Gov't/CF Hospitality: how much? who approves?

[dapaterson]

I have to agree with FSTO on this one.  It IS embarrassing, which is why, in my experience, we often dipped into our own pockets to try and at least attempt to do it right.  You are correct that the Japanese set a standard that is impossible to match, but do we have to go to the opposite extreme and go as cheap as possible without actually charging admission to a function that we are hosting?  Surely there is a happy medium somewhere?  If we can give the captain of one of HMC Ships the authority to spend over a million dollars annually and hold the lives of hundreds of sailors in his hands, surely we can trust him to spend a few more dollars on some decent gifts.  Frankly, the ridiculous limits which are imposed now tend to ENCOURAGE creative accounting, which in itself is abuse.

The Treasury Board is a committee of government ministers who have put into place the policies that direct what the Federal Government, its employees, agents, and its military and police members may do with public funds.  This includes restrictions on what may be termed representational expenses.  Gifts can only be authorized by a Level 2 (bureaucratic speak - translated to the RCN, that's the Commanders or MARPAC, MARLANT, and NavRes), who in turn are limited to $55; a Level 1 (Commander fo a command) can authorize the princely sum of $75.  Those authorities may not be delegated further.


The Government of Canada has issued direction on this, like it or not. 

 

[Strike]

dapaterson, you can argue TSB directives all you want.  The fact of the matter is, the allowances (or lack thereof) contradict the basic manners that many of us were taught by our parents.  If someone hosts you, you give them a gift to thank them.  If someone is visiting, you treat them with respect and offer them food and drink.  Heck, even the poorest people in the poorest villages in the world know and follow these basic practices, even when they have barely enough food to feed themselves!

It's frustrating when a government directive goes against the basics of common curtesy when being hosted or hosting.  One should not have to go all the way to some guy in Ottawa to ask permission for money to serve more than coffee and sweets when the mucky-mucks of foreign militaries come visiting.

 

[dapaterson]

In late January it was announced that someone in DND wanted 20 000 orange stress balls; the MND (himself!) ordered that stopped.

That folks in DND/CF all nodded and said "Yes, we're facing times of economic restraint.  20 000 stress balls are a valid and legitimate operational requirement." tells me that leaders and managers throughout the organization have no conception of managing money nor of what is appropriate or not.

Hence why we have admittedly draconian restrictions - because without them, we'd piss away even more money on frivolities.  We cannot rely on common sense or good judgement - we have repeated examples of how rare those actually are.


In theory, when high mucky-mucks come visiting from foreign countries it's co-ordinated by a group in NDHQ who have authority to extend hospitality and offer gifts.  Unit COs can be delegated authority to offer hospitality (but not gifts).


This isn't rocket science - plan ahead and get approval.  That many in DND/CF prefer a reactive stance to a proactive stance is part of the problem.

 

[Pusser]

The Treasury Board is a committee of government ministers who have put into place the policies that direct what the Federal Government, its employees, agents, and its military and police members may do with public funds.  This includes restrictions on what may be termed representational expenses.  Gifts can only be authorized by a Level 2 (bureaucratic speak - translated to the RCN, that's the Commanders or MARPAC, MARLANT, and NavRes), who in turn are limited to $55; a Level 1 (Commander fo a command) can authorize the princely sum of $75.  Those authorities may not be delegated further.


The Government of Canada has issued direction on this, like it or not.

I fully understand all of this and I even understand why the rules are in place and what caused them to be put there.  However, I also think that Treasury Board has simply gotten it wrong.  The restrictions are too  - restrictive and bureaucratic.  They've obviously been developed by folks who've never left their ivory tower in Ottawa and assume that the world is predictable and things can be planned well in advance.  The practical application of these rules requires weeks, if not months of planning to gain permission and procure appropriate gifts.  More often than not, this time simply isn't there.  Furthermore, when a unit is deployed, the process becomes even more complicated, if not impossible, because the people whose signatures are required are scattered far and wide.

Here's a true to life scenario:  A ship makes an unexpected visit to a foreign port (happens frequently), protocol then dictates that the Captain "call" on the local port authority, the local official presents Captain with beautiful hand-carved "Welcome to Xanadu" plaque (happens frequently) and the Captain responds with a ball cap - paid for by the Ship's Company out of their pockets (i.e. NPF).  This is appropriate?  Why should Ordinary Seaman Bloggins pay for a gift to someone he's never met, will never meet and had no say in whether the ship went to that port in the first place?  If the ship is going to do the government's business then the government should cover the cost, which includes any gifts required by protocol.  Far too often, members of the CF shell out of their own pockets to save the country from embarrassment because the government won't.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be rules, but those rules need to be practical and reasonable under the circumstances.  People in charge also need to be held accountable for the decisions they make.  Instead of making more rules when people screw up or ignore them (which generally only tend to make life more difficult for the folks who did NOT break them), we should try enforcing those rules we have.

 

[Jed]

Precisely, Pusser. But that is not the Bean Counter way. We all must suffer for the one percenter boobs who will inevitably screw up. Spend a dollar to save a nickle, I say.

 

[Pusser]

In late January it was announced that someone in DND wanted 20 000 orange stress balls; the MND (himself!) ordered that stopped.

That folks in DND/CF all nodded and said "Yes, we're facing times of economic restraint.  20 000 stress balls are a valid and legitimate operational requirement." tells me that leaders and managers throughout the organization have no conception of managing money nor of what is appropriate or not.

Hence why we have admittedly draconian restrictions - because without them, we'd piss away even more money on frivolities.  We cannot rely on common sense or good judgement - we have repeated examples of how rare those actually are.


In theory, when high mucky-mucks come visiting from foreign countries it's co-ordinated by a group in NDHQ who have authority to extend hospitality and offer gifts.  Unit COs can be delegated authority to offer hospitality (but not gifts).


This isn't rocket science - plan ahead and get approval.  That many in DND/CF prefer a reactive stance to a proactive stance is part of the problem.

I'm not defending stupid decisions.  However, instead of preventing or hindering other folks from doing their jobs properly, deal with the idiots who do stupid things. 

Sometimes, the best laid plans still come up short and flexibility is required to ensure the correct outcome.

 

[CountDC]

although I agree that the purse strings are too tight in these cases it has to be realized this is because the people of Canada demanded it and still do.  Look at the reactions everytime there is a report of some government department or agent spending x dollars.  Mentioning $22k will have joe citizen crying foul while those of us that have worked or are now working fin shrug over such a small drop in the bucket.  Garunteed this will now crop up everytime they cut a budget.  Someone will comment that they need the funds for their parties that the helicopters take them to.

You know the press is trying to cause waves when they talk dollars.  Much more attention getting than talking percentage of the national budget.    Imagine if the story was that they had spent .0000001 percent of the national budget on this. Yes that is a  random number - figure it out for yourself if you really want to know.  Doesn't really have the same affect though does it.  Same as the DND budget - at one time it was often shown as a percentage, which was small overall, but now they always talk the dollars.

 

[Pusser]

It's worth noting that I am one of those "bean counters" and I can tell you that these rules make my life even more difficult because I'm the one who has to go to the CO to tell him, "we can't do this," to which he responds:

a) Why not? (usually accompanied by an epithet or two)

b) Figure it out and find a way to do this  :rage:. 

They never like the answer to a) and I haven't found a good answer to b) yet, short of manufacturing gifts myself in order to stay within the cost restrictions (and yes, I've done this). 

 

[Strike]

DP -- You keep bringing up the stress balls.  Have you ever thought to ask who originally put in the purchase order for those and what the intention was for them?

I only bring this up because, having visited the mental health section of the MIR here I've noticed that the therapists usually have a couple on their desks, along with things like elastics and other items for the twitchy.  I asked one of them how many they go through and they said usually a couple a day per therapist.

So, for you and many people, these items seem useless and frivolous.  For others they are used to help people cope with the stresses of their every day lives.

Sorry, but having you repeatedly bringing up this one item as if it was the most useless thing in the world was really grinding on me.  I have a couple of them myself, given to me from MH, and I have to admit that the act of squeezing the crap out of something for a few minutes has helped to calm me down on more than a few occasions.

Can you please pick something else that you think is frivolous to pick on?

 

[Jed]

DAP, It is always easy to defend a position of saving a nickel to eventually spend a dollar when it comes to matters of official protocol. I personally prefer people from other countries not to remember we Canadians as " those cheap SOB's."

As I implied above, the government wastes a lot of money rooting out the stupid spending practices of the small minority. And, as previously mentioned, it is done to reduce the number of press worthy 'gotcha' incidents.

 

[dapaterson]

Strike:

If the stress balls had been purchased by Health Services as therapeutic devices, there would have been no reaction.  They were not - they were to be purchased as giveaways for some program or another.

I work in NDHQ.  A few times a month (usually to celebrate "National Toilet Paper Awareness Week" or some other earth shattering event) tables are set up in the main concourse, where various organizations within DND/CF set up to talk about their programs.  They've got stress balls, lanyards, pens, note pads, shopping bags, flashlights, coffee mugs... you name the tchotke, and someone has a stack of them to give away.

I call those days "Bottom 10% days" - since, if we've got full-time military and civilian staff with nothing better to do than push shoddy trinkets, and with enough money to have a steady supply of said trinkets, they clearly should be part of the bottom 10% news reports say DND is culling.


And Pusser:

Short turn-arounds (an unexpected port) can be managed - even an email to the boss saying "Hey, we're stopping in Blogginsville unexpectedly - need to give him a gift" with the OK of the Commander is enough of a paper trail to get things done - fil out the forms after, referring to the email and attaching a hard copy (you did save the email, didn't you?)

And I too have had the challenge of remaining within the limits, and telling a CO "Sir, let's try another idea..."

 

[Colin Parkinson]

We can offer tap water to our clients. Anything beyond that requires a RDG level approval. Anything involving booze requires an even higher level approval.

Most proponents and consultants don’t want to come to our office because we can’t offer hospitality. Hell we even have to buy the dish soap for the little kitchen we have. So far they are providing toilet paper and the very basic paper towels.

 

[Strike]

DP -- Fair enough.  I'm just annoyed at the extra steps I now have to take to simply restock my 'giveaways' out of a budget that I manage, in a job that is meant to promote and advertise the CF.  It used to be such a simple process but the extra steps are time consuming, annoying and just plain patronizing.

 

[Edward Campbell]

As I implied above, the government wastes a lot of money rooting out the stupid spending practices of the small minority. And, as previously mentioned, it is done to reduce the number of press worthy 'gotcha' incidents.

Sadly, the "small minority" is not as small as we would all wish, and their "stupid practices" almost invariably make the news, embarrassing the government  of the day and the senior bureaucrats.

Do you think Wayne Wouters actually enjoys wasting staff time and effort to get the PM to sign off on the hospitality expenses for an OECD meeting? Of course he doesn't, but he accepts it as the price that must be paid to prevent abuses of public money ~ and in a 35+ years military career and in a decade long second career spent working with industry and government and hosting international meetings, I, personally, saw more abuse that I was able to stomach.

Several issues:

1. Legitimate hospitality for visiting foreign delegations is not impossible, it's not even very hard ~ but there are pretty strict and, in my opinion too low limits. It is (was, anyway) possible to claim "reasonable and actual" hospitality expenses when functions were held in CF messes ~ but thank all the gods for computers and spreadsheets because I had to show x drinks and y canapes for n guests and n1 hosts;

2. Gifts, except in rare occasions, should be modest ~ but we ought to have some nice, better than the red plastic maple leaf pins, CF and/or service pins; and

3. Units and formations ought to use NPF to buy a few extra e.g. cloth ship regiment or squadron crests to be used a gifts ~ yes it is the sailor's/soldiers'/air force members' money but it is also their unit and they are being represented when the CO or Cox'n hands out a few "goodies."

In my (reasonably extensive) experience I concluded that the spirit matters more than the monetary value of the token; I have a few quite expensive "tokens," only two are on display: one from a Canadian institute thanking me for a (professional) contribution and the other from a major European company thanking me for helping them solve a problem - the rest were just for "being there" and they are meaningless to me. But I do cherish a large handful of mostly cheap "trinkets" that I got from various, mostly military, organizations and I can usually tell you when, where and why I got most of them.

 

[dapaterson]

DP -- Fair enough.  I'm just annoyed at the extra steps I now have to take to simply restock my 'giveaways' out of a budget that I manage, in a job that is meant to promote and advertise the CF.  It used to be such a simple process but the extra steps are time consuming, annoying and just plain patronizing.

I'm not disagreeing at all that it's annoying, time consuming and patronizing.  But it has evolved that way over time, and it will take time and continued good behaviour to get the conditions changed.


(For the record, I have in my life had one meal with alcohol provided by the Crown, when I was support staff to a senior multi-national meeting.  Food was OK (though I've had better) and the wine was an above-average Merlot.)

 

[Pusser]

And Pusser:

Short turn-arounds (an unexpected port) can be managed - even an email to the boss saying "Hey, we're stopping in Blogginsville unexpectedly - need to give him a gift" with the OK of the Commander is enough of a paper trail to get things done - fil out the forms after, referring to the email and attaching a hard copy (you did save the email, didn't you?)

And I too have had the challenge of remaining within the limits, and telling a CO "Sir, let's try another idea..."

You would think that it would work that way, especially with email access around the world now.  Sadly it does not.  When I was last faced with this, if the plan was not in place and approved well in advance of leaving home port, we were SOL -period, no appeal or debate.

The problem with saying we need another idea is that it usually immediately put the onus on me to come up with that new idea, with zero direction on what the desired outcome was to be (admittedly, no policy in the world could have overcome the leadership void I was in at the time), but this is an issue for another thread.

 

[dapaterson]

In my (reasonably extensive) experience I concluded that the spirit matters more than the monetary value of the token; I have a few quite expensive "tokens," only two are on display: one from a Canadian institute thanking me for a (professional) contribution and the other from a major European company thanking me for helping them solve a problem - the rest were just for "being there" and they are meaningless to me. But I do cherish a large handful of mostly cheap "trinkets" that I got from various, mostly military, organizations and I can usually tell you when, where and why I got most of them.

Precisely - it's the spirit in which it's given and the reason for which it's given that makes it significant.

You would think that it would work that way, especially with email access around the world now.  Sadly it does not.  When I was last faced with this, if the plan was not in place and approved well in advance of leaving home port, we were SOL -period, no appeal or debate.

That's a leadership issue.  I've done plenty of things with an email approval - paper to follow.  We do seem to breed some rather timorous "leaders", unfortunately.

(And re: lack of direction from leaders:  sounds like a discussion at a stand-up table that will inevitably turn into a feat of one-upmanship.

 

[Pat in Halifax]

And Pusser:

Short turn-arounds (an unexpected port) can be managed - even an email to the boss saying "Hey, we're stopping in Blogginsville unexpectedly - need to give him a gift" with the OK of the Commander is enough of a paper trail to get things done - fil out the forms after, referring to the email and attaching a hard copy (you did save the email, didn't you?)

And I too have had the challenge of remaining within the limits, and telling a CO "Sir, let's try another idea..."

The problem here is that quite often, there is a requirement to plan ahead. yes, you may be able to get a painting or coffee mug through the canteen but sometimes, you need more. I was on board GATINEAU years ago when a Russion TG came into Halifax. As our CO's last post was as military attache at the embassy in Moscow, we were 'volunteered' to host. As a PO2, we hosted the senior rates. They brought us over this wooden ships wheel from one of their famous sailing vessels (I wonder what ever happenned to it?) and what did we give them? A ships crest painted by a hungover (obviously) bos'n, ham and cheese sandwiches and about 80 gallons of Kieths beer.

I felt a little inadequate.

Oh, and those days at 101? I too wonder what the hell we have come to when I witness those - It's embarrassing!

 

[PMedMoe]

I work in NDHQ.  A few times a month (usually to celebrate "National Toilet Paper Awareness Week" or some other earth shattering event) tables are set up in the main concourse, where various organizations within DND/CF set up to talk about their programs.  They've got stress balls, lanyards, pens, note pads, shopping bags, flashlights, coffee mugs... you name the tchotke, and someone has a stack of them to give away.

I hear ya.  Go on just about any course run by PSP/CFPSA and get a pen, a pin, a key chain, and mug or glass, a notepad......the list goes on.

 

[Kirkhill]

The Swedish company that I used to work for used to have a marketing department that justified its existence cranking giveaways: everything from plastic pins, to kiddies toys, to cameras and models of the equipment I sold. All good stuff.  All budgeted. And for a totally different purpose (or maybe not - the CF is selling Canada just as much as I was selling centrifuges).

But the point of my intervention is that out of all of that catalogue of goodies there was one eternally well received gift.  It wasn't the most expensive one.  It was a satin finish stainless steel penknife with two blades and a nail file in a black leather slip case.  It measured about 2 and half inches long, 3/4 of an inch wide and was about 3/8" thick.  One of my english relatives handed them out to his clients in the 1930s.  I was still handing them out in the 1990s. 

The good idea fairy got ahold of somebody in marketing one day and decided it would be more cost effective to just by knives from the Zippo and Gerber catalogs and hand them out.  We ended up spending a fortune on Gerber multi-tools and broke the budget...

Meanwhile, the clients, they thanked us for the Gerbers, stated they were Leathermen fans and wanted to know where their little knife in the black slip case was.

Gifts don't have to be expensive but they should be memorable.  And if you can get something that people want and seek out as unusual...

Marlin spike on a lanyard perhaps?