Article content continued

Executives in other departments have also not received their executive pay.

Deputy ministers typically rate their executives and send their assessments to Treasury Board by the end of June. Executives are then informed about how much performance pay or bonuses they will receive in July with payments following in the next several months.

Public Services, the department that oversaw the design and implementation of Phoenix, has taken the heat for the glitches and problems that have plagued it since the first rollout in February.

The department proceeded with the second rollout in April despite pleas from unions to slow down or delay it because the Miramichi, N.B., pay centre was already overworked and had not fully mastered the new system.

Some critics have argued that bureaucrats may have rushed the rollout to ensure they met the targets in their performance agreements so they would get their performance pay. The previous Conservative government launched the project as part of a cost-cutting plan to save $70 million a year by this year.

The department has confirmed that the performance agreements with executives working on the project were linked to hitting targets, timelines and keeping the project on schedule.

But some argue the malfunctioning Phoenix pay systems raises questions about the effectiveness of performance pay as an incentive for executives, especially for managing large “enterprise-wide” projects that take years to design and roll out.