Government Operations committee  Thank you very much for the question. Going back, I think we've always been a service organization. It's in our parliamentary mandate. It's in the legislation of Parliament. That's what we're constituted...along with a recognition of the fact that now a majority of our revenue c

Government Operations committee  As I briefly alluded to earlier, we are introducing competencies in all of our staffing procedures. As we recruit and as we consider people for promotion, competency in client service is an important part of it. It is the missing piece of the puzzle that we're just now building i

Government Operations committee  I'll try to deal with two sides of the question. First of all, on our long-term plans in reductions, the numbers we have put out, which are a matter of public record—and I would be happy to share them with the committee—show the savings going out seven years. Those are the measu

Government Operations committee  Thank you so much. I have here one of our co-champions to lead the campaign. First of all, it should be the public service in the national capital region; they raised over $21.4 million in the charitable campaign. That was announced last night. Our department raised over $1 mil

Government Operations committee  For organizations, probably the most comprehensive assessment of the quality of management of a department is these annual assessments by the Treasury Board Secretariat. So they are indeed done externally. They have a set of indicators—and I've lost count, but there might be 80 o

Government Operations committee  To clarify, the responsibility of departments and myself is to make recommendations to government—the decisions are made by government. We offer advice. The minister makes a recommendation, cabinet approves it, and then we execute the decisions.

Government Operations committee  In the time available, I want to underscore that these plans I am referring to are longer-term plans. The strategic review exercise was for three-year plans being implemented. The deficit reduction action plan now being executed by PWGSC on the real property side is a seven-year

Government Operations committee  No. That's an excellent question. You're turning to 2012-13 over 2011-12 there?

Government Operations committee  I believe there are two factors there. First, there had been a program that was delivered through the Translation Bureau where scholarships and bursaries were provided. That program sunsetted and has ended. That accounts for the decline there. Second, beyond Parliament, we are p

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much for the kind remarks. They're much appreciated. Thank you as well for the question. Our department sees itself mainly as a service department, as a backbone for the Government of Canada. We serve literally all the departments, large and small, across the Go

Government Operations committee  I will ask Alex to help me in replying. Overall, Shared Services Canada gathered people and their base budget from some 43 or 44 departments, importantly, from Public Works. I believe initially, and it is shown in our documentation to Parliament, some 1,100 people were moved fro

Government Operations committee  I won't address the numbers, but I certainly can.... Forecasting translation demand is a bit like forecasting the weather, quite frankly. It's a demand-driven program, and you would know this as a parliamentarian. We're not really able to forecast when Parliament will sit, how ma

Government Operations committee  If I may, I'll answer this partly, and then I'll turn to the chief financial officer. Thank you very much for the question. The reduction proposals under the DRAP process are generated by the department. They are submitted to our minister. She in turn takes them to cabinet and t

Government Operations committee  We're happy to comply to any requests the committee makes. I know a member of the committee made such a request for this meeting, and we're quite prepared to respond to that in written form, which I think would largely satisfy. It does not deal with individual person movements, b

Government Operations committee  If it's the will of the committee, certainly.