Update: Cost of New Federal Leave for COVID-19

On July 24, 2020 the PBO reported on costs incurred from the Government’s policy of allowing employees to use pay code 699 paid leave for other reasons. Guidance from the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) allows for employees to request 699 leave for a variety of reasons including being sick with COVID-19, having to quarantine, not being able to access the technology they need to complete their work, and having to care for dependents.

Our original cost estimate included data up to the end of May 2020.  The Government subsequently shared data for June, as well as a breakdown of monthly leave by department through information request IR0504 (July 2020). The PBO has requested updated monthly data and will continue to monitor personnel expenditures as part of its mandate to provide independent and non-partisan analysis to Parliament.  

The Government has now provided us with monthly data from March to June for 72 of the 88 federal public service organizations governed by the Financial Administration Act Schedules I, IV and V.  These 72 organizations represent 88% (265,817) of federal public servants. For all weeks the number of hours used was revised from the previous data provided. All revisions were upward except for the week of March 16^th, where reported hours decreased by 103.  It is still unclear why some federal organizations are unable to provide data.

Consistent with our prior findings, use of 699 leave continues to decrease (Figure 1-1).  As can be seen, after reaching a peak of 1.57 million hours in the week ending April 5, the number of weekly hours of leave has decreased by 84% to 254 thousand hours in the last week of June.

The Treasury Board was unable to provide actual personnel expenditures for the survey period.  Using 2018-2019 personnel expenditure data provided through information request IR0074 (February 2012), the PBO estimates a cost of $828 million between March and June for leave taken under code 699, inclusive of pension and other benefits. [i]  This includes PBO’s extrapolation of costs for the departments for which no data are available.

The calculations shown in Table 1-1 represent a 71% increase from our previous estimate due to the additional months and the inclusion of pension and benefit costs.

As previously reported, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is responsible for most of the 699 leave. Table 1-2 shows the five organizations with the highest hours used per month and their respective percent of total hours.  The CRA continues to account for a decreasing share of hours used, from 79% in March to 46% in June.  Most departments reported their total highest hours in either April or May, and all but 9 of the departments reported fewer hours used in June than in April.

Considerations

As noted above, the data received for this update contained revisions from our original reporting. TBS has informed the PBO that departments report data at irregular intervals, and they expect leave usage will fluctuate, until all organizations have caught up with their data entry of leave transactions. Notably, data for the first week of July (June 29^th to July 5^th) contained significantly fewer departments than previous weeks and is likely incomplete.  For this reason, our expenditure estimates only cover the period from March 9^th to June 28^th.

There are two scenarios where leave may be reported under a different period than it is taken. First, if an employee takes leave across two or more months the leave will be captured based on the month of the end date. Second, if an employee submits multiple periods of leave in one transaction the leave will be captured as occurring on one date. Because of these data quality issues, there are instances where the amount of leave used per-employee cannot be reconciled by the estimated work hours for the period on a per-department level. The PBO was not informed of this before publishing our initial report.

The PBO also requested, but did not receive, information on the type of leave being taken (leave for technology reasons, sick leave, family leave, etc.) for departments other than the CRA (which has already provided this information). TBS specified that only two of the 88 departments and agencies currently have the system capabilities to provide a breakdown of the authorized reasons for extending “Other Paid Leave”.

Finally, as previously indicated (notably in media interviews), the number of hours claimed under leave code 699 is almost certainly an underestimation of the loss of work hours due to the pandemic.  As stated in our July report, the Canada Revenue Agency was able to continue many of its core operations despite claiming by far the most hours of 699 leave.  This is due to a strong culture of monitoring time spent on specific activities.  It is therefore highly likely that other federal organizations not completing core operating functions like meeting legislated timelines for access to information requests are severely under-reporting the extent of hours of work lost due to the pandemic.

Appendix A – Hours of 699 Leave Requested

March 9^th – July 5^th*

* The data provided reflects the available information as of July 14^th, 2020 and will continue to evolve as organizations continue to input leave.

** Data was received on a weekly basis therefore March refers to March 9^th to 29^th, April refers to March 30^th to April 26^th, May refers to April 27 to May 31^st, June refers to June 1^st to June 28^th, and July refers to June 29 to July 5^th.

*** In order to respect the data privacy of employees, departments/agencies with 10 or fewer employees using 699 leave were grouped together as Other. These departments/agencies are: Military Grievances External Review Committee, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada, Canadian Human Rights Commission, Military Police Complaints Commission of Canada, Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, Copyright Board Canada, Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs Canada, Offices of the information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada, Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat, International Joint Commission, Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner of Canada, and National Film Board. The total reported under Public Safety Canada also includes data from the following 3 departments: The Correctional Investigator Canada, RCMP External Review Committee, and Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP. For the same privacy reasons, some organizations in the table have a dash (-) for some months. Their number of hours was also included in “Other” for these months.

Appendix B – Count of Employees Using 699 Leave

March 9^th – July 5^th*

* The data provided reflects the available information as of July 14^th, 2020 and will continue to evolve as organizations continue to input leave. Employee count indicates the number of employees who requested at least one type of COVID-related 699 leave since March 15^th, 2020.

** Data was received on a weekly basis therefore March refers to March 9^th to 29^th, April refers to March 30^th to April 26^th, May refers to April 27 to May 31^st, June refers to June 1^st to June 28^th, and July refers to June 29 to July 5^th.

*** In order to respect the data privacy of employees, departments/agencies with 10 or fewer employees using 699 leave were grouped together as Other. These departments/agencies are: Military Grievances External Review Committee, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada, Canadian Human Rights Commission, Military Police Complaints Commission of Canada, Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, Copyright Board Canada, Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs Canada, Offices of the information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada, Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat, International Joint Commission, Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner of Canada, and National Film Board. The total reported under Public Safety Canada also includes data from the following 3 departments: The Correctional Investigator Canada, RCMP External Review Committee, and Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP. For the same privacy reasons, some organizations in the table have a dash (-) for some months. Their employee count was also included in “Other” for these months.    

[i] The PBO’s prior estimate only accounted for salary at and average cost of $309 per employee per day. The average cost across government inclusive of pension, benefits, and other personnel costs is $481 per employee per day. Per-department costs were used in the estimate whenever possible. The CRA has lower than average per-employee costs which decreased the overall average cost.