:
Welcome. We'll get started as we wait for the chair to arrive.
I welcome you to meeting number 31 of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. In today's orders of the day, we're discussing supplementary estimates (C) for the year 2011-12, vote 1c under the Privy Council, referred to this committee last Tuesday, February 28.
Our witnesses today are: Ms. Michelle Doucet, assistant deputy minister of corporate services; Marc Bélisle, executive director, finance and corporate planning division; and Joe Wild, assistant secretary to the cabinet, machinery of government.
Michelle, I think you have an opening statement. The floor is yours.
[Translation]
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon to you all. I am pleased to meet with the members of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.
[English]
I was recently appointed as the new assistant deputy minister for the corporate services branch for the Privy Council Office, as of January 23, 2012. Today, as the chair indicated, I am accompanied by Mr. Joe Wild, the assistant secretary to the cabinet for the machinery of government. You may recall that Monsieur Marc Bélisle, who is here with me, appeared before you in November 2011 with regard to the 2011-12 supplementary estimates (B) for the Privy Council Office. He is the PCO's deputy chief financial officer and is here with me today in that capacity.
My introductory comments pertain to the 2011-12 supplementary estimates (C) for PCO. Without further delay, I will speak to the distinct items included in these estimates for PCO.
PCO is requesting a net amount of $883,000, which is composed of two specific items. PCO is also requesting an amendment in its vote wording.
The first item, in the amount of $1,383,000, is for continuing the activities of the Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River. The commission was established by an order in council dated November 5, 2009, under part I of the Inquiries Act, on the recommendation of the .
The Honourable Bruce Cohen was appointed as commissioner. The mandate of the commissioner is to identify the reasons for the decline and the long-term prospects for Fraser River sockeye salmon stocks, and to determine whether or not changes need to be made to fisheries management policies, practices, and procedures.
The commissioner's original terms of reference indicated that a final report would be submitted to the Governor in Council by May 1, 2011. An extension was granted to the commissioner, up to June 30, 2012, due to the unforeseen complexity of the issues the commission has been mandated to investigate, along with the sheer volume of documents requiring review, interviewing witnesses, and conducting hearings.
Following the extension, additional funding was sought in the 2011-12 supplementary estimates (B). However, the commission's financial needs for 2011-12 have further evolved in response to two matters. The first one occurred in the fall of 2011, when new evidence arose suggesting that a new fish health issue, the infectious salmon anemia virus, has potentially been found in wild sockeye stocks, and the second matter relates to the challenges the commission is facing in preparing its comprehensive report.
The funding requested in these supplementary estimates is to allow the commissioner to undertake a focused and limited investigation of the new fish health issue to ascertain the current state of knowledge about whether the virus is present in British Columbia waters and, if so, what can be done about it. This will result in increased costs for commission counsel, transcript preparation, translation services, and the contribution program.
The funding will also allow the commissioner to produce a final report, which is much longer than originally anticipated due to the scope and complexity of the issues that need to be addressed. This will result in increased costs for writing, drafting, editing, translation, and printing.
[Translation]
The second item is a return of $500,000 to the fiscal framework due to savings identified in the day-to-day operations of the Prime Minister's Office in 2011-2012. The Prime Minister's Office was able to achieve this reduction through continued reorganization of staff and re-examination of spending to find further efficiencies.
[English]
In June 2011, the Financial Administration Act was amended to include a new section to allow departments to provide internal support services and receive internal support services from one or more other departments. This new legislation applies to departments that do not have the legislative authority and require the authority to re-spend the revenues collected for internal support services.
Since the PCO provides some internal support services to a few entities in the amount of $75,000 for 2011-12, the PCO needed to amend its vote wording in the 2011-12 supplementary estimates (C) in order to be in accordance with the amended FAA.
The revenues will be recorded under PCO in order to recover all costs incurred for the delivery of these services. As for the expenditures, they will be recorded under the supported entities for their share of costs incurred by PCO to deliver these services. These organizations will need to pay these costs within their existing reference levels.
In closing I would like to thank you for giving me and my colleagues this time to inform you of the ongoing initiatives in the 2011-12 supplementary estimates (C). We will be pleased to respond to your questions.
:
Thank you for your question.
We have been engaged in the strategic review exercise that my colleague Marc Bélisle spoke of, which will be implemented through this fiscal year and over the next two fiscal years. We are also, in the conduct of our day-to-day business, trying to exercise all prudence in the stewardship of our resources. So we pay close attention to the amounts we spend.
We look across the Privy Council Office for areas of horizontal efficiencies and where we're able to achieve consolidations. Of course, it's our objective to be able to fulfill the three parts of our mandate—supporting the Prime Minister, the cabinet system, and public service leadership—while we do that.
Marc, do you want to add anything to that?
:
That's your time. Thank you very much.
The next questioner, from the Conservatives, is me. I'm taking the slot. I have apologies from the chair. He is actually ill. He's not going to be able to make it. We hope he'll be here on Wednesday.
I'm going to stick to the agenda, which is supplementary (C)s, and not go to what future things may happen. I'm going to ask you questions about the supplementary estimates from this year and about the planning and priorities document you put out.
Ms. Doucet, I know that you're relatively new, so if you're not able to answer, the two gentlemen beside you should be able to.
I apologize in advance. You are the first group to deal with this. My question does not deal with just your particular office. It has to do with the general way estimates are presented.
I look at the main estimates. The main estimates have an estimate, in real terms, of $140 million approved. And, you know, you have small numbers. You didn't have supplementary (A)s. You had supplementary (B)s. I see authorities to date of almost $147 million. This is not just for this section. I'm under vote 1c, vote 1 in each section. If I look at all the different sections, what's happening is that supplementary (C)s says that authorities to date are $166 million, up from $140 million in the mains.
Maybe you can explain this to me. How come, if it's in the column for authorities approved, it changes from one document to the next? I don't see any footnotes. I don't see where it's explained how or why that has happened. Why is there a change? If the authorities were approved through the appropriations bills, why would the amounts be different in each book?
That's my first question.
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I will bring it with me.
Now I'm going to the priorities and planning document for this past year, which you may not have been involved with. When I look at the numbers in here and try to compare them to the numbers in there, it can be difficult, because they don't always.... Let's be honest—they don't match up at all.
Here's my question, though. Part of the plan for 2011-12 showed FTEs in—and I'll just pick a section— the section dealing with cabinet, I believe, under “Prime Minister and portfolio ministers' support and advice”, at 527. In the plan for this year, 2012-13, FTEs are at 115. So it's a reduction, and then it stays the same after that.
My assumption is that part of your plan for this year is to reduce the FTEs in this area so that we save a little bit. It doesn't save a lot of money, but it does decrease the number of FTEs. Are we on plan at the end of the year with the reduction in the FTEs from 527?
I want to join my colleagues in welcoming you here. We're doing a very interesting study on the estimates, so looking through them I'm able to look at them with a little more clarity as we provide this oversight to the Privy Council.
I want to go back to some comments you made as part of your opening remarks. You stated there were unforeseen complexities, which is why you're coming back to ask for a bit more money for the Cohen Commission. You cited two things: the infectious salmon anemia virus, as well as the challenges in preparing such a comprehensive report. Also, you noted an extension of up to about 13 months was granted to the commissioner already.
Were there an unusual number of documents and witnesses with regard to this commission?
:
Yes. It's always tough to say “unusual”, but just to give some context, this is a commission that's focused on policy and scientific issues. I would say that could be a little bit of an unusual subject matter for a commission of inquiry. That said, the commission has heard from more than 160 witnesses. It has had more than 2,000 documents entered as formal exhibits. It has had more than 500,000 relevant documents produced by the government, including the Government of British Columbia. It's received more than 900 submissions from the public. It's produced 14,000 pages of transcript of testimony and evidence during its hearings. It's had 16 expert scientific research projects commissioned and submitted to the commissioner.
There are 20 participants who have been granted standing by the commissioner. It is a particularly, I would say, complex commission of inquiry, partly because those 20 participants aren't individual organizations. Some of those participants represent coalitions of many other small organizations. For example, there is a first nations coalition that comprises 12 distinct first nations and groups, as well as a conservation coalition that comprises seven groups and individuals. So all of this has certainly generated a significant amount of work for the commissioner. I think the commissioner has been doing his best to manage the costs of the commission as it goes through this work.
We did have, I guess, the unexpected story about the virus that you mentioned, and that did trigger the commission to have to reopen testimony, and it held an additional three days of hearings to look specifically into that matter. This was basically after testimony had concluded and the commissioner was kind of going away to draft the report.
The report is expected to be fairly large, mainly driven by just the sheer scope and complexity. We're talking about a river basin with watersheds that...if you took the area in square kilometres, you're probably talking about something the size of Spain or France. So it's a very complicated area and work. As I mentioned, I think that, as much as anything else, is what's driving some of the costs.
I would just note, though, that the expectation overall is that the commission will come in within the budget. So while there are increased costs this year, the commissioner remains confident that the commission will deliver its final report within its budget.
Related to that, we had a question on the order paper a while ago about savings due to strategic review. We received an answer giving savings in each of three areas: Prime Minister and portfolio ministers' support and advice, $743,000; cabinet and cabinet committees' advice and support, $52,000; and internal services, $325,000. Those were strategic review savings.
But the people didn't answer the second part of my question, which was to describe in some detail what these savings consisted of. The first part is Prime Minister and portfolio ministers' support and advice.
Can you tell us how much of the cut was in the Prime Minister's Office, and how much was in other ministers' support, and which other ministers? If you don't have that information now, could you get back to us on it?
Mr. Wild, just going back to the Cohen Commission, I was on the fisheries committee at one time. When this was launched, you said it was policy and scientific, so it was very complex. I know my former colleague, Mr. Cummins, was involved in this.
Do you have any idea of the timeline? You're saying now it's going to be sufficient with the additional $1.4 million request. What's the anticipated completion, and what will be the total cost with this $1.4 million?
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The main thing is that it's mostly through the front-end work at the setting up of the commission, in establishing the rules and procedures that the commissioner is going to follow in terms of contracting, etc., and working through exactly how the agreements are going to be struck with representatives around those who are being provided with support for having legal counsel represent them.
This particular commissioner, because he's had some experience with commissions, very early on took charge in some ways of how the representation of counsel was going to be reimbursed through the contribution program that's in place to support the commission. Basically, he has developed a whole series of schedules around using junior counsel for certain tasks, what rate they will be paid at versus the rate for senior counsel, and how many hours they will be reimbursed for. All of which has contributed to keeping some of the costs lower for this commission than perhaps some others we may have seen.
Part of it is just the fact that we have a person who has done a commission of inquiry before, understands how that process works, and has been managing it. I don't know if Mark wants to speak to anything as well, in that there is corporate services support to the commission provided by the Privy Council Office.
I would like to thank our witnesses for coming here today. It is appreciated.
I would like to ask two questions pertaining to the document which contains the presentation you just gave.
The document states that, because the Privy Council Office provides internal support services to a few organizations, to the tune of $75,000 for 2011-2012, the wording of a supplementary estimates (C) vote needs to be changed.
To what services and to what organizations are you referring?
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to the witnesses for coming today.
I would like to congratulate Ms. Doucet on her appointment as assistant deputy minister. Congratulations, that is a very important position.
I would like to make sure that I have understood something correctly. I believe there was some confusion earlier on. It was stated that $500,000 from the Prime Minister's Office was returned. However, the Cabinet is the Office. Please correct me if I am mistaken. The Privy Council Office gives a budget to the Prime Minister's Office, which is synonymous with the “Prime Minister's Cabinet”, in order to hire a chief of staff, special advisers, political advisers, a press secretary, a director of communications. Furthermore, the Privy Council Office is actually the department of the Prime Minister. So far that is correct.
Now, what percentage of the budget of the Prime Minister's Office or Cabinet do the returned $500,000 represent? There seemed to be an indication earlier that it was less than 1% of the budget, but I don't think that is the case.
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I would be delighted to do that since six weeks ago I had to do the same thing for my children.
The Privy Council Office has three main functions. The first is to be the Prime Minister's department. All ministers in government have a department. The Prime Minister is no exception. The Privy Council Office is the Prime Minister's department. It is the obligation of the officials who work there to provide advice to the Prime Minister.
The second function is to be the secretariat to cabinet along with the myriad of cabinet committees that support cabinet decision-making in the federal government. With the exception of the Treasury Board, which is supported by the Treasury Board Secretariat, Privy Council Office is the secretariat to the cabinet and its cabinet committees.
The third function is to provide leadership to the public service. The Clerk of the Privy Council is the head of the public service. The Privy Council Office provides him with specific support in his role as the leader of the public service, and also works closely with other central agencies that provide central agency human resources strategic advice.
:
Thank you for that question. I would be happy to speak to size for the past three years. I didn't quite go back to five years, but I have three-year figures with me. I'm going to start as of April 1, 2010.
I'd like to frame my answer in the same way Marc talked about how our funding is structured. We have a core group of what we call indeterminate employees, who are permanent public servants. Then, we also have what I would call a temporary workforce. I'll frame my answer in that respect.
On April 1, 2010, PCO had a total of 1,039 permanent and temporary employees. Of those, 866 were indeterminate, or permanent public servants, and 173 were in various categories of temporary employees—not necessarily temporary to the public service. For instance, that year at the Privy Council Office, we had 66 employees on assignment from other departments.
The following year, at April 1, 2011—and I'm going to use the same frame for my answer—Privy Council Office had a few more employees. We had 1,063 employees. Of that figure, 890 were indeterminate PCO employees, and 173—the same number as the year before—fell into that more temporary category. Again, to be precise, of those 173 temporary employees, 75 were full-time employees from other departments on assignments with us.
I have numbers as of March 1 of this year for you. Our numbers have gone down. The overall number is 1,017 public servants, 855 of which are indeterminate public servants whose home is PCO. The remaining 162 either don't have their home at PCO or are temporary public servants. Again, in that temporary group, 67 are full-time public servants on assignment to PCO.
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I will boldly dive into these waters, as best I can.
As the member points out, we don't really control the cycle. The cycle has always been, and has always created some tensions and issues around what information and whether the information is timed properly or not. RPPs have always had some separation between when main estimates get tabled and when the RPP is available.
That said, once the main estimates are available, members can ask any question they wish to ask of public servants, such as us, when we come and appear to explain what is in those main estimates. That's the best vehicle that I can think of in which we would then be able to answer any specific questions about why there may be changes proposed around some of the votes, and also provide some of the detail around which program activities some of that money may be going to, which is in essence what the RPP tries to explain.
You may not necessarily have it in a written form, in that I don't think there's a mechanism whereby we would be able to produce an RPP version that would be available prior to the RPP being tabled. Certainly we would be able to answer questions about what the plans are that inform why additional funds may be sought or why votes are decreasing. We'd certainly be able to give explanations, and as I say, I think we'd be able to do so in line with the program activities of the organization.
I don't know if that's helpful or not.
:
I want to thank you for coming today. You are the first group this committee has seen. We are working on a study on the process of estimates. I'm hoping in the future the questions will be just as indepth as they were today, and staff, not just you but every department, will have to be ready to come to answer questions.
You are absolutely right. The difference between what is in your books under yours is a Treasury Board central vote, which was pointed out to me. Just for our own information, we need to have a footnote that says to look at the TB central vote for those answers. That's all I'm looking for—those kinds of things.
I appreciate the scrutiny you had today, and you won't be the only ones who will have these tough questions.
Before we end this, as we know, we're not big fans of deemed. So I need someone to move that vote 1c under Privy Council in the supplementary estimates (C), 2011-2012, in the amount of $883,395, carry and the chair report the vote to the House.
Will you move that for me?