Government Operations committee  Thank you for your question. Shared Services Canada was established in 2011. Human resource transfers were made and were reflected in our documents in 2012-2013. This means that part of the workforce reduction that you see here is a reflection of the transfer of our employees to Shared Services Canada.

Government Operations committee  We are in the process of transforming the pay system, which is more than 40 years old. That is what justifies the increase in spending on that program. The project involves two components. The first is the renewal of the IT system. We are finalizing planning for the system. The second component is the consolidation of pay functions, that is to say pay processing.

Government Operations committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. I am pleased to appear before this committee on behalf of Public Works and Government Services to discuss the 2013-2014 supplementary estimates (B) and the 2012-2013 departmental performance report. Since you have named the people joining me today, I will not do it a second time.

Government Operations committee  That is indeed correct.

Government Operations committee  In many instances, as we do for a lot of reporting and third-party assessors that we contract with, we use their reports. But once their reports are completed, they have essentially completed the work for which they were contracted. Once the report is posted and the assessment is completed, essentially there is no further relationship or no further work to be done.

Government Operations committee  I would say the way we run our processes, there is no ministerial involvement. When there is a commitment to meet a timeline for a process, we are encouraged to meet the timeline. But in terms of our procurement—and I don't want to comment on what other jurisdictions do or don't do—there is no ministerial involvement.

Government Operations committee  I am not in a position, as you know, to talk about what happens in a cabinet process.

Government Operations committee  What I can say is that in fact the government had made a commitment that the contract would be in place by 2009. The government at the time had made that commitment and we were following that commitment, making sure that—

Government Operations committee  That was in fact the recommendation of officials because we were—

Government Operations committee  Officials of the three client departments, and I was from one of the client departments.

Government Operations committee  As my colleague Mr. Sobrino indicated to you when he appeared before the committee, we are launching the process now, and we will in fact have a fairly robust engagement with industry. One of the questions we are asking and will be asking industry.... We will take the time necessary to re-procure and have a competitive process, but we are also interested in hearing from suppliers in the industry whether there are different ways we can deliver this program.

Government Operations committee  I will turn to my colleague.

Government Operations committee  I think this is why we use independent third parties. They are selected as a result of an evaluation process, which is not run by the two major branches that oversee processes, whether real property transactions or acquisitions. The departmental oversight branch is running the selection process completely separately and as a result of that, the people we contract with are, in fact, selected based on a range of criteria.

Government Operations committee  If the law is broken and one of the offences is covered under our measures, then you cannot do business with the government or we terminate the contract for default. The measure that we have is to terminate contracts or to not enter into contracts. The other convictions are related to the activities—the convictions or the crimes that have been committed—but if you have been convicted of any of the offences on the list, then you cannot do business with us.

Government Operations committee  If I may, Mr. Chair, I did say in my remarks that there are a list of offences that were put in place in 2007. We did add some, and we have refreshed and updated most of the standing offers and supply arrangements. There are only a small number that have not yet been refreshed for the purposes of integrating our framework.