Phoenix 'pay pods' show some success, but still no word on overall fix

One year after instituting aspecial"pay pod" systemto deal with the controversial Phoenix pay system's ongoing backlog, Ottawa says it's showing results.

But despite pressure from the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), the government stillwon't say when all public servants can expect to be paid correctly.

Before Phoenix was launched in 2016, federal ministrieshad theirown in-house pay teams in place. Now, the payroll experts for 46 departments and agencies have beencentralized in one location: the Public Service Pay Centre.

The switchcaused some data to beentered incorrectly into Phoenix, and those mistakes have contributed to an ongoingbacklog of overpayments, underpayments and missing payments.

As of Nov. 28, there were 289,000 pay transactions "beyond normal workload" at the Public Service Pay Centre, according to Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC).

'Pay pods' see some success

To help reduce the backlog, the federal government launched a "pay pod" pilot projectin December 2017.

A small group of 25 payroll specialists were dedicated to oversee pay requests forthree organizations:

• Veterans Affairs Canada.
• Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada.
• The Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario.

Their mission was to focus exclusively on the pay issues of approximately 10,000 employees combined.

Theapproach paid off, according to the federal government. The three organizations saw a 39 per cent decrease in their backlogof transactions as of September 2018.

Based on thoseearly results, Minister Carla Qualtrough announced last spring that the pay pods would be expanded to all the departments and agencies overseen by Phoenix.

• Phoenix 'pay pod' pilot to expand by mid-2019

By October 2018, 24 of the 46 departments and agencies served by the Miramichi Pay Centre had dedicated pay pods.

The governmenthopes to implement thenew systemto the 22 remaining ministries and agencies by mid-2019.

Federal union wants firm deadline

PSAC's national executive vice-president is cautiously optimistic about the pay pod approach.

Magali Picardrecognizes itlooks promising, but said she would like the government to commit to a firm deadline to fix Phoenix's problems.

"What I would like to hear is if all of those pay pods are active by mid-2019 does it mean that the federal government will fix every single pay issue in 2019?" she asked.

Qualtrough's parliamentary secretary, Steven MacKinnon,told CBC thegovernment intends to fix Phoenix for good, but he declined to put a date forward as to when the backlog will be addressed.

"While we have always been hesitant to give a date, because you know, unexpected things come up ...what I can say, is that 2018 was the year where these efforts started to really eat into the problem and I think that you're going to see continued acceleration of those results in 2019," MacKinnonsaid.