November 30, 2016

Mr. Don Drummond
Chair of the Advisory Panel on Management and Non-Bargaining Staff Recruitment and Retention

Dear Mr. Drummond:

Our government has an ambitious agenda that is centered on our four part economic plan to build Ontario up, including delivering on our top priority – creating jobs and growth while also ensuring we are delivering the best public services to the people of Ontario.

To do this, we must continue to transform and modernize public services by finding new and smarter ways to improve outcomes for Ontarians.

We are proud of all of our many hard working public servants in the Ontario Public Service (OPS) who strive to deliver excellent public services to Ontarians.

We know that leadership and talent are required to continue to deliver on the government’s modernization and transformation agenda. We also recognize that non-bargaining specialists, managers and executives have been leading by example through a prolonged period of compensation restraint and wage freezes. This is why the government sought advice from your panel – the Advisory Panel on Management and Non-Bargaining Staff Recruitment and Retention.

As you know, the mandate of the Advisory Panel was to provide advice on:

  • A long-term strategy to address the issues of retention, recruitment and succession planning;
  • A fair and sustainable compensation structure;
  • Best practices with respect to performance evaluation and management compensation, as well as appropriate public sector benchmarks; and,
  • How to enable and sustain the development of a modern, diverse and inclusive OPS.

I want to thank you and the rest of the panel for your work on the Advisory Panel on Management and Non-Bargaining Staff Recruitment and Retention.

In your report, you recognized the steps the OPS has taken to be an employer of choice. You also made a number of thoughtful recommendations that, along with other considerations, will complement the government’s efforts on public service renewal and assist with implementing a long-term strategy to address retention, recruitment and succession planning.

We have carefully reviewed and considered all of your recommendations and will implement many of them in a thoughtful, fair manner that aligns with our fiscal plan. We recognize that the time has come to take action to address compression and inversion within the OPS and align compensation for non-bargaining specialists, managers and executives with appropriate comparators.

A new long-term compensation strategy is being implemented that considers each group’s specific circumstances and addresses the impacts of compression and inversion experienced as a result of extended restraint. Our strategy is underpinned by the following principles:

  • Non-bargaining specialists doing similar work to their bargaining counterparts are also compensated similarly;
  • Situations where staff make more than the managers they report to are minimized; and,
  • OPS executive salaries neither lead nor lag the market by phasing-in the current median of public sector comparators in similar jurisdictions.

We believe this strategy will support our commitment to continue to strengthen capacity, to engage leaders and to build the skills required for the public service of the future, while continuing to meet our fiscal objectives.

Once again, thank you very much for your thoughtful advice and recommendations.

Sincerely,

Liz Sandals
President of the Treasury Board