SBUD Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Subcommittee on the Estimates Process of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Wednesday, May 14, 2003

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1740

The Chair (Mr. Gerry Ritz (Battlefords—Lloydminster, Canadian Alliance))

Mr. David Bickerton (Executive Director, Expenditure Operations and Estimates Directorate, Comptrollership Branch, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat)

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1745

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1750

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1755

The Chair

Mr. Tony Valeri (Stoney Creek, Lib.)

Mr. David Bickerton

Mr. Tony Valeri

Mr. David Bickerton

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1800

Mr. Tony Valeri

Mr. Robert Mellon (Director Estimates Production, Comptrollership Branch, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat)

Mr. Tony Valeri

Mr. Robert Mellon

The Chair

Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.)

Mr. David Bickerton

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1805

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. David Bickerton

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. David Bickerton

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. David Bickerton

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. David Bickerton

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. David Bickerton

Mr. Paul Szabo

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1810

Mr. David Bickerton

Mr. Robert Mellon

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. David Bickerton

Mr. Paul Szabo

The Chair

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. David Bickerton

Mr. Paul Szabo

¼

1815

Mr. David Bickerton

Mr. Paul Szabo

The Chair

Mr. David Bickerton

The Chair

Mr. David Bickerton

The Chair

Mr. David Bickerton

The Chair

Mr. David Bickerton

The Chair

Mr. David Bickerton

The Chair

Mr. Tony Tirabassi (Niagara Centre, Lib.)

Mr. David Bickerton

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1820

Mr. Robert Mellon

Mr. Tony Tirabassi

The Chair

Mr. Paul Szabo

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1825

The Chair

Mr. Robert Mellon

The Chair

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CANADA

Subcommittee on the Estimates Process of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates

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NUMBER 011

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Wednesday, May 14, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

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[English]

    The Chair (Mr. Gerry Ritz (Battlefords—Lloydminster, Canadian Alliance)): I'll now call the meeting to order. We have our quorum.

    Pursuant to a motion of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates adopted last November, the subcommittee is undertaking a review of the process for considering the estimates and supply. To that end, today we have witnesses from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, David Bickerton, the executive director, and Robert Mellon, director for Estimates Production.

    Welcome, gentlemen. I understand you have a short presentation for us.

    Mr. David Bickerton (Executive Director, Expenditure Operations and Estimates Directorate, Comptrollership Branch, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    We do have a presentation and we've circulated it to you.

    I do have with me, as you mentioned, Robert Mellon. He's the director for Estimates Production. He's responsible for, amongst other things, the production of the RPP guidelines and the tabling of the document in Parliament.

    This is my third appearance before the government operations and estimates committee. I appeared before the main committee on the appropriation and estimates process and before the subcommittee on the supplementary estimates. It's a pleasure to be here.

    The presentation today is focusing primarily on the process for the reports on plans and priorities. This is just one of a suite of documents that comprises the main estimates documents. Parts 1 and 2 are tabled in the House of Commons; part 3 represents the report on plans and priorities, and it's tabled in March. The departmental performance report is the companion document to that; it's tabled later.

    On slide 2 I give a bit of background in terms of the evolution of the estimates documents. The estimates as they currently exist, parts 1, 2, and 3, have been around for twenty-some years, since about 1980, when the last major reform of the estimates and the structure of the estimates took place.

    In 1995 the Treasury Board Secretariat undertook a review of part 3 of the estimates with a view to improving the expenditure management information provided to Parliament by rationalizing and simplifying the documents. In 1997 Parliament authorized the separation of the documents into a separate departmental plans and priorities document, the RPP, and the departmental performance report or DPR, which is tabled in the fall. The intent of this split is really to provide greater opportunity for parliamentary input into departmental activities, putting a greater emphasis on results and providing information on performance in a more timely manner.

    The first year all departments and agencies reported under the new structure, under the RPP, was 1998-99. Since that time the RPP has continued to evolve as a result of feedback from the Office of the Auditor General and from Parliament. As well, departments are gaining experience in producing these documents, and hopefully the improvements are beginning to show.

    On slide 3 we try to provide a context for what the RPPs are intended to do. We did move away from trying to report on workload and activities and concentrated more on the reporting of departmental results. The strategic outcomes that have been introduced are intended to provide context and a longer-term focus for departmental spending...and the results of departments' operations. The introduction of the reporting principles we have made is intended to provide a common basis for departments to present the required reports to Parliament.

    I'll just go on to slide 4. There is a relationship between the RPPs and the DPRs. The RPPs are produced in the spring and are meant to be a companion document to the departmental performance report. Taken together they should be able to show the links between the performance plans of the department and their achievements over the course of a year and to demonstrate the departmental commitment to managing for results.

    If you look at slide 5, we're looking to identify the users. Certainly, the intent is for the RPPs to have a variety of constituents. We're looking for these documents to be used by standing committees of the House for their study of departmental estimates. We also have use being made by central agencies and departments themselves. We get inquiries from the media and the general public. Various interest groups have used these documents to question departments. We also have the Auditor General making use of these documents.

    I think I've already indicated the timing to you. The plans and priorities are tabled in Parliament on behalf of departments by the President of the Treasury Board on or before March 31. This particular year, I believe, they were tabled on March 25.

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    Unless specifically exempted, every department and agency listed under schedules 1 and 2 of the Financial Administration Act must prepare an RPP. This past year there were approximately 87 documents tabled and referred to committees. Under the standing orders and the appropriations, the documents are referred to the various standing committees for review and study, and the standing committees are required to report back to the House with a review of the estimates by May 31.

    The RPP is coordinated by the Treasury Board. It's produced by departments and is tabled in the House, as I mentioned, by the president on behalf of departments.

    The Treasury Board is responsible for setting the guidelines. We revise these annually, based on feedback from a variety of sources, and we will work with departments to produce these documents.

    On slide 7 we show the reporting principles we've included over the last two years in the guide we send out to departments, and we are using these to try to set a direction for departments.

    The purpose of the principles is to ensure the RPP fulfills some critical tasks, such as planning, public accountability, providing evidence of sound management, and reflecting planning and resource allocation decisions. These principles are consistent with the reporting principles set out in the annual DPR guidelines. We have moved away from a prescriptive format, looking to provide departments with a little more latitude to tell their story and to communicate with users.

    We will move on now to briefly describe the structure of the RPP as set out in the guide. On slide 8 you'll see a brief description of the structure of the document. It contains both financial and non-financial information. It's intended to be a brief presentation of the information for the department, the tip of the iceberg concept; we have categorized it as that.

    Some of the documents as they currently exist can be quite large. What we've attempted to do over the course of the last couple of years is to direct users in these documents to other sources of information so they can go and make their inquiries. We would be trying to link to departmental websites for both general information purposes or specific issues.

    It's identified as a modular document. We've organized it into sections so we can provide some type of comparison. While it is standardized, there are certain elements we are asking people to do. It is flexible enough that it will allow departments to tell their own story. There is a set of minimum disclosure requirements. The information displays in some of the ancillary reports are standardized, and if a department wants to add additional information, they can.

    The composition of the RPP document is on slide 9, and we begin with the minister's message, which outlines the minister's personal vision for the department he or she operates. It identifies how the minister plans to contribute to government-wide objectives, and these are documents the minister signs.

    The raison d'être is included in the document this year. It attempts to explain a department's fundamental purpose and how it will benefit Canadians.

    We have asked departments to provide a planning overview to explain how the programs and services are to be delivered. It explains the planning content, the context, and the strategic situation they find themselves in, and it's probably one of the most challenging pieces in the document. We have asked departments to identify their plans and priorities by strategic outcome. What we are attempting to do there is to try to get them to focus on the long range.

    You see the key considerations in the plans and priorities section on slide 10. This gives some more background to some of the information we're asking departments to include, both the rationale for some of the choices they do make and tracking and monitoring of the priorities so there should be some continuity from one year to the next. You should also be able to track this through to the departmental performance report, and there is a section on organization as well.

    On slide 11 you see a list of annexes we've asked departments to look at and include where they are applicable in their particular circumstances. I'm not going to go into this in any detail. The list itself is quite comprehensive.

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    This is a sort of balancing act we run on a regular basis, trying to provide information to parliamentarians to assist them in their work yet trying not to make it such a voluminous document that the ancillary documents are actually in excess of what you have in the main body of the report. This is a balance we try to make.

    Looking at the documents themselves, we see the review of the RPPs. The guidelines are normally issued in June of the year. They develop this material over the course of the fall, and it is tabled in Parliament in March. The documents themselves are developed within the department; they are reviewed and approved by the minister.

    There is a letter of management representation that's included in these documents that's signed off by the deputy minister. For the Treasury Board Secretariat there are a couple of bullets there in terms of the role we play in the review of these documents.

    I'll just expand on it briefly. We do develop and refine the guidelines and communicate them to departments. We do have regular meetings we start in the fall, where we meet with departments on a regular basis to answer any questions they may have and to provide any type of guidance they are looking for.

    We do offer pre-tabling reviews where we actually get the documents in advance, but our main effort is spent post-tabling of the documents, where over the course of the last couple of years we have started to do an in-depth review of these documents once they're tabled against the guidelines we've produced.

    We started off with 10 last year, and we're expanding at this time to 15 in total, looking at changes from the initial 10 based on the feedback we've provided plus an additional five. We then take this material and send it back to the departments through the deputy head and try to get some changes.

    Parliament. In addition to the review in standing committee, we have provided briefing sessions to committees such as this. We've also provided sessions to parliamentary staff to try to increase their understanding of these documents as well. Hopefully, that has made an improvement.

    The way ahead. We've identified some ideas on slide 13, basically taking the results of the first set of reviews or assessments we've done. This is a document that's continually evolving. We're working to provide guidance to departments really as a proxy for committees in their work; certainly, this is going to supplement any direction parliamentary committees may provide.

    We are trying to make some improvements in these documents in the planning context, the planned results and milestones; we're trying to improve that type of information. We're working to provide additional information on government themes and management initiatives and how the outcomes will be measured. We're looking to improve the financial information that's available in these documents as well.

    Just by way of conclusion, I've mentioned we are expanding the scope of the assessments or evaluations we're undertaking. We'll have a total of 15 this time around. We are exploring ways of providing better and easier access to departmental information for parliamentarians and other users.

    The budget this year has passed the Treasury Board Secretariat. We're looking to improve the accountability in reporting to Parliament. We'll certainly be looking forward to feedback from committees such as this on ways we can improve the documentation. We are looking to develop some proposals, and I believe we've been looking to engage parliamentarians in any changes we would envisage.

    One thing I would like to mention is, the Auditor General has put out a recent report talking about the review of the estimates documents by parliamentary committees. We certainly welcome that type of additional input. We worked with the Auditor General when the document first came out about four or five years ago, and we're looking to see what type of feedback we can get from that.

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    We are looking to get direction from Parliament. The review of the two sets of estimates by the committee of the whole is going to provide some feedback. The types of questions that are being asked in those debates will be useful in helping departments to sharpen the information that's there. We'll be looking to build those types of improvements into the guidelines for future plans and priorities documents.

    Mr. Chairman, that essentially concludes my opening remarks. I would welcome any questions you may have and will attempt to provide answers to you.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bickerton.

    We'll start with Mr. Valeri. I understand he has to catch a plane fairly soon, so he can lead off.

    Mr. Tony Valeri (Stoney Creek, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    I want to focus on “The Way Ahead” on those slides. I appreciate the context, but you're using words and phrases like “State how outcomes will be measured”, and then obviously there's the area we're quite interested in, “variance analysis”. I know Mr. Szabo has talked about variance analysis quite a bit as being very useful for members of Parliament.

    You mentioned your pre-tabling and post-tabling analysis; you offered that service to review the department. I'm interested in the compliance side of things. I'm wondering whether you can tell us, how do you enforce compliance, and what are the tools you have at your disposal to deal with non-compliance? Those are my first couple of questions.

    The other question I have is, how do you monitor the compliance aspect within departments? Are there any sanctions, or is there anything you can use to ensure you and Parliament are getting the kind of documents we were hoping to get?

    Mr. David Bickerton: We are looking to make improvements to the documents. As I mentioned, we are doing post-evaluation assessments. We do get quite a detailed report from a consultant, an outside body we've used independent of the organization, to try to do an assessment of the actual documents against the guidelines, and we're sending that back to departments.

    Mr. Tony Valeri: Why would you be including that type of information in your reports overall? There are Treasury Board guidelines, you're monitoring them, and you're getting this information. I think it would be useful information from a parliamentary standpoint as well. Have you given any thought to that?

    Mr. David Bickerton: One of the things we are looking at is trying to give a better context for these documents. Part of the thinking that's going on now is to look at providing some type of overview document. If you look at it now, there is a document looking at some of the performance information. The president tables a report in the fall that outlines performance against 19 government-wide indicators, and there are links to the departmental performance documents.

    This is the type of thing we're hoping to expand in the future. Even in the estimates document we're looking at different forms of information we could provide to Parliament that would improve the deliberations of the estimates documents.

    If I could just expand in terms of non-compliance, there is a resource constraint we do have just in terms of the production of the document and the number of people we have available within the organization. We found that the post-tabling evaluation was an effective way of doing that. Had we more resources, we might be able to do different things.

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    Mr. Tony Valeri: I'll give you a specific question. We're looking at the Real Property Program Branch as a case study. As an example of non-compliance with guidelines, they didn't show total planned spending by strategic outcome, yet that's clearly a guideline for you. What remedy do you have to deal with that, if any?

    Mr. Robert Mellon (Director Estimates Production, Comptrollership Branch, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat): Let me see if I can put that in context a little bit. When departments do their best to try to respond to the disclosure requirements and the guidelines.... In the case of the Public Works Real Property Program, you're quite right; they didn't show strategic outcomes. On the other hand, to balance that disclosure issue, they talked extensively about planned results, their activities, and the resources and the performance indicators associated with those planned results. So as a bit of an offset, they did provide disclosure; with respect to strategic outcomes specifically, no, they did not do that.

    When we're bringing these documents in, we do not have the time or the resources before tabling to go through every document, check each document against the guidelines, and say, Public Works program, you missed the strategic outcomes. We pick that up at the post-tabling evaluation. When we do that, we go back to the department, we point that out to them, and we make it clear to them that we expect them to remedy that problem in the next RPP.

    Mr. Tony Valeri: How is Parliament assured we're getting what we're supposed to be getting? If there's a format and a set of guidelines, is this a negotiation prior to tabling? Do they say, we're not doing strategic outcomes, but to balance that off we're going to do the following?

    Mr. Robert Mellon: There may be that element, Mr. Chair. On the other hand, I think we have to remember the guidelines should not be treated as a tick-the-box exercise. This is not an audit document. This is a set of guidelines we give to departments to provide them with a reporting framework for the key disclosure requirements and key recording principles they should be looking at for reporting to Parliament. We have to distinguish very clearly between a framework for reporting and a set of auditable criteria.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Valeri.

    Mr. Szabo.

    Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.): Under the Financial Administration Act there are provisions that someone has to sign off at each milestone event to show somebody has verified that the goods or services have been delivered, that they are in accordance with spec, that other terms and conditions have been met, and finally that authorizations have been received from all stakeholders concerned. Then there are things like, I hereby authorize payment.

    Is that something we should consider doing in terms of the checklist for the RPPs, asking people to in fact declare by their sign-off that we have satisfied this, this, this, this, and this in the preparation of our document?

    Mr. David Bickerton: Well, Mr. Chair, in the guidelines and in the actual RPPs themselves there is a statement we ask departments to complete. It's the statement of management representation, and it's in the guidelines, saying something very similar to what you've indicated. It says, they submit for tabling a document of the RPPs, to the best of their knowledge and belief it accurately portrays the department's organizations and priorities, the planned spending is consistent with the directions, and it's comprehensive and accurate. It's signed by the deputy minister and included in the document.

    In addition to that, the minister signs off on the document as well, so this is his representation to Parliament on the plans and expectations for the department he or she operates.

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    Mr. Paul Szabo: We have on one of your slides here the reviews of RPPs. In the department there's the minister and the management representation. Treasury Board Secretariat has some responsibilities as to the review with the Auditor General and then Parliament generally along the line.

    It's interesting that it is the department and the Treasury Board Secretariat that are the point at which the final document becomes a public document. Am I correct in that assumption?

    Mr. David Bickerton: Well, the document becomes public when it's tabled in Parliament.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: But that's after you've done your review.

    Mr. David Bickerton: We meet with departments during the course of the development. We within the Treasury Board Secretariat try to coordinate the production of these documents and ensure the documents are tabled within the timeframe set by Parliament.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: But you do a review with regard to adherence to the guidelines and policy.

    Mr. David Bickerton: We do that post-tabling for the most part. We try to coordinate the production of 87 documents over the course of a very short period of time, so the work we do in an assessment is really done after the tabling.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: That doesn't seem to make sense to me. Does it make sense to you?

    Mr. David Bickerton: Based on the resources we have and the timeframes we're working in, this is what we've been able to do.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: It sounds like an issue of, we don't have enough time or enough resources to do the job in the way it probably should be done, i.e., let's fix it all up the best we can before it becomes a public document.

    Mr. David Bickerton: The documents are intended to be developed by departments to tell their story. We try to provide these guidelines to provide some consistency in the types of information that's presented, but we really do believe that these are departmental documents, where the minister is developing these and tabling them in Parliament. It just so happens that the President of the Treasury Board is doing that on behalf of the government, but they are intended to be departmental documents.

    So when a minister appears before a committee--

    Mr. Paul Szabo: And certainly they should be once the minister signs off.

    I think you're there as an overseer of all of the stuff, and you can't be micromanaging. I can understand that the post-tabling evaluations you indicate are done.

    When we did the Public Works and Government Services real property section, somebody raised the point in our discussion--I'm not sure if it was from the witnesses or just from discussions among the committee members--that this year's was identical to last year's except they'd changed the dates. They'd just updated the bullets, while the statements, the intent, and all the other stuff were effectively the same as they had been the prior year.

    It smacked of, we're not taking this process seriously. We're not analyzing what has happened in our world since the last time we did this.

    How do we re-evaluate? In most public service employee areas there's a problem with an aging human resources population, where a large number of people are going to be leaving for retirement purposes. There is a serious concern about being able to attract and keep qualified people to fill up that functionality at the level that is necessary.

    They also have a problem with regard to the vintage of the buildings they owned as compared to the competition, and the vintage is such that the cost of maintenance is significantly greater than for the competition. Therefore, they are less competitive in their ability to rent out at market rates. Another one I can recall is that for the mix of their own versus leased property, it was suggested that it might not be a proper or optimal mix for them to deal with the volatile supply-demand scenario they have to operate in.

    Now, these are serious items, and these would call for comprehensive thinking and strategies as to how to address them, but I'm not sure whether or not you saw them. There's certainly, yes, we have to do that, but I would have thought that if this is something hurtling towards the fan, the prioritization of that would have been put forward relative to all other things in terms of ongoing operational responsibilities. I would have thought the priority would have been fairly high and that in a large number of departments somebody would have said vis-à-vis, say, the aging labour force, we do need a strategy to deal with this; we can't wait; the impacts are already being felt; we're losing experience and expertise at a greater rate than we can afford if we still want to operate at the same level of productivity.

    Given that as a kind of background--and I'm seeking from you some suggestions, we're here hopefully as partners--how do we instill in the departments the idea that this process has to be taken to a higher level of urgency and priority so there is not only a clear demonstration of issue recognition but also an action plan, development, and implementation?

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    Mr. David Bickerton: I'll respond, Mr. Chair, and I'll ask Mr. Mellon if he has anything to add.

    Given the fact that this committee is picking up on these things and asking these types of questions, you can be quite assured that it will probably receive more attention next year.

    The intent for the RPPs is that there should be an opportunity in the planning context to identify the types of changes, and for these types of measures, while they may not be changing quickly or year over year, certainly the department should be looking at these and identifying what changes have taken place. Given the fact that you are identifying similarities from one year to the next, chances are the department will be paying closer attention to this in the future.

    Mr. Mellon.

    Mr. Robert Mellon: Yes, I would certainly support that. In fact, I was at the last meeting when you met with the real property folks from Public Works. You had put a number of questions to them at your first meeting, and I saw the considerable amount of material they provided to you as a follow-up.

    Certainly, I think the penny dropped with the department at that time as to the kinds of things you are looking for. I certainly would agree with Mr. Bickerton that the next time around you are going to see a different look and a different content with a Public Works document because for the first time they have received very clear, very positive feedback from parliamentarians on their expectations for reporting to Parliament.

    We can provide general frameworks. You are the ones who can say specifically on a program-by-program basis what you would like to see.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: This is my last question before Mr. Tirabassi has a chance to engage you with some questions. Can you suggest to us one or two ministers or departments who do a particularly good job of preparing the RPPs.

    Mr. David Bickerton: I don't know if we could give you one or two. We have not done an in-depth review of all of them.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: How about last year? Who did a good job? And let's be blunt.

    The Chair: Is there a shorter list than the one we're dealing with?

    Mr. Paul Szabo: I'm getting nervous here. I'm not asking for a lot, yet he is having difficulty.

    Is that a difficult question? Would you prefer not to...?

    Mr. David Bickerton: Certainly, if we look at the material we have from last year, we may be able to direct you to one or two departments. There are some departments that do certain things well and are looking for other areas for improvement.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: Well, why don't we do it this way? I think I understand your predicament. We had some difficulty picking an area. We did Public Works in the real property area as a pilot, as a learning experience. Let's just go with that you're aware certain departments do some things better than others do them, and if we took a little bit from everybody, we might be able to build a composite that would show how good it could look.

    Could you maybe provide the committee with your observations to that effect, saying, you may want to look at the guidelines in this regard, and this RPP by that department in that area was a particularly outstanding presentation. Then maybe there is somebody else. You could help us appreciate how good it could look if everybody did the same quality of work and adhered to the same standards. Maybe that can be an undertaking if you are prepared to do it.

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    Mr. David Bickerton: We'll undertake to do that and provide a response to the committee.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Szabo.

    Just before I turn this over to Mr. Tirabassi, I have one follow-up on what Paul was getting at. You folks go in post-tabling to see who is compliant and who's not. When you find someone who is not, does that red-flag it for a pre-look next time around?

    Mr. David Bickerton: No. At this point what we're doing is, we receive an independent assessment. We will then turn around and prepare a letter from the secretary of the Treasury Board to the respective deputy minister with a recommendation that they work for improvements in these areas.

    What we are intending to do in the next round of reviews is to take a look at the original 10 to see whether in fact there have been improvements made in the areas that have been suggested.

    The Chair: With this new committee we have now, structured since last fall, would it be out of line for this committee to receive a copy of that? We are the committee of the estimates, and--

    Mr. David Bickerton: Of the assessments?

    The Chair: Yes. Or are they strictly in-house, in camera?

    Mr. David Bickerton: No. As far as I know, these are documents that have been sent out to the deputy minister and would be available under access if requested. We'll undertake to provide that.

    The Chair: I'm wondering specifically if this committee could be included in your c.c. list. Is that a possibility?

    If you're looking for teeth in what you're doing, certainly, to get it before a committee may help you do some of that.

    Mr. David Bickerton: I'm not sure how I can respond to that, given the experience I have. I'll certainly take that back and see what we can do.

    The Chair: You're working to Treasury Board guidelines. Those guidelines are public, and if someone is not adhering to them, then there should be a public forum where it can be discussed as to why they're missing, whether it's pre- or post- or whatever, and where we can say, let's get it better for next year. I don't see any reason this committee, as it's structured and with the mandate we have, should not be up to speed on that.

    Mr. David Bickerton: We'll provide a copy of the material we did receive from last year. You can look to see whether you want to call witnesses based on that material, certainly.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Tirabassi.

    Mr. Tony Tirabassi (Niagara Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Making my way around committees in which Treasury Board is involved, I hear one constant message, that Treasury Board has an advisory role and a coordination role and it gives assistance with auditing but it falls short in the area of real teeth when something does go wrong. Various reasons are given, if indeed that is the case.

    I'm wondering, as it relates to the preparation of reports to Parliament, is there buy-in from the various departments that there should be some sort of coordinating role so the reports, no matter what department they come from, are consistent in formatting and in the message they deliver? Is there buy-in from the departments?

    Mr. David Bickerton: The role the Treasury Board Secretariat has played over the course of the last 20 years since we introduced the part 3 of the documents, I think, has not really been challenged. There is an acceptance that there is a role for the Treasury Board to set the guidelines and the framework.

    We are looking to provide feedback to departments to make sure we provide the best information we can. But really, we're looking to do that on behalf of parliamentarians. We're trying to provide direction based on what we anticipate the information requirements will be. Any feedback from parliamentary committees would certainly help the cause as we try to improve the quality of the information.

    The Treasury Board Secretariat has many roles and many responsibilities, and some have more teeth in them than others. The Financial Administration Act, which Mr. Szabo mentioned, is the main piece of legislation we operate under to establish rules, regulations, and policies, and there are sanctions where compliance is not there. In the case of parliamentary reporting it doesn't have quite the same teeth, so we try to provide a framework and get improvements from departments on a gradual basis. Most departments try to provide the best and most fulsome set of information they can to Parliament. What they're looking for, I think, is feedback: are we doing the right thing?

    The comments you've quite rightly provided to Public Works, I think, will provide them food for thought, that they should provide different types of information in the future; that can only be seen as a positive thing.

¼  (1820)  

    Mr. Robert Mellon: If I can, I'll add to that a little bit, Mr. Chair. I've been at this for a while and I don't see ourselves as policemen. We're not enforcing the law. What we're trying to do is assist departments in reporting to Parliament in a meaningful way, and from that perspective I look at the Treasury Board's function as being a surrogate for Parliament. We're a surrogate for Parliament. We help you get the kinds of information you believe you need in order to function. We provide advice, we provide assistance, we provide guidelines, we send letters, and we do evaluations.

    Every year for about two months or so before the RPPs come in, we have a weekly open house process, where we invite departments to come in and discuss any issues or questions they have with respect to their ability to respond to the guidelines.

    Unfortunately, some departments are better at doing the job than others. Some departments come in very late, and we have absolutely no opportunity to look at the documents before they get printed and tabled. With other departments we do have some opportunity, and we can give them advice and assistance.

    We see our role as part of the management board concept, to work with departments rather than issue orders.

    Mr. Tony Tirabassi: Thank you.

    The Chair: Mr. Szabo.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: Although you are not operating as policemen, I think there may be a perception by some that you are or should be. Maybe that's a discussion we will have to have at some point, to look at the role of the Treasury Board Secretariat.

    I know your minister is always under the gun and people are always bandying about Treasury Board guidelines and this kind of stuff. Since Treasury Board is the umbrella for a lot of what we're really talking about, maybe that's one part of this project we should pursue as part of the overall discussion. It might lead somewhere else.

    I for one always thought the buck stopped with the President of the Treasury Board and you couldn't get past the President of the Treasury Board very easily. I've always thought of that as being the final clearance, as it were, and that there should be the fear of God for anybody going to the President of the Treasury Board for anything if they hadn't played ball on a whole bunch of things. So there's tremendous leverage in that position.

    Apparently you have neither the time nor the resources because of the breadth of the responsibility, and that is also troubling. I suspect this might be the case in other departments as well. It's probably important that if you are in fact to be the last resort, as it were, the last step before things happen, if anybody should have the resources to do the job, Treasury Board Secretariat should.

    We would like to be in a position where this reliance falls on the Treasury Board itself, and we will make presumptions. Quite frankly, I don't think we want to start micromanaging, looking at your assessment reports of departmental RPPs or something like that and giving an opinion as to whether or not something should be done.

    I think our presumption is that we have a quality public service and that they do a very good job. But if that job is being inhibited or somehow restrained, whether it be by resource limitations or by quirky policy, maybe there's something we can do to facilitate the process so people do have the tools and the resources they need to do their job to the best of their ability.

    I think we have more work to do. You've helped us to broaden our thinking, and I thank you for that.

¼  (1825)  

    The Chair: I just have one final point on what you were saying there, Mr. Mellon. No one wants to be the policeman; that's the bad guy. But you have a set of Treasury Board guidelines, and if you folks don't or can't enforce them and if parliamentarians are not in the circle of these assessments you do department by department--we're not privy to those--who will enforce the Treasury Board guidelines?

    Mr. Robert Mellon: I wouldn't want to mislead you, Mr. Chair, in suggesting that we don't look at departments and we don't look at how well they're responding to guidelines. The problem is, at the moment we're looking at 15 departments. We have another 72 more to go, and that is purely a resourcing issue. How many can you do in a given year?

    But certainly, the intent is very much to look at departments' response to the guidelines, and as Mr. Bickerton has already indicated, we do go back to the deputy ministers with detailed evaluations of their response to the guidelines. We expect within that context for the deputy ministers to take appropriate action with respect to their documents, and then we do a follow-up the following year.

    For example, in 2002-03 we selected 10 departments and evaluated them. This year we've gone back and looked at those 10 again to see whether or not in fact they have addressed the concerns that were raised with them in the first evaluation.

    So yes, they are being looked at. One can argue over the quantity that are being looked at in any year, but certainly yes, we are looking at evaluations as the way to get that particular job done.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    I guess we've covered everything we can this evening. I want to thank you gentlemen for your presentations here today.

    The meeting stands adjourned.