Wed 01 Jun 2005

DND HQ to stay put: report
Non-strategic staff will be moved into other 'nodes'

by David Pugliese

The Pearkes Building will remain the Defence Department's headquarters, but employees who don't fulfil a "strategic HQ" function will be moved out of the towers, according to a federal government report leaked to the Citizen.

While the May 2 report details the basis for some of the department's future moves, it does not give dates when workers would vacate the Colonel By Drive offices. The two towers house about 3,900 military and civilian personnel, but space is at a premium.

The department is asking senior managers to identify which "organizations fulfil a 'strategic HQ' function and should be located in Pearkes," according to the report. "All others would be assigned to specific node(s), based on a functional analysis."

Under the node system, the Defence Department wants to combine its offices in a small number of locations in the capital region. According to the document, some of the nodes could be located outside the core.

The decision to continue occupying the Maj.-Gen. George R. Pearkes Building appears to put an end -- for now -- to the department's desire to move out of the towers and into a campus-style location such as the JDS Uniphase complex on Merivale Road.

Defence spokesman Hasit Thankey said the strategic headquarters functions the report discusses deal with those offices that directly support senior decision-makers.

"We're currently in a phase where we're trying to gather the information," he added. After that, decisions will be made on which offices would be moved out of the building and which would stay, but no time frame has been determined.

The May 2 strategy is not going over well with the department's largest union, which says it has been kept in the dark about the plan. "It's not consultation, it's notification," said John MacLennan, national president of the Union of National Defence Employees.

Mr. MacLennan said he doesn't know what the strategy will mean for public servants at the Pearkes building, but he could see potential problems with employees commuting to work and obtaining day-care services, depending to which node they might be sent.

Mr. Thankey said the unions and others will be consulted, eventually. "We will be engaging the unions, but because we're so early in the strategy, we don't have a specific time in mind when they will be engaged."

The report noted the accommodation strategy would govern the relocation of employees as current office leases expire, as well as if the department needs to obtain space for new requirements. The Defence Department occupies about 39 locations around the area.

The federal government spends $56 million annually to rent space for the department in the region. It owns about half the buildings the department occupies, but the federal government is leaning toward using the private sector for its future building programs.

The strategy covers Defence's general office space and does not include special purpose facilities such as armouries, reserve units and the Connaught Range. According to the document, the strategy would ensure that future moves follow a conscious set process, instead of the "random and ad hoc approach currently in place." It would also give the department a method to better make its office needs known, from a geographical point of view, to Public Works and Government Services Canada.

Last year, Defence examined consolidating its offices into three main locations, or "nodes," in Ottawa and Gatineau to cut down on the amount it spends on rent, to improve security and to deal with its need for more space in the future. Those locations are considered "anchor sites" for additional office space to be acquired in the same vicinity.

The department has been steadily increasing its space requirements, despite a previous plan to consolidate its operations. In 1997, the department launched a three-year program to reduce staff to 7,800 from 9,300 by grouping employees from 38 offices into four main existing locations, including the National Defence headquarters on Colonel By Drive. At the time, the department occupied 2.6 million square feet of office space.

The staff reductions, however, were never achieved. Instead, the department increased the amount of space it occupies by 22 per cent. "The requirement for office space has increased considerably and will continue to grow," noted a May 12, 2004, department document.