Amendments to the Directive on Terms and Conditions of Employment

Date: January 26, 2017

To: Heads of Human Resources, Directors/Chiefs of Labour Relations and Compensation, Public Service Pay Centre, Miramichi

The purpose of this Information Bulletin is to inform you of the recent amendments to the Directive on Terms and Conditions of Employment, which have been made to ease the potential financial burden of recovery of overpayments resulting from the transition to Phoenix.

Prior to these changes, the default recovery of overpayments was from first available funds, which in some circumstances imposed an onerous financial burden upon employees. The changes to the Directive modify and extend the default recovery period in order to mitigate this problem. As modified, the default recovery of these overpayments for salary, wages, and allowances is to occur over a number of pay periods equivalent to the number of pay periods over which the overpayment occurred.

Should an employee still find that the financial burden is too great, subsection 15.3 of the Directive allows departments to extend repayments over longer periods, on a case-by-case basis.  Departments have been asked to exercise maximum discretion and flexibility to help employees avoid financial hardship.

Notwithstanding these changes, an employee may also request that the recovery be made over a shorter period of time.

These changes are effective January 13, 2017.

All questions should be directed to your Departmental Corporate Labour Relations or Corporate Compensation Official who, if required will direct their questions to the Compensation and Labour Relations group at the following email address: Interpretations@tbs-sct.gc.ca.

Original signed by

Kevin Marchand
Senior Director
Core Public Administration
Compensation Management
Compensation and Labour Relations
Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer