B.C. Merit Commissioner David McCoy said he is “saddened” by the government’s decision to dissolve his independent office, warning that it will make the public service less accountable.
“Independent oversight is not, in my opinion, a luxury,” he said in a Friday (Feb. 27) interview with Black Press Media. “It’s a foundational safeguard.”
The decision to close the Independent Office of the Merit Commissioner was revealed on Feb. 17 as part of the provincial budget. Finance Minister Brenda Bailey said the office’s duties will be internally taken over by the Public Service Agency (PSA). This move still needs to pass the legislature before becoming official.
McCoy’s term ends on March 10, which makes it likely another appointment will not be made.
The fate of the seven full-time employees in the office is less certain. McCoy thinks they could get jobs in the Public Service, or be laid off. All they were told was that they would have the same rights as those hired under the Public Service Act, but what that meant was not explained.
The B.C. merit commissioner was created in 2001 and made into an independent office of the legislature in 2005, with a mandate to audit public service hires. The commissioner gained the power to examine dismissals in 2018 after the release of a scathing report from B.C. Ombudsperson Jay Chalke investigating the 2012 wrongful dismissal of eight people from the health ministry.
B.C. is the only provincial jurisdiction to have an independent merit commissioner.
Bailey said it is time to get rid of the commissioner’s office because it was created to protect against political patronage, something the most recent audit found no evidence of.
But McCoy points out that many other problems were identified, including errors in the short-listing process and unqualified or unverified hires.
The audit made findings of “merit not applied” in 10 per cent of cases, which McCoy said was the most in the past decade. At least some form of error was found in 153 out of 276 cases.
Bailey was asked repeatedly by reporters about the issues identified in the report, but she would not answer directly.
“The PSA is a professional organization that delivers on these issues,” she said. “We’ve seen them adopt the culture of merit within the PSA.”
McCoy said Bailey’s plan to move the commissioner’s work into the Public Service Agency creates a conflict because it removes the only impartial mechanism to ensure staffing decisions are made through a free and fair process.
Meanwhile, the public service is dealing with budget constraints, which means internal changes.
“It risks weakening accountability at a moment when it’s needed most, when the B.C. public service is undergoing its most significant restructuring in quite a few years,” he said.
McCoy only learned of the move on the morning of the budget.
“This is the kind of decision that independent oversight exists to guard against,” he said. “Major structural changes made without advance consultation, which frankly undermines transparency and accountability.”
B.C. Conservative Leader Trevor Halford called for the plan to be reversed, pointing out that an all-party committee recently approved another three years of funding for the commissioner.
“I see the merit commissioner as serving a purpose,” he said. “And after some of the premier’s hiring sprees that he’s gone on, I think we need to look at possibly expanding the scope as well.”