Source: “Enabling a Robust Assistant Deputy Minister Cadre.” Public Service Management Advisory Committee, July 18.
On the five-level executive scale, it matters where precisely each job sits in the point range for each level. A job can sit comfortably in the middle or it can barely clear the minimum. An EX-03 at the minimum boundary is a weak EX-03 job. It’s a single point away from being an EX-02.
More than half of EX jobs in the core public service are sitting right at that edge.
A case for collapsing executive ranks? For decades, there’s been on-and-off discussion about collapsing the five executive levels into three — merging EX-01 with EX-02, and EX-04 with EX-05. And every few years, someone floats the idea of scrapping ADMs altogether.
THE GO-TO REPORT
James Lahey’s warning shot
A decade ago, former bureaucrat James Lahey — then director of OttawaU’s Centre on Public Management and Policy — led research into what’s still considered the go-to report on ADMs.
He warned they were too insular, prone to job-hopping, and often unprepared for leadership. His deep dive into 25 years of ADM evolution called for a rethink of how senior talent is recruited and groomed.
At the time, the number of ADMs had increased 40 per cent over 25 years, outpacing the rest of the public service. New ADM types cropped up with overlapping mandates, new titles, creating confusion, duplication, and fuzzy lines of accountability.
A power shift to the centre. Lahey argued the ADM role had been hollowed out as power centralized in the PMO and PCO. With that shift, ADMs began managing tasks that used to sit several rungs below, while big decisions were pushed upstairs to ministers and deputy ministers.
The result: too much “managerialism” — generic managers “divorced from policy and content,” making ADM jobs less than they should be.
His fix? Fewer ADMs but with bigger mandates — and a clear mission to lead change.
Déjà vu all over again. Sound familiar? Some say little has changed since Lahey’s watershed report. If anything, the workload and authority have shifted even further upward with the growth of associate deputy ministers.
“If you have more ADMs, then your director generals have less responsibility. And if you have more deputy ministers and associates, then your ADMs have less responsibility. You have to give the associates something to do,” says one senior bureaucrat.
Several deputy ministers say work once managed at lower levels is increasingly landing on their desks.
Sabia’s moment to recalibrate? Some insiders worry that having two heavyweight technocrats like Carney and Sabia at the top will deepen the centralization of power. But others hope Sabia will push for a recalibration — shrinking ADM ranks, restoring real authority to directors general, flattening decision-making and speeding up delivery.
“Is there going to be a recalibration to empower people to make the choices under their leadership and according to their responsibilities? I think that’s a conversation he will want to have,” one senior official says.
It’s not the role, it’s the times. Quan-Watson argues it’s not the ADM role that has changed so much as the context. Pressure and pace drove much of the growth, he says.
During the Trudeau years — especially through COVID — everything got compressed. The demands of mandate letters exploded. Departments were swamped with new initiatives, tight timelines, and relentless political pressure to deliver immediately, he says.
New ADM roles were created to absorb the overflow. Mandates were split to give exhausted executives breathing room. “New and shiny” files were handed to temporary ADMs to signal focus and urgency.
“You’re in a world of a minority government needing to show delivery in shorter periods of time,” Quan-Watson said. “That’s a different world than a majority government, where you need something in place by year three rather than month three.”
SHUFFLE WATCH
This is a de facto litmus test
Much speculation continues around a deputy-minister shuffle. By now, Sabia was expected by many to have put his stamp on the public service. But this is a summer when deputy ministers and their departments are looking anywhere and everywhere to cut 15 per cent. Those proposals are due Aug. 28 — and some say Sabia may be using that exercise to help decide who stays.
“I think that the de facto litmus test for this government, outside of the U.S. and tariffs, is actually expenditure reduction,” says a long-time senior bureaucrat.
“Good management and expenditure reduction are what they want to see from the deputy community. So, deputies who have fallen short, I'd say your days are numbered.”
And finally.....
EVENT > CONFERENCE > OTTAWA
Industrial policy in tumultuous times
The IRPP, our publisher, is hosting a one-day conference next month that will be of interest to public servants.
The topic: Governments do not have the fiscal capacity to address the urgent challenges Canada is facing. They'll have to need to collaborate with the private sector to build, manufacture and innovate to achieve results as fast as possible.
The day will be devoted to discussing how to do that.
Joining the conversation will be public servants, academics, researchers, corporate leaders and other policy influencers from across Canada. This is the culmination of a research project the IRPP has been doing for two years.
Two keynote and focused panel sessions. | The agenda
Tickets: $600 | Group rates available. | Breakfast, lunch and a cocktail reception.
Tuesday, Sept. 16, at the Lord Elgin Hotel in Ottawa.
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