According to Blacklock’s Reporter, Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux provided testimony that federal managers are skilled at setting easy performance targets, making federal employees look ambitious.. Parliament Hill .“I speak of my own experience of having been in the public service for more than two decades,” Giroux told the Commons Government Operations committee..Giroux is a former assistant commissioner with the Canada Revenue Agency..“These targets, are they too easy or too ambitious?” asked Liberal MP Parm Bains (Steveston-Richmond, BC). .“They tend to be too easy,” replied Giroux..“Generally speaking, targets are set, so they seem to be reasonably ambitious, but they are always deemed to be attainable barring unforeseen events,” said Giroux..“They generally tend to be not overly ambitious, which leads to a surprise when you see that close to half are either not met or have no target for meeting them.”.Annual targets are set by executives in departmental results reports tabled in Parliament..In February 7 testimony at the Senate National Finance committee, Giroux described the reports as an empty exercise in self-congratulation..“I’d be curious to see in the next departmental results report what Passport Canada will claim was their achievement,” said Giroux..“I wouldn’t be surprised if they claim some sort of success despite the disaster we’ve seen the last couple of months. There is clear, clear room for enhanced leadership.”.“The targets in departmental results reports are determined in large part by the public servants responsible for delivering the programs themselves: assistant deputy ministers, approved by deputy ministers, approved by ministers,” said Giroux..“But in my experience, ministers are not very well equipped to challenge their own officials.”.“We end up in a situation where it is public servants responsible for delivering programs that set their own targets and they usually set the bar not too high, so it doesn’t look too easy, but neither too low, so it’s fairly easy to achieve most of the time,” said Giroux..“Yet by their own assessment, they fail to deliver on many of these. So there is a system that is broken.”.“The government will “invest” or will spend that many millions to do this and that,” said Giroux..“OK, but what will be the result?”.“You have used very strong wording,” said Senator Rosa Galvez (QC). .“I am sorry for my harsh words, but at least I didn’t swear,” replied Giroux.
