[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Thursday, March 28, 1996
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[English]
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Finlay): Ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate Mr. Duhamel coming with such dispatch. I appreciate the witnesses you have with you coming with such dispatch, so we can start early and hopefully finish a little earlier than we would otherwise.
Perhaps you would introduce the people with you and lead us into this interesting exercise.
Mr. Ronald Duhamel, MP (Chair, Parliamentary Working Group on Improved Reporting to Parliament): Yes, I will indeed do so in a moment.
First, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to meet with you. I am going to make a few opening remarks, then the staff will continue the remarks and the précisions they need to bring to this. You'll be given an opportunity, and in fact encouraged, to raise some questions if there are questions you'd like to raise.
[Translation]
First, I'd like to thank you for this opportunity to come and speak with you. This project is very important because it is intended to simplify the information given to parliamentarians and make it more efficient.
[English]
[Technical Difficulty - Editor] ...ideas on ways to improve reporting to Parliament. But over the last year, Mr. Chairman and colleagues, we have built a strong consensus about ways to improve the reports to Parliament, and the part III you have received represents the very first step towards achieving this goal.
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I should mention at this point that we have six pilot departments, and yours is one that's particularly interesting. You have an impressive modification, if you wish, and we're exceptionally interested in it.
I want to add that a report of the working group contained a number of recommendations to officials, one of which was that the revised part IIIs:
- ...be subject to an evaluation of whether they represent better information for Members and
Committees and that Members and the relevant Committees be included as part of the
evaluation process.
This recommendation was carried forward in the report to the House that resulted in the tabling of the six revised part IIIs. This evaluation, which we hope you will assist in, will help us determine whether we should proceed with the implementation of these ideas. We freely admit there's still some distance to go with individual documents, but we believe the direction we're heading in is the right one. I would ask you, therefore, as you examine the new documents, to focus as much on where we are going as you do on how far we have moved so far.
Normally I would pass this on to Mr. Miller and Mr. Hopwood, but because of the changes, and because they were busy elsewhere, somewhere in the bowels of the Auditor General's department -
Mr. Bertrand (Pontiac - Gatineau - Labelle): Oh, scary.
Mr. Duhamel: - we have two equally able servants here, who will lead us through the next few steps. I'll let them introduce themselves and their titles.
Mr. Brian Pagan (Assistant Director, Improved Reporting to Parliament Project, Program Branch, Treasury Board Secretariat): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm the assistant director to Tom Hopwood on the improved reporting to Parliament project. What I will do quite quickly for you is run through the objectives of the project and our scope and approach, then hand it over to Mr. Robert Hilton, who is the chief of our evaluation process for the project. We hope Mr. Hopwood and Mr. Miller will be able to join us. Their session with the AG should be over at 12:10 p.m. or so.
Mr. Duhamel: You guys are going to be so effective this will be over by then.
Mr. Pagan: I've provided a deck outlining the objectives and scope of the project. I'll move through that quite quickly. Essentially there are improvements in three areas: the documentation content and timing, the control framework, and technology.
About content and timing, it's quite clear to us, after consultations this past year, that most stakeholders were dissatisfied with the existing part IIIs, with both the information provided and the process followed. Timing is also apparently a problem, in that an incredible amount of information is provided at one point in the year, just after the budget. Our approach is to make the process more efficient by separating plans and performance information and separating the timing in which that information is provided.
The second major change is in the control framework. By this we mean the way expenditure plans are developed for review and approval. This control framework has not been updated for several decades. We intend to address outstanding questions of which entities should report, the design of the actual expenditure management documentation, and the input orientation of the vote structure.
The final thrust of the project is in technology. Again, the existing process was developed some fifteen years ago, well before existing automation was available to us.
I want to focus on the first of these areas, and in particular on the ways in which we'll make a clear distinction between planning and performance information.
About the project scope and approach, it's very important to make clear that our project deals only with the information provided to Parliament, not the supply process itself. I'm sure you are aware of the Sub-Committee on the Business of Supply, chaired by Mrs. Catterall, with whom we have had extensive consultations and have been able to work quite well. But it is a separate thrust and orientation.
We are taking a step-by-step approach to these changes, consulting extensively with parliamentarians. Mr. Duhamel alluded to the ad hoc parliamentary working group, which met this past fall, as well as other key stakeholders, most importantly the Auditor General and outside interests such as the academic community and groups involved in accountability, performance, and results information.
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Our next step is evaluation with the standing committees. Feedback from this group is very important and will consume our energies over the next five or six weeks.
In terms of initial steps in the project, the clear intention is to split planning and performance information in six pilots. Last December we received House approval to table revised part IIIs for six departments, of which Indian and Northern Affairs was one.
Another element in the project is to improve the timing of information provided to Parliament. DIAND officials have attempted to bring together all the planning information in one section of the revised part IIIs and eliminate their outlook document.
We have found, though, that with all departments there is some difficulty in being able to consolidate planning information so soon after the budget. So an objective of the project is to take the planning information slightly off-cycle so in fact it would be tabled some two or three weeks after the budget, allowing departments more time to respond to budget initiatives. The objective is to allow departments time to absorb budget information.
We would also like to table the performance information in the fall, which would be six months earlier than it is now supplied. This would be done in conjunction with the president's report on review and would be in response to AG criticisms on performance information and the way in which central agencies monitor the evaluation process.
Other estimates documents would be tabled as they are now.
Last December we made a commitment to evaluate this new approach and to report back to the committee on procedure and House affairs. We're initiating that process now. If reaction remains positive, we will continue to work with parliamentarians to introduce other improvements such as in-year reports, a control framework and technology over the next few years.
Our next slide deals with evaluating the new part IIIs. For this I will turn the microphone over to Mr. Robert Hilton.
Mr. Robert Hilton (Senior Analyst, Evaluation, Audit and Review Group, Financial and Information Management Branch, Treasury Board Secretariat): Thanks, Brian.
In terms of the evaluation of this project, we see three questions of interest to the standing committees: do the revised part IIIs better meet the information needs of users, are they effective information instruments, and can or do the committees influence their content?
It's important to get your reaction to these changes. We have a very tight timeframe to do this, as you can appreciate. We have to provide an input motion to the House in May to test the revised tabling schedule. Therefore we would appreciate if you would engage as early as possible in reviewing the part IIIs and provide us with your feedback at that time.
We would hope to consider proposals to change the timing and tabling of the plans and performance reports. We will be distributing a questionnaire to you, and we'll be asking you and your members to give us your direct feedback on the quality of the changes we have made in the documents.
We would encourage you to pay close attention to the performance information contained in the document and to suggest to us, if you could, changes or improvements that you see are necessary.
The overall timing of the project, as was mentioned by Mr. Pagan earlier on, is quite short. In December 1995 we had the concurrence of the House and cabinet to test the new documents. In March of this year the new part IIIs were tabled. In March and April we're about to evaluate the new approach. In May 1996 we're going to be putting forward a motion to pilot the new tabling times. In the fall of 1996 we'll be introducing the in-year updates, which will be a change to the traditional format for the supplementary estimates. In the fall of 1996 we'll also hopefully be getting your approval to expand a number of pilot entities.
That is our approach as presented. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Duhamel: Mr. Chairman, I'd just like to give a brief resumé and then we can go over to questions.
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What we're really trying to do is to provide better information in a more meaningful form; that is, to respond to needs of the users, primarily parliamentarians, and to have it spaced or timed in such a way that we won't be inundated. Somehow through that process we as parliamentarians could better fulfil one of the key roles we're counted upon to do.
I'll just make a final point. Your critical contribution here is really to look at that document and tell us what's good, what's bad, and what's indifferent so we can improve what we're about to do. We're truly looking for what you think.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Finlay): Thank you very much, Mr. Duhamel, Mr. Pagan, andMr. Hilton.
I have a simple and naive question. The document we have is part III. Can you review for me what parts I and II are? Did we have any influence on that?
Mr. Pagan: Does the committee have any influence on that?
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Finlay): Yes.
Mr. Duhamel: No.
Just briefly describe parts I and II, Brian.
Mr. Pagan: Part II provides additional detail on budget information, which is essentially our part I. All three documents are tied to the budget process and the minister's speech in the House. The part II document provides some detail by program and business line for each department and provides that information for the government as a whole.
The part III is the department-specific detail that elaborates on planning and performance information and activities within each department. In this fiscal year, 76 part III documents were tabled for departments and agencies in the federal government.
The pilots you have in front of you are pilot part III documents, but again the intention is essentially to do away with part IIIs as they exist and to table individual departmental plans each spring, some two or three weeks off the budget cycle, and then to table individual departmental performance reports that clearly account for performance as related to the original plans in the fall period.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Finlay): So just to sum up, this document is the plan, details of the specific -
Mr. Pagan: One of the problems with the part IIIs was that they were a mishmash of planning and performance information, covering multi-year horizons, both historical and future-year information, with no clear thread between plans and performance. That was one of the key concerns raised by departments themselves and the Auditor General in particular, as well as by some of the standing committees.
The objective of breaking the information out is that there is a much clearer focus on planning information each spring, and then performance information as it relates to those plans each fall. So hopefully it will provide standing committees with a much better idea of what is planned and what has actually been achieved.
Mr. Bertrand: Is this new system more cost-effective than the last system? Does it cost less?
Mr. Pagan: The intention is certainly to make it more efficient. A cost-benefit analysis has not actually been done of that, but I can tell you that this year, with the 76 documents prepared, some 12 million pages were printed. We were told this summer in a consultation with officials from the House of Commons information management system that often the blue books are unloaded in the morning of estimates tabling day from one truck and later that day many of them are taken out another door in blue bins or blue boxes. There's a considerable cost involved in printing and producing these documents.
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The technology element would aim to eliminate this waste and cost. Documents are prepared electronically now by departments and the information is conveyed to Treasury Board. The technology exists to be able to make that available through the House of Commons PubNet system and to the Canadian public over the Internet without the cost of printing. That technology exists. It doesn't need to be developed. So there would certainly be some savings in that area.
Just one final comment is that by evening out the workload across departments, there would likely be some savings. It hasn't been costed yet, but by spreading out the workload we would likely avoid some of the overtime and extra work required to meet the tight deadlines around the budget process.
Mr. Duhamel: Mr. Chairman, with your permission, Mr. Hilton will answer.
Mr. Hilton: It's part of the evaluation of the project in the departments. Something we will be looking at is the actual impact on the workload of those who are producing the part IIIs in the departments. So that component is being addressed. We'll be asking, for example, based upon past work in this area, has the new document created an extra workload and what is that impact? That will be addressed.
Mr. Duhamel: Mr. Chairman, if I may, my understanding of this is we do not expect additional resources. There is potential for savings. Those savings may be dependent upon how much of the paper is still required even when the information is technologically available because there are people such as me who may have some difficulty making that transition.
Of course, there's the evening out of the workload and there are a number of other factors. I think there's a potential for saving. The initial motivation was not the potential for saving, although it's something that we keep in mind. It was really to make the system much more meaningful to those who use the information.
Mr. Bertrand: On one of the papers here, ``Impact on Committees'', you mention encouraging an early review of estimates. Could you just go over again why this would encourage an early review? I missed it.
Mr. Hilton: Maybe just to explain. We're asking for your early engagement in the review because, again, we have to finish our evaluation by the end of April. Therefore, the sooner you engage and look at the document, the sooner you'll be in a position to provide us with the feedback.
Mr. Bertrand: I see.
Mr. Pagan: This is very much an impact on the pilot documents right now. The long-term impact on committees in general would hopefully be better planning information each spring that fully accounts for budget decisions and a clear account of results or performance achieved to those plans in the fall. This better information would contribute to a better opportunity to understand departmental activities and influence the policy and program delivery in departments.
Mr. Bertrand: So instead of coming to committees with our little blue books, we will be coming to committees with our little computer, and if we want to look up a certain section, we punch it in and it would show up on the screen?
Mr. Duhamel: Yes, to some degree, but I think we can assure you that if you need the blue book or some variation thereof -
Mr. Bertrand: Or the red book.
Mr. Duhamel: - we'll accommodate.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Finlay): Thank you very much. Ms Bridgman is next.
Ms Bridgman (Surrey North): I've got a couple of questions. They're probably more for clarity. On the time line in relation to budget part I, part II, part III, can you give me an idea of a time line via the calendar? The budget comes down and then part I would come, part II. What kinds of time parameters are we looking at?
Mr. Pagan: This year, if memory serves me, the Minister of Finance tabled his budget on March 6 and the President of Treasury Board tabled the estimates documentation the next day, March 7. That is typical of most years in that the estimates are tabled a day or two after the budget. Generally it's later in February rather than March, but this year because of the prorogation of the House it slipped.
Again, our proposal is that the estimates documentation or the departmental planning reports, if you will, would be tabled slightly off-cycle of that, some two or three weeks after the budget, so that the full impact of the budget decisions could be reflected in the departmental plans.
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There were a number of problems this year, for instance with agriculture, which is one of our pilot departments. They were not able to account for all of the plans in their pilot document because of last-minute budget decisions.
Ms Bridgman: What I'm trying to get at here with the three parts is this. My understanding was that part I would be like an overview, part II was some detailed information from program and business kinds of things, and then part II is specifically departmental.
So does part III stand alone, or is it necessary to have all three parts?
Mr. Duhamel: The question that's being asked, if I may, is what's the relationship of part III to the budget and the estimates?
Ms Bridgman: Yes. Thank you.
Mr. Pagan: Part III is the detail for each department as related to the budget and the part II documents. So they're related in the sense that the numbers are the same, but in terms of the actual timing of it, there is no reason. In fact, there's an advantage to providing that departmental detail slightly off-cycle so that it was again consistent with budget initiatives and announcements.
Ms Bridgman: I just have two other points. One would be in relation to your evaluation as far as concerns.... I would imagine you're looking along the lines of a user-friendly kind of concept, which would be one approach to this. The other one would be whether there indeed is sufficient data or information within the context of it. So we're actually viewing this from two points of view: the user-friendly one, how we can use it; and whether or not, indeed, the information is there.
The other thing I was wondering about is when we went back to page 2 of the slides here. You were making reference to responding to the concerns raised by parliamentarians, the Auditor General, and officials. I believe that ``others'' was stated verbally as well. Is there a need to correlate the format or the information between a federal approach and a provincial approach? Is there any sort of need to address that, or can they be independent?
Mr. Pagan: Can you explain what you mean by ``correlate federal and provincial'', please?
Ms Bridgman: As to the provincial approach, there are transfer payments, moneys that flow from one government to another, and these have to be identified in some way or another. Sometimes what you get is like auditing in that you can have different systems. Trying to fit the two systems together can pose a problem sometimes to work it out. I'm wondering if there's any problem that way with this.
Mr. Duhamel: Let me take a shot at it to see whether or not I understood the point.
First, as you can well appreciate, what we're doing as a federal government is somewhat independent of what the provincial authorities are doing because they have the authority to do as they please. I don't say that pejoratively. They can do so independently. But that does not negate the need, sometimes, to be working in conjunction; that is, there are certain things we do federally that have an impact on provincial authorities.
Here's my sense of your question. If I'm wrong, please correct me. I'm not going to be offended. When there is that interface between federal and provincial, will it be evident in the documentation we have? My understanding is that, yes, that will be evident.
Ms Bridgman: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[Translation]
The Vice-Chair (Mr. Finlay): If I'm not mistaken, six departments participated in the consultation process: Transport Canada, Indian Affairs, Agriculture and Agrifood, Fisheries and Oceans, Natural Resources, and Revenue Canada. Personally, as I sit on the National Defence committee, I also would have liked that department to participate in the project.
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Mr. Duhamel: Actually, we asked for volunteers to participate. The proposal was made, they were encouraged and they made their decisions. If I'm not mistaken, two of my colleagues...
[English]
Would you stand up to be recognized, David Miller?
[Translation]
They're the two people who should be here,
[English]
but they have been overthrown by their two colleagues because they were -
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Duhamel: How did we get the departments, gentlemen? Do you want to get them up here?
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Finlay): There are lots of chairs, so could they not come to the table?
Mr. Duhamel: I guess you're welcome up here.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Finlay): We don't have to displace -
Mr. Duhamel: No, they're staying right here.
[Translation]
I was led to believe that they wanted to keep a certain balance and mix up the groups. That was one of the factors. Were there others?
[English]
We identified those first three pilot departments basically as the three departments that had already expressed an interest in making things better. These were departments that were already taking initiatives to move away from the standard accounting-oriented framework we had in the past to become more results-oriented and descriptive in terms of their programs and where they are going.
We started with those three pilots. Then we asked ourselves whether or not it wouldn't be useful to have another set that looked at it more from the point of view of whether we could take the existing documents and just make them more efficient.
We sent out a call letter to departments asking who would like to participate. We ended up with far more than we could ever handle. In fact, my concern was that we were going to experiment with the entire set of 78 departments.
So we limited ourselves to three: Fisheries and Oceans, NRCan and Revenue Canada. These are three large entities that had a mix of operational, revenue collection, and granting types of programs. We wanted to deal with large organizations. I think we gave precedence to the first three that expressed the strongest interest.
Other than that, it wasn't as if we went out with a matrix and said we want very particular types. We took advantage of the fact that some were already making progress, while others had expressed interest. We limited ourselves to six so we wouldn't overwhelm the system with changed documents.
[Translation]
Mr. Duhamel: Is that enough? Fine. Thank you.
[English]
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Finlay): I would think it is a large enough group. The question I'd like to ask is what kind of control...? You see, I've only been with this committee for six months plus. Robert has been here longer. I would suggest that in many of these committees the personnel have changed. So they haven't gone through the process in the old way.
How am I going to say that this is better? I don't know what happened last year, or the committee doesn't know it, so how am I going to say, oh, this is much better? I can see that the type is not quite as small, perhaps, or there's more space, or there's this or that, but I don't know if we're going to be much good to you as far as....
Mr. Duhamel: Let me try to respond to that. The staff may want to add to it as well.
First, that's a good point you make: you weren't here before, so what's your point of reference? That's fine, but some were here, and they do have a point of reference. That's number one.
Number two, you were somewhere else before. Is this better than what you had in the other department in terms of explaining to you as a parliamentarian what you'd like to know about the operation? So that's useful.
Do remember that we have six, you and five others, whereby we will be getting that kind of feedback from both those who were there and continue, and those who were not and who now have another assignment.
All of that put together should give us some pretty useful information, but we're also talking to other people as well. I said I headed an all-party parliamentary committee of senators and parliamentarians. We had input from all of them. We also went to ``experts'' in the field, experts on accountability and those kinds of systems. We chatted with them and got their own particular views.
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So while we welcome and very much need your views in terms of ``yes, I like this'' or ``I like this but not this, this and this'', it's not the only information we will be using. I think the point you're really making is, ``Ron, how do we know this is not going to go off the track somewhere here?'' You don't want me coming back and saying, ``I asked you, Mr. Finlay, what you thought of this, you said it's okay, and now it's not okay.''
I appreciate the alert, but I think it's going to be okay because we're going to be extremely prudent. We're going to be looking at the information we're getting and we're going to be relying upon you but not exclusively upon you. Staff may want to add a bit more.
For us one of the important things is to make sure the members of the committee have input. And how this particular document may evolve will be completely different from Agriculture's because the parliamentarians wanted to see a different style or a different approach or different information. We've deliberately gone out this time to say that if this isn't what you want, please try to inform us a little better and we'll move towards the direction you'd like to see. This information is produced for parliamentarians, and quite honestly, we've had trouble in the past getting feedback that reflects the views and concerns of the committees.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Finlay): Thank you. Mr. Duncan is next.
Mr. Duncan (North Island - Powell River): Thank you. I've been involved with this committee since February 1994, basically since the start of this parliament, and in looking at the estimates and the shortcomings of the format, I guess one of the consistent criticisms comes through the audit procedure from the Auditor General and through audits for band-level spending carried out at the request of the department, for which the Auditor General has no mandate.
If it's going to be results-oriented, I would greatly appreciate the viewpoint of an auditor, and specifically the viewpoint of the Auditor General, as to the format of this thing.
There are many different types of funding agreements for the 600-plus bands. It would be very useful to have a publicly available list indicating which type of funding agreement applies to which band rather than having to chase it on each and every occasion, because there are different standards of accountability associated with the different funding arrangements.
If the departmental spending could be categorized by that which is auditable by the Auditor General and which is auditable only because it's a direct transfer to bands, it would hopefully flow from what I'm indicating for the format.
We also have a circumstance - and I don't know if this is within your mandate or not - where we have about twelve different departments of the federal government funding aboriginal initiatives. This really diffuses the whole issue of accountability and responsibility and makes some of this results-oriented discussion quite meaningless.
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There are some major gains to be made by some consolidation, not just in aboriginal affairs but in many of the areas this government operates. I have asked a question in the House of Commons and have had three different ministers stand up on the same question. That's how diffuse the responsibility is. When it's that diffuse, there is really no responsibility and no accountability.
So I don't know, I may be getting into more of a political realm than I am into your mandate, but at least I'm letting off some steam here.
Mr. Duhamel: Let me try to respond. First, as you point out - and I appreciate the comment - it may be beyond the mandate, but it has been noted, and if something can be done about it, it will certainly be done. We'll review the possibilities. You should know - and I think you'll appreciate this - that we have in fact been working with the Auditor General on this to ensure that the Auditor General is on side, to ensure that what we do has that stamp of approval.
You raise an interesting point, not just with aboriginal affairs matters. The complexity and the largeness of government is such that, unfortunately, on occasion that happens. It may be difficult to correct but it's noted. It's a good point and it will be examined.
Mr. Duncan: One other item sticks out for me about the last twelve months. A whole section of the estimates deals with capital spending by the department. Usually it's for schools and that kind of project at the band level. Some of those projects have actually gone right off the rails in terms of spending. For others the actual expenditures and the budget have been very close. The way they're presented in here doesn't lend itself to that analysis, to that quick overview. It doesn't lend itself to that. That would be appropriate as well.
I am aware of one school project that's well over double the original estimates. If you compared it to any other public school anywhere in the country for the number of students, it makes absolutely no sense, but you'd never guess it from this. It's that kind of thing.
Mr. Duhamel: Thank you.
Mr. Bertrand: I have just one question concerning the Auditor General's report. Will they be following in your footsteps and making their report - I'll use the same expression I used this morning - in plain English so that we can understand it? Look at the Auditor General's report. You have to be a chartered accountant to understand it. Unfortunately, a lot of us do not have that kind of background.
I look at this - and I was one of the lucky ones who did look at last year's part III of the estimates - and I must agree that this is a lot better. There is more information. There are fewer numbers. I don't know if that's good or bad; I find that it's better. It's important that the Auditor General gives his stamp of approval for the other departments, but I was wondering if they will be doing the same thing in his department.
I don't know if that's in your mandate -
Mr. Duhamel: Let me respond. I honestly don't know. I think it's a point that needs to be made to the Auditor General. I think it's a legitimate point if there's a need for that department to provide more meaningful, easier-to-understand information.
The whole notion of improving the reporting and the information systems is not just for the departments. It's for the whole of government. So the answer is that we obviously don't have a mandate to do that, but the point is an appropriate one because it is the same one we're making here.
Mr. Bertrand: Exactly.
Mr. Duhamel: It's exactly the same thing.
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Mr. Duncan: I just have a follow-up, probably to both of our comments. When the Auditor General looks at departmental spending and makes recommendations, they tend to float off into thin air. If the estimates had a little sidebar or front-end comment about previous Auditor General comments that aren't fulfilled or are fulfilled in the way things are presented or assisted and abetted by, that would be helpful too.
Mr. Miller: As was mentioned before, we are working very closely with, and in fact we spent the entire morning with, all of the senior officials from the Office of the Auditor General, discussing various aspects of this project. I would never commit myself to saying how they view this, but they were encouraging, which is as good as we're going to get at this point. They have been very closely linked to this project and we've kept them informed of exactly all of the developments.
The Auditor General function really does two things. The first one is a financial audit so they can attest that the transactions are valid and that the events have occurred. It's that one that gets complicated in terms of numbers and becomes very difficult to relate to department plans.
One of the things we're hoping to do with this project is separate out the planning document from the performance document, as was mentioned earlier, and have that in the fall period, at approximately the same time as the Auditor General's annual report comes out.
One of those things in the performance documents could very well link the information back to previous audits or previous observations by the Auditor General. It's really designed for that. What's happening now is we're trying to do all things through one document. We have to focus on the past to lead parliamentarians in future directions. By splitting out that performance information each fall, we can then very clearly link past performance to these kinds of observations or to previous chapters written by the Auditor General, and at the same time use it to communicate actual results that were achieved over a period of time. It lends itself very much to that kind of presentation.
Mr. Duncan: Part and parcel of that is we'd have to know what portion of the spending is under the scrutiny of the Auditor General, because my suspicion is that in this department it's a pretty low percentage.
Mr. Miller: I'm afraid you'd have to relate to officials of that department to actually get that breakdown. I'm sure that is available, but the scrutiny is different for direct transactions from what it is for contributions, although by agreement certain things have to be fulfilled. The Auditor General very definitely goes in and ensures that the conditions of those transfers have been met and are valid, but the actual audit of individual transactions -
Mr. Duncan: I have correspondence that would indicate otherwise.
Mr. Miller: I'm speaking of the overall project level. When you talk about individual transactions, then of course it becomes a completely different matter. It's one you could certainly take up with departmental officials. They are fairly unique, as a department, with that arrangement.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Finlay): I have a question following on that. I know you've been over it before, but will we be receiving another document in the fall of 1996?
Mr. Duhamel: Providing that we're able to get the endorsement of the appropriate authorities, yes, it's this fall.
Mr. Miller: In fact, we would like to take some of the information in this document that relates to performance, rip it out and give it to you again in the fall but update it for the 1995-96 fiscal year. This one obviously reflects 1994-95.
So you would have a separate document that would deal with past information. I know in this particular case it may stretch over a number of years. It may deal with program and project results over a multi-year period, because that's the way the programs have been built and designed. You'll have a financial audit that will deal with specific transactions for the year, but you'll also have a performance document that is able to relate results to a much longer timeframe.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Finlay): Would they be called part IVs? Or are they called supplementaries?
Mr. Miller: This relates to an earlier question. It is very clear from the Standing Orders when the estimates are tabled, but by doing that, we restrict ourselves in the kind of information we can provide. So we'd like to call it a performance document. The President of the Treasury Board already tables a performance document - that started last fall - and we'd like to build the individual departmental documents into that particular process.
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Mr. Bertrand: You could call it ``Part III - People''.
Mr. Pagan: Mr. Chairman, you're very much being asked to evaluate a document that is in a sense a step along the way, in that it's known as part III right now, but it contains the seeds of what eventually would be a separate departmental plan known as that and a separate departmental performance report or performance document. Under the existing process these two separate reports have been combined and tabled as a part III document, but again the intention is to get your feedback on this process and on whether we're heading in the right direction.
I think it's important to state that we're not there, in that departments are grappling with this new process and are going through a learning curve to put together a plan that is results oriented. But if the committees are satisfied that we're heading in the right direction and that having separate plans and performance would improve the information that is accessible to them, then that motion would be put to the House. Hopefully, separate documents would be tabled this fall. If that evaluation is positive, then this new process would be gradually implemented for all or most departments.
Ms Bridgman: I have a question about your timing format in here. Is this just timing for the pilot projects, then? Yes.
Are you seeking any information on...? I'm back to my time line and parts I, II, and III, and viewing part III as a planning document, with an evaluation-of-performance document coming up later. Are you seeking any sort of information on a time span between receiving parts I, II, and III and the evaluation document? The coming down of the budget and the three weeks hence, with the distributing of parts I, II, and III, can vary according to when the government brings the budget down. Are you looking for a time span between this document and the evaluation document?
Mr. Duhamel: Yes. If the evaluation document is what you mean by the ``performance document'', yes.
Ms Bridgman: Yes.
Mr. Duhamel: As I recall, it's spring and fall, basically. It would be close to six months.
Mr. Miller: It's important to realize that now, under the Standing Orders, the requirement is that the estimates be tabled at least thirty days prior to the beginning of the fiscal year. By convention, the estimates have been defined as parts I, II, and III. When we have a budget, we obviously want to make sure the estimates reflect the information in the budget. But under our process, the budget can come down at any time. So we've jammed ourselves in to a point where, as Brian Pagan was mentioning, we table the budget one day and then we have 12 million pages of estimates the following day.
What we would like to do is almost to redefine the estimates. The part I, which is the overview, and the part II, which is in support of the appropriation act that will be passed to provide the spending authority, would still be tabled thirty days prior to the beginning of the fiscal year. But in order to build in the information from the budget and to reflect that in departmental plans, we would like to delay what is now the part III but will be the planning document by a few weeks, have that tabled and available to committees around, for example, normally, April 1.
Ms Bridgman: So the evaluation-of-performance document will not necessarily happen every fall. It will happen x times from the -
Mr. Miller: No, the performance document is planned to happen in the fall. One of the dilemmas when we get into that is that we can't have a performance document until we have the Auditor General complete his review of departmental expenditures, and again, that's up to the Auditor General. That particular process isn't even controlled by the government. So if the Auditor General - and we were speaking to them this morning - agrees September will be the date when they will have enough information available publicly that we could go forward and produce these performance reports, then that would be the timeframe. Unfortunately I believe this year the Auditor General's report was delayed until late November.
Mr. Hopwood: I could add just one small point, Mr. Chairman.
Our objective would be to table the performance reports as early in the fall as we can, to allow the committees an opportunity to review them and report on them before the Christmas break. So our objective is to table them as early as we can, but we're driven by other events, such as the opinion on the financial statements, the availability of other information, and when the House returns.
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Ms Bridgman: That will allow enough time for input before the end of the fiscal year.
Mr. Hopwood: Hopefully before the end of December, to allow them as a contribution to the budget process, because the budget decisions are being made over the January-February period.
If the committees had some views about what they saw on the departmental plans, then they could express an opinion on that in the spring. If they had a view on what they saw in the departmental performance over the fall period, then in parallel with the budget consultation process that's engaging more broadly in the broad fiscal plan and framework, that could allow the committees to provide an input into the budget decisions that are taking place in the January period.
That's how the pieces would fit together.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Finlay): Thank you very much, Mr. Hopwood. You've put all our thoughts and what we've been wrestling with here in very good order, and I, for one, can see the plan and the reason for it. I trust that my colleagues feel likewise.
Are there any further questions? Robert?
Mr. Bertrand: No.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Finlay): We are going to deal with this, Mr. Duhamel, in April when we will get back. So we will do our best to be a good pilot and to give you lots of feedback.
I don't know. David, Tom, what were the other factors? We wanted a certain mix.
Mr. Tom Hopwood (Director, Improved Reporting to Parliament Project, Program Branch, Treasury Board Secretariat): There are two sets of pilot departments. We have one set that deals with a more fundamental change of the documents. That includes Transport Canada, Indian Affairs and Northern Development, and Agriculture.
Mr. David Miller (Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Program Branch, Treasury Board Secretariat): One of the interesting things is that when we went through the creation of the part IIIs we were very insistent that all of them be essentially identical in terms of format, and of content to a certain extent, and we found that it doesn't work to have National Archives looking exactly like National Defence, even though alphabetically they're pretty close.
I want to thank you and your colleagues for your enlightening comments this morning.
Mr. Duhamel: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, colleagues.
I want to thank the officials as well. It was a rather extraordinary session.
The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Finlay): This meeting stands adjourned.