contain administrative errors that require urgent adjustment.

Over the years, the Office of the Ombudsman has experienced challenges with stabilizing its delegated authorities. At times, this has made it difficult or impossible for us to administer our programs. While section 3 of our mandate clearly describes the independence of the Ombudsman from the management and chain of command of the DND and the CAF, our governance structure is such that we fall within the legislative and policy framework of the DND. Consequently, the Deputy Minister must delegate certain financial and human resources authorities to the Ombudsman.

The following items must be addressed at the earliest possible opportunity, since errors and missing authorities in the latest departmental human resources delegation instruments are impacting our office’s ability to function. Specifically, the absence of the two following authorities undermines the independence, credibility, and proper administration of our office:

• Final Level Grievance Authority: The Ombudsman’s authority to resolve grievances at the final level is missing. For context, the Ombudsman has had the authority to resolve final level grievances involving Ombudsman staff almost continuously since 2001. A similar oversight caused this authority to be briefly absent in 2015, but the Deputy Minister reinstated it after we brought it to their attention. Without this authority, final level grievance decisions and follow-up actions involving Ombudsman staff default to the Director General Workplace Management, an entity our office is mandated to oversee.

• Harassment and Violence Prevention: The Ombudsman’s authority to receive and resolve disclosures of harassment and violence is missing. Past delegation instruments, including the 2018 matrix, had given the Ombudsman the authority to resolve internal complaints of harassment. In 2019, the updated Canada Labour Code included a new process for addressing workplace harassment and violence. Without the authority to address disclosures under this new framework, complaints involving Ombudsman staff may go to the Chief Professional Conduct and Culture (CPCC), an entity our office is mandated to oversee.

If these outstanding gaps in the Ombudsman’s authorities are left unaddressed, our office may be subject to unintended reviews, investigations, and administrative action by the DND.

In addition to the forementioned concerns, these gaps can also produce a structural conflict. When inconsistent delegations result in mutual reviews and investigations between our organizations, the credibility of both of our processes can be questioned.

A positive long-term solution to this issue would be for the Ombudsman to receive both financial and human resources delegations through distinct instruments, separate from those used for the DND. This would prevent any impact on our office from changes intended to meet the operational or administrative needs of the DND’s internal L1 organizations. It would also prompt the DND to consult us before making changes to our authorities. I am confident that this course of action would address our outstanding concerns related to final level grievances and harassment and violence resolution.

Besides these urgent issues, I hope to touch upon other points when we meet. Some of these include other minor errors in the human resources delegation matrix, longstanding issues with the stability of our financial authorities, and how disclosures of wrongdoing under the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act (PSDPA) are handled for our office.

In the past, incumbents to our respective positions have either tried to deal with delegation issues on an ad hoc basis or have had to respond to them urgently. As

we are both new to our positions, I would like to take this opportunity to address these problems proactively. I am confident that we can find workable long-term solutions that both respect the DND’s legislative obligations and the Ombudsman’s mandate.

Sincerely,

 

Robyn Hynes

Interim Ombud