CSPQ: the employee assistance program deficit

Pascal Dugas Drone

Wednesday, 2 August 2017 04:00

UPDATE
Wednesday, 2 August 2017 04:00

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The Centre de services partagés du Québec (CSPQ) has accumulated deficits of half-a-million dollars since 2009 through its employee assistance Program (EAP) offered to employees of the government of Québec, in particular because the price of its service was too low.

This is consistent with information obtained by QMI Agency through the law of access to information.

Since 2009, departments and agencies may subscribe to the program using the CSPQ at the rate of an amount per employee to pay. However, for five of the seven years of the program, the costs have been more important than the recipes.

After having recorded a deficit of $ 650,000 during the first four years, the program has generated a profit of $ 160,000 during the next two years, before returning to the red ink during the fiscal year 2015-2016.

Plan future business

The CSPQ, is attributed to the deficits in the first four years of the program in the normal time period for the marketing of a service.

“In view of the required implementation period for any new service, the CSPQ has agreed to finance the deficits of the first years of its budgets,” said Pierre Turgeon, spokesperson for the CSPQ.

More recently, it has also wanted to revise upwards the price per employee is charged to government departments and agencies, which “had not been updated since 2009”.

Aware of the problem that persists, the CSPQ will establish, in the course of the next year, “a business plan of how to restore and maintain the profitability of the service”.

Some 27 000 employees from 27 government departments and agencies are enrolled in the EAP offered by the CSPQ.

The objective of the CSPQ is to provide shared services to generate cost savings of time and money for the government of Quebec.