Government Operations committee  Well, in the past, we had been criticized for having had too much information in our RPPs. They were long and woolly and were hard to... They didn't have enough concrete information. Over a period of time, we tried to provide a much more concise document, with concrete information on program activities and all the rest of it in the documents.

Government Operations committee  We could provide more description or less, as you require.

Government Operations committee  This will be the central votes. It typically is not Treasury Board as a department; it's central votes.

Government Operations committee  We'll have a look at it.

Government Operations committee  That's what we thought we were providing in the QFR, actually, but we'll have a look at that and we'll respond to the committee.

Government Operations committee  We generally have not asked departments, and that would include ourselves, to break it down in that way. We have mainly worked up to the program activity area with the reductions in each of those general areas within our organization, so it's a little bit difficult to provide that level of detail.

Government Operations committee  We can provide more information, as Christine mentioned, in our QFR, where we have described the actual details of the changes we've made. If you are looking for us to apply a different aggregation for the subprogram activity area, I think that might become quite cumbersome. It may be difficult to even explain to....

Government Operations committee  I think that's an important point. These don't affect services to Canadians directly, although a more efficient government will provide better services to Canadians down the road, but certainly there are many ways in which we can continue to improve some of our internal processes.

Government Operations committee  Well, as a central agency, we work with other departments in the approvals of their spending and in the authorities they require for contracting and other things. In that sense, we can improve the services we provide to other departments by being more efficient internally. Christine mentioned some of the efficiencies that she has introduced in her sector, and Sally and Bill in their sector.

Government Operations committee  As you mention, we show those reductions in terms of our program activity areas, so you're right: that's a more general category. For example, that's expenditure management in Bill's and Sally's area or on the financial management side. Within those areas, yes, there are multiple sub-areas, which is where we do actually bring into play these new processes that I was discussing earlier.

Government Operations committee  That's what it is legally.

Government Operations committee  Well, yes, our priority, I think, is still to support the government in becoming leaner and more efficient, containing costs, modernizing processes, and strengthening our management. The comprehensive review of spending was one element of that, but there's a much broader agenda to modernize and make more efficient all of our government processes, under which we refer to some of our own internal processes that we are trying to streamline and improve.

Government Operations committee  No.

Government Operations committee  Absolutely. As you know, Shared Services Canada consolidates a number of very crucial back-office IT elements for us: email systems, data centres, networks. Resources have been transferred to create the organization. The organization has been stood up and is engaged in improving all of those areas of government.

Government Operations committee  Well, indeed, modernizing and reducing unnecessary operational spending does require better IT in general and better business processes as well, which underlie IT, so without something like Shared Services Canada, I think you would be at a disadvantage. It certainly will provide a good basis for further modernization of all those back-office processes.