The reason for the comment in the report was that when we started out in 2005, there was an expectation that everything would be completely delegated and that the central services that had been provided by the commission would actually just slowly fade away. That's turned out not to be the case.
What we've actually realized is that the decision-making and the hiring can be decentralized, but it is important that administratively we maintain some central supports. This is not unlike other results from things, such as the administrative services review that is being conducted by the government. There are efficiencies to be achieved in that back office area, so you centralize those. That's the background for the comment and observation.
Now, we were always responding to the needs in the department, so we never completely got rid of things. We realized that we needed to maintain those and do them well. We have gone through a process of reform. We have the electronic recruitment system working. We got initial Treasury Board money for that, and now it's being paid for by the departments. We have a committee of departmental people who guide the development of that system. We are making progress in that and we are continuing to make improvements in it. This means that when you apply to the Government of Canada website, that's electronic, and everything behind it is becoming electronic.
We've also made good progress in making changes to our big recruitment programs. We go out to universities and we have been working with the departments and improving how we do that. We are also doing things in that program to try to be much more up front with people in describing what is required and what we need; we actually are trying to get a smaller number of applicants so that we can come down to the number we recruit much more easily. That's good progress.