Government Operations committee  There was an announcement in budget 2009 whereby the government was concerned about the ability of young people to get work during the summer, so they put in a program to supplement the money the departments were already providing or putting forward to hire students. The Privy Council Office allocated a certain amount of money.

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much. Good morning, Mr. Vice-Chair. We are delighted to be meeting the members of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. As you said, Simon Kennedy is here with me. My opening statement pertains to the 2009-2010 Supplementary or B Estimates for the Privy Council Office.

Government Operations committee  Thank you.

Government Operations committee  I'm not an expert, but I would suggest that one of the key things is the need to brand the public service as a great place to work, because in fact it is. And it's probably one of the best kept secrets in Canada. I also think that the work.... In advertising or in trying to attract people to come into the public service, there's the fact that you are exposed to the whole parliamentary process; you have an opportunity to actually affect many Canadians in how they live.

Government Operations committee  Again, it's not my area of expertise, but my understanding is that the role of that committee is to actually give advice to the government on how all of that can be done, how to actually attract people into the public service, and what types of people they should be looking to attract into the public service.

Government Operations committee  Nothing specifically that I'm aware of.

Government Operations committee  I've never heard of that practice in our office. People take their job very seriously because it is in accordance with the law. But they do apply the sections of the law equally as diligently, so if they apply a blackout on a particular section, then they actually have documented why they do that.

Government Operations committee  Personally, I'm not aware of any of those conversations in my role. I'm not sure....

Government Operations committee  No.

Government Operations committee  We don't have any contingencies. If we find we don't have sufficient funds, for example, for the coordinator, then we would come back in with supplementary estimates.

Government Operations committee  Yes, it absolutely is a priority. I think it is the priority not only for the public service but for many private industries as well, because of the demographics of our country. We have an aging baby boomer population, and inside of the public service we are going to be losing a considerable number of people, particularly at the senior levels, probably over the next five years.

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  Not that I'm aware of. I think most of our consultations are still with the line departments, not with the new players that have come under the ATIP.

Government Operations committee  At this point, I think we have allocated sufficient individuals to handle the workload we have at this point. One of the things that affected our rating in this last report—we actually got three stars out of five, which was significantly better than the F we received the year before—is that we've changed our business processes.

Government Operations committee  I apologize for the translation, or for the turn of phrase. What it's referring to is the new audit policy that has been put in by the Treasury Board ministers. What that refers to is that we are setting up our external audit committee, and we have set up an audit organization within the department.