Government Operations committee  I don't know. Maybe Mr. Enns has a comment.

Government Operations committee  My colleague will check that number.

Government Operations committee  When you refer to the 5%, I think you're referring to strategic reviews.

Government Operations committee  Right. Those are for about one quarter, roughly, of departmental spending each year. Departments have to come forward with their lowest-performing, least effective 5% and propose reallocations or reductions in that spending. Now, I think what you were referring to earlier was the document from PBO on monitoring the operating budget freeze.

Government Operations committee  Sorry. The $318 million refers to what exactly?

Government Operations committee  There are two things we need to distinguish. One is the operating budget freeze and how it works, and we're happy to engage on that, as we have been. But there is also the data request that the Parliamentary Budget Officer has made last year and this year, and that the committee has made, and we have just responded to the committee on that.

Government Operations committee  It's really the matter of cabinet confidences, and that's information we cannot share. If an item is before Treasury Board or cabinet, and it's subject to a confidence, it cannot be shared. That's also the law. So that is the reason that some information that has been requested by a PBO cannot be provided.

Government Operations committee  That's an interesting question. I'll see if I can address it in part. We have a good system, I think, within the federal government of requiring departments to show their spending by program, with the objectives intended to be achieved through those programs. We have a policy requiring that of departments.

Government Operations committee  The budget also kicked off an administrative services review, which will be looking at duplication in the back office and the potential for consolidation of some government services. Service Canada is a good example of how we have moved a long way to avoid duplication in the infrastructure serving Canadians.

Government Operations committee  I'll start, and then perhaps my colleague may want to add some points as well. We do challenge when new policy measures are being introduced and have gone through cabinet but come to the Treasury Board. We scrutinize those measures on a couple of bases: one, that they're consistent with our policies, whether that's a procurement policy or any number of Treasury Board policies; and also, that the funding that's being requested is appropriate for that particular policy initiative.

Government Operations committee  No.

Government Operations committee  There are adjustments in the documents for changes in the public debt charges. They show up in the Department of Finance votes. Public debt charges are statutory--not voted in the first place--and we report them in here. They are also well documented in the public accounts. I can refer you to table 3.8 in the public accounts, which breaks down all these debt charges.

Government Operations committee  I know this seems difficult to understand. When new policy measures are introduced by cabinet and appear in the budget, they have to be implemented. There is an operating component to them. A key exception to the operating budget freeze is for the operating required for those new policy measures.

Government Operations committee  In each case here, the departments' operating votes, their vote 1 or program votes, are the budgets that are being constrained. Every time we come here, you will see how those operating budget votes are going up or going down, and you will see the progress of those votes.

Government Operations committee  And you will see that in departments, both in the plans and in the results--both the RPPs and BPRs. You will also see what they plan to do and what the results are of what they planned. In addition, as you can see in these documents here, we have taken out of a department's reference levels this year any money that would have been provided for the wage increase, the 1.5%, and that's also evident in the footnotes throughout the document.