bout de papier, Vol. 10, No. 3 (1993) — Summer 1993 // Été 1993, pp. 5–7
As a rotational administrative officer I find your article titled “Trust and Confidence” contained in Volume 10 issue 2 of PAFSO’s bout de papier offensive, very offensive.
You remark that “Foreign Service Officers (FS’s) didn’t join the Foreign Service to do consular duties” consequently the Department had to find personnel from “somewhere.” In this case the “somewhere” is the AS group; perhaps because of the abilities and aptitudes found within that group. Your article seems to suggest that some ES’s may not understand the importance of one of the prime mandates of the Department. I’m not sure what you mean in saying, “lacking a Consular Corps in Canada,” as foreign representatives in this city most certainly do have a Consular Corps and our membership in it would be abnormal.
It is presumptuous of you to put forward “an individual Administrative Officer’s point of view.” I, for one, do not see the transition to the new consular-management stream as “due recognition.” Recognition for professional administrators will come as management promotes more and more senior administrators to positions where they have influence within the system. I feel consular responsibilities could just as easily have been incorporated into the existing AS structure rather than go through the conversion exercise we’re now involved with. I disagree with you that administrative and consular work is “generally very different.” Both programs require officers having the right combination of aptitude, attitude and superior judgment. No amount of formal education can make up for a lacking in these essential personal attributes.
Your suggestion that the work “demands a different temperament” is ridiculous. Both Administrative and Consular officers become babysitters, father confessors, crying towels, whipping posts, and react appropriately as circumstances dictate. To suggest otherwise reflects a lacking in foreign service experience.
You seem to feel that the inclusion of, God forbid, ex CR’s (you missed CM’s, my previous group) will lead to “downgrading and de-professionalization of the Foreign Service. “ The Department at this time, has many extremely competent employees in support staff categories who, if given the chance, can perform any function or role asked of them including, FS trade, social affairs or political reporting.
I don’t care what PAFSO’s motivation is for “welcoming” the AS conversion. I want no part of a union, yours or our current organization. If in fact PAFSO has agreed to this exercise solely to bolster its membership than what does this say for its “professionalism.”
I think your editorial will upset a considerable number of ASs and others in the Department. I expect to see this rebuttal published in a future edition of your paper.
William G. Gooch
Editor:
A number of my colleagues in the Social Affairs stream have asked me to comment on your recent editorial, “Trust and Confidence.”
First, because of a certain ambiguity in the wording, some of your readers may believe that the editorial reflects the position of the PAFSO Executive. This is not the case. While I cannot speak for every member of the Executive I am confident that the majority, and certainly the six representatives of the Social Affairs stream, disagree with both the general tenor and many of the points presented in the article. As editor of bout you have every right to express your personal opinions: you also have a responsibility to make clear the distinction between your own views and those of PAFSO.
I must also dispute the rather dismissive assessment of the skills and abilities of the Administrative group. The work of Administrative officers may be different from that of the current FS group, but it is not inferior. Indeed, I have often felt that most FS officers (and not a few EXs) could learn a great deal from our AS colleagues about management, organization, and interpersonal skills. Certainly, if the AS group is as effective in dealing with distressed Canadians as it is in balancing the myriad demands of staff abroad against budgetary reality, then the Consular service is in good hands.
I take particular issue with the editorial over the picture it projects of “traditional diplomacy,” a picture which simply does not reflect the reality of the modern Foreign Service. The Foreign Service does not reside exclusively in EAITC nor does it restrict itself to political and economic reporting and analysis. The Department of Public Security also has a rotational, career Foreign Service whose members represent a full third of the total FS group and perhaps half of those currently serving abroad. Social Affairs officers do not practice a traditional brand of diplomacy (and I would question whether anyone does): we are nevertheless as much an integral part of the Foreign Service as our political and trade colleagues and will continue to be so in whatever Department we happen to find ourselves.
In short, PAFSO and presumably bout represent a diverse Foreign Service with a spectrum of interests, concerns and responsibilities which extend well beyond the rather narrow confines described in your editorial. Finally, on the subject of FS restructuring, PAFSO has received briefings on the draft proposals put forward by the two Departments and has identified a number of legitimate areas of concern: however, the possibilities of an “overall downgrading and de-professionalization of the Foreign Service” and “the erosion of the profession of diplomacy” are not prominent among them.
As Foreign Service officers we are all faced with a rapidly changing and increas ingly complex world: the pace of technological progress, the speed with which information is transmitted, the arrival on the international scene of new powers and players, all demand a fundamental rethinking of the ways in which the Foreign Service supports Canadian interests and policies in the international arena. The real threat to the professionalism of the FS group will come not from the inclusion within our ranks of officers possessing new and different skills, but from the inability or refusal of the FS group to recognize and adapt to the reality of change. Traditional concepts of diplomacy are no longer adequate to meet the demands of the late twentieth century: instead, we must be prepared to undertake whole new ranges of activities in keeping with the needs of the Government and the public. The Administrative group may well find a place within this broadened Foreign Service. If so, we should see this not as erosion, but as growth. Marlene Massey International Service Group Department of Public Security
Editor’s Reply: My editorial has been misconstrued and misunderstood. The intention was to set out a range of views (many of which are highly diverse and rather contentious) as expressed by many individuals throughout the Department in the hallways and cafeteria to try and air some of the concerns and fears which currently exist amongst employees. They are not my views. I certainly did not intend to “insult” or “denigrate” any person or group. My intention was the opposite; to try and get beyond all the fears and move ahead toward an integrated team spirit in the Foreign Service. That is why I entitled it “Trust and Confidence”. We have to work together for a better future for all members of the Foreign Service, and we have to take it on trust that this is management’s intention as well.
Having read your editorial, “Trust and Confidence” in the Spring, 1993 issue of bout de papier, I would like to add some background information on past history that might be useful to all concerned with the current debate on the future of the Foreign Service.
Those of us who are Foreign Service retirees like to think that we have experience which should be useful, both to the Department and to our successor FSOs, in dealing with contemporary issues. One of the less glamourous, but perhaps most useful ways in which we can lend a hand is in providing a corporate memory of past events which is relevant to today’s problems.
In this light, it might be useful to the FSOs of today in coping with the miseries occasioned by the current round of downsizing, reclassification exercises, and budget limitations, to be acquainted with some of the past departmental vicissitudes, which, if nothing else, will demonstrate the Service’s capacity to survive in the face of adversity.
The Department of thirty years ago was a smaller and simpler bureaucracy than today. The External Affairs Register, better known as the Stud Book, which came out annually in the form of a booklet about the size of Canadian Representative Abroad, listed about 450 FSOs, and 100 Administrative Officers. Departmental administration, by today’s standards would be called rudimentary. There was a Personnel Division, a Supplies and Property Division and a Finance Division, all reporting to one Assistant Under-Secretary.
The professional staff of the Foreign Service were recruited as FSO-1s and over the years advanced through competitive selection by promotion boards until they reached the deemed upper level of their competence. The ultimate, achieved by very few, was FSO-10. You felt that you had moved into the senior ranks when you attained the rank of FSO-6. Most Heads of Post were FSO-7s or -8s. Incidentally the number of non-career appointees was very small.
The Service was growing, which made the prospects for advancement much brighter than today, and the methods of the promotion boards could be described as more humane than the ruthless competitive practices which came along later.
A promotion board, faced with the task of selecting perhaps a half-dozen candidates out of a considerably larger total list, would first pick the top two stars and then look at those who had served for the longest time in grade to see if there were not some slower achievers who merited advancement. Only after that review did the board fill the remaining slots.
Alas, these simple times came to an end. In the ’60s, the Government accepted the concept that the members of the Public Service had the right to organize and bargain collectively. It also accepted the views of the Glassco Commission that its management practices were out of date and needed to be reformed. The concept of central agencies laying down government-wide standards became reality.
In 1968, this reality hit the Foreign Service. The new government made it evident that it regarded the Department in general, and the Foreign Service in particular as fossilized. Budgetary cutbacks were imposed and at a time when the normal practice was to serve until retirement age of sixty-five, the Department was faced with the unpleasant task of forcing the early retirement of some fine officers.
The Privy Council Office was pressing the case for integration of government operations abroad, and this provoked a lengthy and contentious debate between departments concerned. It was finally resolved by the decision to designate External Affairs as responsible for the provision of support services, but with the trade, immigration and CIDA program responsibilities remaining with their respective departments. It was at this moment, in 1970 that I was appointed Assistant Under-Secretary in charge of Administration.
But this was not the only challenge. The Treasury Board and Public Service Commission proclaimed that the FS classification system was flawed because the salary bands were too narrow and incorporated fixed annual increments, which was contrary to the system in the home service. They proposed a new scale consisting of five grades, with much wider bands, and attempted to institute the idea that an individual would “float” within the band, getting increases which would match inflation but would advance only with superior ratings. They did not accept the External Affairs view that most officers were, by definition, superior.
The Department argued as strongly as it could that the new classification system would serve us badly. It would mean that many officers could look forward to no more than one promotion during their whole careers. Contrary to the view of the Treasury experts that all that mattered was that salaries would keep increasing, FSOs took pride in their work and would expect to see it reflected in their titles as well as their pay cheques.
The issue came to a head at a meeting between our Under-Secretary (Ed Ritchie), the Deputy Minister of Trade and Commerce (Jake Warren), and senior officials of Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission. Recognizing that we were faced with superior force, Messrs. Ritchie and Warren bowed to the inevitable, and the new system was installed.
At the same time, as a response to the view that we didn’t have sufficient respect for the importance of “management,” steps were taken to incorporate selected AS officers into the Foreign Service group. This proved to be an ill-considered half-measure. Nothing was done to establish a career stream for them, or to ensure that new administrative recruits would have the academic qualifications to enable them to advance to higher management responsibilities.
Coincidentally, a disgruntled foreign service officer appealed a decision of a promotion board, and carried it to a judicial appeal. The judge in his wisdom decided that the system we followed was contrary to the merit principle. As a consequence, promotion boards were bound much more strictly than before, to the language of assessments in rating reports. As a consequence many excellent officers suffered unfairly during the 70s.
I went abroad in 1972 so I can’t say much about what happened during the rest of that decade, but my impression is that PAFSO fought valiantly and effectively to counter some of the worst consequences of the new regime.
The next round in the battle with the Central Agencies took place in 1980, and just as I was organizing my retirement, I unexpectedly got drawn back into the fray. In the confusion following the defeat of the short-lived Clark government and the resumption of power of the Liberals, Michael Pitfield, then Secretary to the Cabinet succeeded in pulling an end-run around the departments and had an edict issued integrating all foreign operations under External Affairs. He also recalled Gordon Smith, who had the job I had held ten years previously, to the PCO. Allan Gotlieb asked me if I would fill in for a few months until a replacement could be found, so I found myself reliving the battles of the previous decade.
In due course Daniel Molgat arrived back home and took over, and at last my plans for retirement could go ahead, but just as I was cleaning out my desk a new problem arose.
Our friends in the central agencies, presumably abandoning the argument in favor of wide salary bands, at least for senior ranks, dreamed up the idea of a governmentwide executive category, consisting of five grades. In order to determine which positions in the public service should belong to this exalted club they decided to use a job classification system used in the private sector (the Hay system), which needless to say was profoundly affected by the bottom line. They had run a pilot project the year before under the guidance of Jack Maybee, and found that if one prepared to apply the system with a great deal of imagination, it could be used for assessing jobs in the Foreign Service. We insisted that in applying the system to the Foreign Service, our positions be categorized as EX(FS).
In order to implement the review, the Treasury Board created a series of six or seven committees, and assigned a group of departments to be assessed by each committee. I was asked to chair the committee responsible for reviewing the Departments of External Affairs, Industry, Trade and Commerce, Employment and Immigration, and CIDA. The committee had representatives from each of the departments, and we were free to invite experts to advise us.
I won’t go into the details of the succession of negotiations between the Department and the Treasury Board. Sufficient to say that they went on intermittently over a period of more than two years, and turned into a major post-retirement project for me.
Essentially, so far as the Foreign Service was concerned, our task was to classify positions deemed to merit an EX level around the world. Initially we were concerned only with overseas jobs, but this was later changed to include positions in Ottawa as well.
Notwithstanding the assurances we had been given about the way the Hay system was to be applied, the Treasury Board was profoundly unhappy with our proposals and decided to reconvene the group under the chairmanship of an independent arbiter, Lieut. Gen. W.A.B. Anderson, who after retirement from the army, had had experience with the Glassco Commission and with the Ontario Government.
After several more weeks of argumentation Gen. Anderson submitted his recommendations to the Treasury Board. I felt that his proposals had essentially met our concerns and I recommended to the Under- Secretary that he accept the report. After some delay, the Secretary of the Board also acquiesced, and the chapter was closed. But I have no doubt that officials of the Board were profoundly unhappy that we had ended up with more than a quarter of all EX positions in the public service and would do their best to “rectify” the situation.
I am not clear whether or how Heads of Post positions are classified today, or whether the Hay system still has any currency, but I suppose the pressures of the present downsizing operation will go some way toward meeting Treasury Board views.
I have read the outline of the Department’s plan for the reclassification of the FS group, and the inclusion of a new administrative and consular stream. The system won’t be an exact match, but the net effect will be a career progression involving nine grades instead of ten — not all that different. It seems to me that the essentials of the scheme meet the defects of the current system that concerned us twenty odd years ago, but of course it is for the FSOs of today to decide if this is the case. I have every confidence in PAFSO’s ability to defend the interests of its members.
William H. Barton Ottawa
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 10, No. 3 (1993) — Summer 1993 // Été 1993, pp. 5–7. Read the rest of this issue →
