After feedback from individual members detailing their frustration with the growing trend of non-advertised staffing competitions, ACFO-ACAF added a question on staffing to the 2018-19 State of the FI Community survey to help gauge the perceptions of the wider community and to get hard numbers on this issue to take to department leadership.

We released the results of the FI Community survey earlier this month and the numbers were telling: 43.1% of respondents believed that the number of non-advertised competitions in their department had increased over the past 12 months.

We recognize that this is an important issue for our community. Last fall, ACFO-ACAF representatives including President Dany Richard appeared before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates to advocate for improvements to the staffing system. We know that non-advertised competitions are often the result of departments attempting to bypass the inefficient staffing system altogether.

Dany has also begun meeting with CFOs and senior management within departments to discuss the results of the State of the FI Community survey, including the question of unadvertised competitions, and will continue to do so in the coming weeks. Finally, ACFO-ACAF has launched a research project aimed at obtaining data for non-advertised competitions within specific departments.

We understand that on occasion there can be benefits to non-advertised competitions, but we are calling for more transparency and accountability from the employer, specifically around the number of non-advertised competitions and the reasons why they are not advertised.

If you have feedback about competitions in your department, please feel free to contact Dany Richard at drichard@acfo-acaf.com. Any questions regarding the survey can be directed to Research and Communications Officer, Madeline Rodriguez, at mrodriguez@acfo-acaf.com.