Public Accounts Committee on March 26th, 2009

[Wayne Wouters]

Yes. When I say “for consideration”, it's a matter of how we do respond. The government will have to make a determination on that.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, on this point that I'd earlier raised, I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel. If you take a look, maybe, at what your colleague presented us on Tuesday from Public Works, that should give you an idea. I'm not sure, but I think you're thinking it's more than it is. I think it's more of just an update with some details. Take a look at that, and we can work this out. It shouldn't be an overly burdensome thing. It's just a matter of our being up to date, given the time lag between some of the other activities.

[Wayne Wouters]

If the members clapped for the deputy minister coming here, we'll definitely try to emulate what he did.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

It stands out.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

We'll leave it at that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Our first round is seven minutes.

Ms. Ratansi.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you.

Thanks to all of you for being here.

Mr. Wouters, in regard to the audit the Auditor General did, when the audit was taking place, I think the focus was on prudence, probity, and effective control of spending. I can appreciate it when you say that these small entities are 1% of the total government spending, which I assume is $2 billion, but how do you balance the risk versus overburdening these small entities?

You've given us the example of the Northern Pipeline Agency, which has two employees, and the National Capital Commission, with 400 employees; yet they may be facing the same reporting requirements. How can they manage when they have a lack of human resources, a lack of people with a financial background or an IT background? The Auditor General states in her report that they have to submit about 100 reports per year.

As well, I'd like to find out what happens to those reports. We all want reports. I have seen organizations that want this report, that report, and every other report. I would like to know what is being done with these reports. Are these reports useful? Are you able to do your governance well? If it has been used to improve governance, then I'll have to go to another page where the Auditor General talks about the risks in governance and in accountability. Could you give me an idea as to why these things are not moving forward and why they are still being burdened with so much reporting?

Then for the Auditor General, Mr. Wouters had responded that this was legislative and that there are sometimes Treasury Board requirements. Which of these, in your opinion, would help in being streamlined, from the small entities' perspective?

[Wayne Wouters]

Thank you.

It is the case that reporting is very much part of the set of initiatives we have to deal with oversight in organizations. We agree with the Auditor General here that there is a balance, as I've said. There is a balance between good oversight and risk. Over time, I think, it is quite fair to conclude that for these small organizations, the burden that we've collectively put on these organizations for reporting has gone too far.

I think we are now collectively looking at what we can do to rebalance that risk versus oversight and prudence. I've outlined some of the areas. In regard to our policies, of the roughly 100 reports, about 45 of these reports are a result of the Treasury Board policies, so it's about 50%. We are now looking at every one of those policies and making a determination on the reporting requirements as we amend. In fact, we plan to reduce those policies from about 180 to about 45. That alone will reduce reporting requirements for all organizations, because it's going to streamline and modernize our overall policy suite. We're over halfway through that now.

But we're also, in each case, specifically looking at the small agencies. So for those policies that we do keep, we're making a determination as to what extent--if there is a report requirement--the small agency requires a report to be issued. For example, about three weeks ago Treasury Board passed a new evaluation policy. There, we're saying that in fact the small agencies do not need to comply with this policy fully or to the same extent as others do.

I talked about HR reporting. Of all our reporting, it's probably one of the more significant reporting requirements. We've had reports coming in for many different reasons. They have been streamlined, as I said. We've reduced that by roughly 85%. We are beginning to make progress in this area through our own policies and through the requirements we set through our policies, directives, and standards. About 24 of those 100 reports are because of legislation, and that's more difficult to get at.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

But who advises legislators as to how to govern? We can all go in a circular motion and say that to make it, you take risks; if I'm an accountant, I'll say that the risk for a small entity is $100, for a bigger entity it's $1,000, and for another one it is $1 million. Who tells the legislature that these are the types of checks and balances, without overburdening the agencies? As well, who determines the return on investment? If there's a small agency that's dealing with health, it's wasting its time trying to fill out reports. We saw it with INAC; those small agencies are filling out report after report and are not really attending to the care that they're supposed to give.

Cynicism would say that you're creating jobs for yourself. How do you balance that with real service, which is supposed to be provided?

[Wayne Wouters]

When it comes to legislation, each piece of legislation comes into Parliament separately. I think reporting on access to information, for example, and having all organizations report on it is often seen as a way to be transparent. When we and parliamentarians look at it individually, I don't think we look at the whole picture, because we're looking at that one piece of legislation.

I think what we're saying now is that when you add it all up, it creates a serious burden for those organizations, so we want to know how we can change it overall. I think parliamentarians may want to look at the legislation or the parliamentary reporting around estimates and DPRs and RPPs, because these are requirements you have for the government to report to Parliament. Small agencies are part of those, and they are responsible for issuing those reports like anyone else.

I think both parliamentarians and the government have a role in seeing what we can do collectively to address the issues for these organizations.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Madam Fraser, we have seen reports, and we need to balance accountability and reporting and good governance. I don't want to put you on the spot, but in your opinion, how many reports do we really need? Have you had a look at reports from the agencies, the small entities, and do you find them useful?

[Sheila Fraser]

Madam Chair, we didn't look at the use that was being made of these different reports, but certainly one of the major issues the small agencies brought forward in the interviews was that they found this requirement to be a significant burden on them. That was especially true for the very small ones.

I would raise three issues. As the secretary has mentioned, often when you look at programs or requirements one by one, the reporting requirements seem reasonable. It's when you add them all up that you start to realize there's duplication. For example, they raised with us the issue that while they have to produce a departmental performance report, many of them have to produce an annual report as well. It's basically the same information in both. People can say they can just reprint it, but is there not a way to combine them and do one report that is meaningful?

Another issue is that when policies are issued, no distinction is made between big and small. I know you come from the world of accounting, where we're even starting to talk about standards for small and medium-sized businesses. Maybe a distinction needs to be made for smaller organizations, and I hear the secretary saying they're considering that.

One of the options they might look at is the frequency of reporting. Do things need to be reported as frequently for smaller agencies as for the larger ones?

I think different alternatives are available. Some reports, of course, are required. We can't eliminate all the reports. They are absolutely essential to good accountability. However, I think there needs to be a focus given, a lens given, especially for the smaller agencies.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Ms. Ratansi.

Madame Faille, vous avez sept minutes, s'il vous plâit.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My questions will mainly concern human resources.

Mr. Wouters, you mentioned that you had also focused your efforts on improving human resource management controls.

You noted a number of reductions in policies and rules. Can you give us a little information on that subject and cite some examples of rules you have abolished?

[Mitch Bloom]

The process of reducing the rules for human resource management has been under way since the overall secretariat began a process of reviewing and evaluating all of its policies across the full range of management instruments.

In the case of people management and human resource management policies, that was part of this process. Piece by piece, it has started to look at the policies, directives, and standards that are promulgated by the board itself to try to streamline that suite of instruments. It has done that to the extent that Mr. Wouters pointed out.

What I would add is that we are now taking that work to another level. We're examining each and every instrument, those three levels, in great detail to truly understand their purpose and objective, and to establish what other tools we might have at our disposal in order to better understand the human resource management operations of those organizations.

We anticipate that this process will result in a further significant reduction in the number of instruments that we currently use, not necessarily in the sense of not wanting to be able to ensure the proper operations of government, but by looking at a broader array of tools and instruments that we could use in order to work with departments.

I would also underscore that in going through that process, we have added a very specific element related to small agencies. This is part of our ongoing work with small agencies in the area of human resource management. There is a specific requirement in that to examine every instrument against the lens of the impact on a smaller agency--and for all aspects, not just monitoring and reporting--in regard to the full impact on their operations.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

All right. Can you cite a more specific example? If I remember correctly, a number of changes were made to human resources at the IRB. Can you give us a specific example, like that of the IRB?

[Mitch Bloom]

In terms of a specific example in these areas, as I said, it covered the full range of human resource management policies. We're looking at elements such as telework and other sorts of flexible work arrangements, and specifically at the instruments to understand the extent to which essential direction has to be provided, or the extent to which it might be better to allow organizations the flexibility to develop their own internal practices and operations to address issues like that.

As I said, this is covering the full range of instruments. I've offered one. There are volunteer policies. There are policies on terms of employment. Each of these is being examined, one after the other, to establish, as I said, the impact on every government organization. The added element at this time is a specific requirement in our review to examine the impacts on small entities.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Ms. Fraser, earlier you mentioned that you had conducted a specific study on Governor in Council appointments. Or is that study forthcoming?

[Sheila Fraser]

It's an audit that will be part of our report of next week.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

All right. Thank you.

Perhaps the Treasury Board or Privy Council Office officials can tell us how many Governor in Council appointments there are to the small agencies.

[Karl Salgo, Director of Strategic Policy, Machinery of Government, Privy Council Office]

I do not know that number off the top of my head. I can get you the number. Are you asking about it in the course of a given year?

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

The number of small agencies is assessed every year. In all, among the officers of those agencies, how many positions are filled by Governor in Council appointments? Since you'll be providing us with the figures, perhaps you could also tell us how many positions are currently vacant and since when.

I also have a question concerning appointments. I know that changes have been made to the selection committees. Is that part of the improvements that you are making to the management framework?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Just briefly, Madam Faille. I'm not sure that this is part of this audit--

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Pardon me, but I'm going to clarify a point. It says here that the number of human resource policies and rules was streamlined from 180 to 44, but I don't know which ones were abolished. Unless the Treasury Board provides us with all the rules that have been abolished.