Fixing the federal government’s troubled pay system will take years and far more than the $540 million the Liberal government has set aside to clean up the mess, Canada’s auditor general said Tuesday.
In his Fall 2017 report tabled in Parliament Tuesday Michael Ferguson found that successive governments have failed to address the botched Phoenix payroll system, which has left thousands of federal employees overpaid, underpaid or not paid at all.
Public Services and Procurement Canada, the department responsible for Phoenix, was slow to recognize the seriousness and depth of the problems plaguing the payroll system, Ferguson said.
The mistakes in the payroll system have created a backlog of more than 150,000 public workers representing more than $520 million in pay errors, Ferguson said.
Yet despite these problems, Ferguson said it would be wrong to scrap the Phoenix system which has taken $310 million and seven years to create and implement.
“If they started all over again, it’s hard to see how they would actually end up in a better situation,” he said. “I think at this point, their only real option is to try and resolve the problem within the system as it exists right now.”
‘All hands on deck’
Minister of Public Services and Procurement Carla Qualtrough blamed the previous Conservative government for the “unproven and flawed” pay system but said it was up to the Liberals to fix the mess.
Once the system was launched, Phoenix’s problems ran so deep that it took the Liberal government time to understand what was wrong and identify solutions to stabilize the system, Qualtrough said.
The Trudeau government has taken a number of steps to address the system’s shortcomings, including hiring additional staff, opening satellite pay offices across the country to deal with the backlog and helping employees with their claims, Qualtrough said.
“The auditor general’s report aligns with findings of previous reviews and validates the measures our government is taking to stabilize the pay system,” Qualtrough said. “Today, our government is reiterating its commitment to find a permanent solution. It’s all hands on deck.”
With files from CBC News
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