Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions now are for the Minister of Finance.
So the 2023 GNWT employee engagement and satisfaction survey identified a number of sources of major dissatisfaction in GNWT workplaces and, in particular, places where dissatisfaction's been growing. So I understand that in July of last year an action plan, an employee satisfaction action plan, was released to try to address the problems. So can the Finance Minister tell us what progress is being made since this action plan was established, first, on growing concerns that GNWT workplaces are not psychologically healthy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the line of questions. This is yet one more of the suite of things that we are trying to address and trying to implement across the human resources processes within the GNWT. We have, as a part of responding to this, now implemented the national standard for psychological health and safety in the workplace across the GNWT. So it creates a very specific target by which staff can understand what their rights are and what the processes are and whereby supervisors and managers can have some toolkits available to them.
With respect to that implementation specifically training associated, Mr. Speaker, I'm more than happy to get some details on where we're at and what we plan to do. There is much more happening. And, really, one of the sort of critical things is that to actually get a more of an action plan on all of these items. Mr. Speaker, we have a committee formed from -- with across the public service and they are, in fact, meeting. I believe they are scheduled to meet this month in order to start to roll this out in a more conservative fashion. Every department has been asked to come up with their own individualized approach with some specific actions. And, again, I'd be more than happy to see and to provide each of those to the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Another part of the survey that came out, what is the GNWT doing about the widespread concern that information does not flow effectively between senior leadership and staff? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is a particular one that I read several of the individual EESSs for individual departments as well as for the GNWT as a whole, and there's often an interesting correlation between when information is not flowing and then what that can do to the overall morale in an individual place. So this is one of some particular interest to me, so -- and, again, on this one, Mr. Speaker, this is where each department, because there are often different processes and different types of hierarchies within them are expected to have those individualized plans. Again, I have certainly seen some of them but as for the individual implementation of each, I don't have that in front of me. I'm more than happy to get it and put it forward. And, frankly, this might be something that given the magnitude and size warrants a full briefing, but also I'll put it to the House here so that it can be tabled, Mr. Speaker. It's important that employees see that there's action being taken on this. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And so building on that, many staff reported in the survey that they feel they don't have appropriate access to data and information in order to do their jobs effectively. So what is this government doing to ensure that confidentiality and secrecy is not our default mode, our default operating mode, to maximize the extent that the work that our staff are doing is actually being shared and made public? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's quite a range of items under this. So as I mentioned, the sort of action committee that's formed from across departments, one of the very first tasks that they, in fact, have is this particular action item. It's to ensure that there are mechanisms and effective mechanisms so that employees can provide feedback and suggestions and in a way that they feel safe.
Mr. Speaker, we do still have, of course, an MOU that exists for safe disclosure that is, frankly, underutilized and so happy to have this opportunity to remind folks that that is there for staff to use should they feel it appropriate or necessary, or uncertain, then they can certainly look at that.
Mr. Speaker, there's always efforts across government of just being -- of doing a better job of communicating some of the work that departments are doing and that staff are doing, not the least of which would be an example of yesterday or in the Sessional Statement of today. And, of course, Open NWT continues to work towards having more information made available about what's happening within government. So, again, quite a number of items, Mr. Speaker. If there's more to add at this point, I suspect a follow-up is likely to be tabled on this particular answer and will add to it in this regard as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, finally, there was a large decrease in satisfaction particularly amongst employees of our divisional educational councils. And I've certainly heard myself from the NWT Teachers Association about growing struggles to attract and retain teachers. So how is finance working with ECE to address these concerns from educational council employees? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's -- obviously, there's staff across the departments that are involved in this work but, quite specifically, there actually are individuals from the education councils who are involved, as I said, on this committee that's supposed to start moving some of these actions forward and supposed to be monitoring the success of them. The education councils are somewhat separate certainly from what may be happening in ECE, and so it was important to have them included and involved. The problems and challenges they may have could be quite different and different likely across regions. So that first action item that they're tasked with, again, the mechanisms for feedback, suggestions about how to understand what might be coming from a headquarters' vision, that is likely to be one that -- well, at least we expect is having a significant impact on education councils. So, again, they are represented on the next steps of what we're doing, and they -- that will be a big part of what's happening as a first step. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.
