VICTORIA - The Province has revised its compensation framework for
executive level employees of the professional BC Public Service to bring B.C. more in line with other jurisdictions across Canada.
Like most employers in Canada, the BC Public Service faces significant challenges due to an aging workforce. The challenge is greatest at the executive level. Forecasts show that within 10 years over 65 per cent of assistant deputy ministers and 51 per cent of deputy ministers will retire. A careful examination of the senior public service labour market across the country demonstrates that executive compensation in British Columbia is not keeping pace. Changes are needed to maintain B.C.'s competitiveness in recruiting and retaining the talent necessary to lead the public service.
A comparison of current compensation levels of public service jurisdictions across Canada shows that B.C. ranks 10th for assistant deputy minister compensation and sixth for deputy minister compensation. The new framework will place the BC Public Service third among the provinces and the federal government. Deputy minister compensation will be set at 83 per cent of federal salaries, as it was prior to 2006, and will be subject to the same regular review cycle to ensure ongoing competitiveness.
Effective Aug. 1, 2008, the maximum payable salary to deputy ministers increased from $221,760 to $299,215 and from $243,936 to $348,600 for the deputy minister to the Premier. The maximum achievable salary for assistant deputy ministers increased from $160,000 to $195,000. The salary holdback component, which is based on specific performance measures linked to leadership on building the corporate human resources of the Province, will increase from five per cent of salary to 10 per cent of salary for both deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers.
In 2006, the Province released the first Corporate Human Resource Plan for the BC Public Service, setting out an ambitious agenda to increase the competitiveness of B.C.'s professional public service as an employer to ensure it is able to attract and retain the skilled people needed to deliver services to British Columbians. More information on that plan and employment opportunities with the BC Public Service is available at www.employment.gov.bc.ca.
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To put in perspective: the increase the Premier's Deputy Minister got is greater than what an average person would get over 30 years' of working. An interesting concept: a "Civil Servant" getting more than 30 times as much increase in one year as the people she serves get in 30 years of toiling.
The argument for these increases, as usual, " we must be competitive to attract the quality of "executives" we need. Judging from the decisions coming up from Victoria it seems we can't get the quality of people even at these wages.
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