Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey Data Release: Supporting Documentation
If you have any questions, comments or specific feedback related to these datasets, please contact the Public Service Commission's Open Government Secretariat.
Background Information
About the Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey
The Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey (SNPS) was introduced in 2018 as a biennial public service-wide survey, replacing the Survey of Staffing (SOS) in light of changes brought about by the implementation of the New Direction in Staffing. The primary objective of the SNPS is to collect public servants’ perceptions of the federal staffing system, of the political impartiality of the public service, and their knowledge of their rights and obligations in engaging in political activities. Conducting the survey on a regular basis provides the Public Service Commission of Canada (PSC) and delegated departments with a clear view of areas for improvement, as well as what is working well.
The survey will provide vital information to managers, human resources advisors and deputy heads to improve staffing within their own organizations, and to the PSC on the staffing system as a whole. The information will also be used to support reporting to Parliament via the PSC's Annual Report.
The SNPS targets all departments and agencies under the Public Service Employment Act. Unlike the SOS, the SNPS includes organizations with less than 350 employees. The SNPS gathers information from a broader range of audiences - employees, hiring managers and staffing advisors - on key aspects of the staffing system (for example, merit). As in previous years, the survey also gathers critical information on employees’ understanding of their rights and responsibilities regarding political activities and non-partisanship. In 2021, questions were added regarding staffing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The information gathered in the survey will be used to identify current and emerging trends at government-wide and organizational levels, to inform potential improvements to staffing policies and practices, and better target efforts to safeguard non-partisanship within the federal public service.
Data collection is administered in partnership with Statistics Canada.
Please visit the Public Service Commission’s 2021 Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey interactive visualisation tool to that makes use of the data in this collection.
This data release
This data release is comprised of the findings from the second cycle of the SNPS. Because the content of this survey is different from its predecessor (the Survey of Staffing), year-over-year comparisons are not always possible.
Data collection took place over a period of approximately 8 weeks - between March 16 and May 14, 2021. The survey targeted employees, hiring managers, and staffing advisors to gather their views on a wide range of staffing-related topics, including perceptions on the merit, fairness, and transparency of the staffing process, organizational staffing policies and practices, as well as political activities and non-partisanship.
Invitations to complete the survey were sent to 234,757 public servants across 75 departments and agencies subject to the Public Service Employment Act. A total of 75,440 employees completed the survey, representing an overall response rate of 34.2%.
The survey frame was made up of all in-scope employees that were on the November 2020 Public Services and Procurement Canada's incumbent file and employee lists provided by in-scope organizations that do not appear on the incumbent file.
Quality assurance
This data release has been subject to a comprehensive quality review, as per the guidelines published by Statistics Canada.
All SNPS questions require a minimum of 20 valid responses. Results are not shown when there is an insufficient number of valid responses.
Since the SNPS includes a number of branching and skip patterns targeting different groups of respondents, the number of questions each respondent is answering varies with the type of staffing process being reported. An example would be a hiring manager reporting they did not hire or attempt to hire an employee reporting to them, who would not answer questions concerning what processes they have used to hire.
Consequently, the number of valid responses per question may vary within the same organization.
Sampling and collection
This survey is a census with a repeated cross-sectional design. Responding to it was voluntary and the data was collected directly from the survey respondents. Each federal employee receiving a survey invitation (that is, a sampling unit) was contacted by email and invited to complete an electronic questionnaire.
Interpretation of survey results
The data presented in this report has been weighted to adjust for non-response and for respondents who did not want to share their data with the PSC. Therefore, the results can be generalized to the federal public service population in departments and agencies that are subject to the Public Service Employment Act.
Results are shown as counts and percentages for 2 categories of responses:
- “yes” or “no”
- “not at all”; to a minimal extent”; “to a moderate extent”; or “to a great extent”
For all of the above, “don’t know”, “not applicable”, “not stated”, and “valid skip” responses are excluded except for select questions related to priority entitlement where “don’t know” is included.
Both the weighted number of responses and the weighted percentages for each of a question’s response values are given. The weighted number of respondents are rounded to the nearest whole number.
To protect the confidentiality of respondents, results are only provided for questions with at least 20 unweighted respondents. Residual suppression is applied to results where suppressed data can be derived.
Dataset Documentation
By department (including all departments) (CFPPSC_SNPS01)
- Source: Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey, Public Service Commission of Canada
- Note: Contains responses to all questions.
By department and by Employment Equity Group: Women (CFPPSC_SNPS02)
- Source: Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey, Public Service Commission of Canada
- Note: Employment equity response comparison between women, men, and others (please specify).
By department and by Employment Equity Group: People with disabilities (CFPPSC_SNPS03)
- Source: Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey, Public Service Commission of Canada
- Note: Employment equity response comparison between people with disabilities and others.
By department and by Employment Equity Group: Visible minorities (CFPPSC_SNPS04)
- Source: Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey, Public Service Commission of Canada
- Note: Employment equity response comparison between members of visible minorities and others.
By department and by Employment Equity Group: Indigenous peoples (CFPPSC_SNPS05)
- Source: Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey, Public Service Commission of Canada
- Note: Employment equity response comparison between indigenous peoples and others.
By department and by First Official Language (CFPPSC_SNPS06)
- Source: Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey, Public Service Commission of Canada
By department and by Region (CFPPSC_SNPS07)
- Source: Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey, Public Service Commission of Canada
By department and by Occupational group (CFPPSC_SNPS08)
- Source: Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey, Public Service Commission of Canada
By department and by Age group (CFPPSC_SNPS09)
- Source: Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey, Public Service Commission of Canada
By department and by Years of Service (CFPPSC_SNPS10)
- Source: Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey, Public Service Commission of Canada
By department and by Tenure (CFPPSC_SNPS11)
- Source: Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey, Public Service Commission of Canada
- Note: Dataset contains aggregations by indeterminate, term, casual, etc. status.
Data Visualization Dataset (CFPPSC_SNPS12)
- Source: Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey, Public Service Commission of Canada
- Note: Dataset contains aggregations for all in-scope respondents for all questions including select demographic data. Also, merit, fairness, and transparency data by hiring managers, non-hiring managers, employees (excluding managers and supervisors) and by employment equity group for employees (excluding managers and supervisors) is available. Priority entitlement data is also available for hiring manager and non-hiring manager.
Response profile data (CFPPSC_SNPS13)
- Source: Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey, Public Service Commission of Canada
- Note: Contains each organization’s total count of employees in the data frame and overall response numbers.
List of questions (CFPPSC_SNPS14)
- Source: Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey, Public Service Commission of Canada
List of departments (CFPPSC_SNPS15)
- Source: Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey, Public Service Commission of Canada
By department and by diploma (CFPPSC_SNPS16)
- Source: Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey, Public Service Commission of Canada
- Note: Tracks the highest level of education attained by survey respondents.
Glossary
Attribute name | Defined attribute name |
---|---|
agg_35_e | Age group (English) |
agg_35_f | Age group (French) |
Category_E | Question category (English) |
Category_F | Question category (French) |
ddis_fl_e | Disability status (English) |
ddis_fl_f | Disability status (French) |
Dept_E | Federal government organization (Data Visualization) (English) |
dept_e | Federal government organization (English) |
Dept_F | Federal government organization (Data Visualization) (French) |
dept_f | Federal government organization (French) |
Dept_number | Federal government organization code number |
Dept_size | Size of federal government organization code number |
Dept_size_E | Size of federal government organization (English) |
Dept_size_F | Size of federal government organization (French) |
ed_05_e | Highest certificate, diploma or degree completed (English) |
ed_05_f | Highest certificate, diploma or degree completed (French) |
fol_05_e | First official language (English) |
fol_05_f | First official language (French) |
gdr_10_e | Gender (English) |
gdr_10_f | Gender (French) |
iidflag_e | Indigenous identity status (English) |
iidflag_f | Indigenous identity status (French) |
lab_10_e | Current employee status (ex: indeterminate) (English) |
lab_10_f | Current employee status (ex: indeterminate) (French) |
Label_E | Question label text (English) |
Label_E_2021 | Question label text (Data Visualization) (English) |
Label_F | Question label text (French) |
Label_F_2021 | Question label text (Data Visualization) (French) |
N | Number of respondents |
occlevel_e | Occupational group and level (English) |
occlevel_f | Occupational group and level (French) |
Population_E | Respondent population (Data Visualization) (English) |
Population_F | Respondent population (Data Visualization) (French) |
question | Question number - Variable format |
Question_E | Question text (English) |
Question_E_2021 | Question text (Data Visualization) (English) |
Question_F | Question text (French) |
Question_F_2021 | Question text Data (Data Visualization) (French) |
question_q | Question number - Survey format |
question_value_e | Response value (English) |
question_value_f | Response value (French) |
region1_e | Region of work (English) |
region1_f | Region of work (French) |
Respondents_E | Respondent population (Response profile data) (English) |
Respondents_F | Respondent population (Response profile data) (French) |
shr_resp | Percentage share |
shr_w_resp | Weighted percentage share |
Shr_w_resp_2021 | Weighted percentage share (Data Visualization) |
Survey_year | Year of the survey (Data Visualization) |
Theme_E | Question theme (English) |
Theme_F | Question theme (French) |
total_respondents | Number of respondents |
total_w_resp | Weighted number of respondents |
Total_w_resp_2021 | Weighted number of respondents (Data Visualization) |
Variable_name_2021 | Question number - Variable format (Data Visualization) |
VISMINFL_e | Visible minority status (English) |
VISMINFL_f | Visible minority status (French) |
yrs_15_e | Years of service in the federal public service (English) |
yrs_15_f | Years of service in the federal public service (French) |
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