Up until this past year, the funding went through the same process as any department. So we would put a submission in to the Treasury Board Secretariat, and it would go through the normal course. We raised the issue in the office for many years that we didn't believe that process was sufficiently independent, and that the people who were assessing and recommending the funding were the people we audited.
We are very pleased that there has been a change. There is a parliamentary panel now that reviews the funding requests of all officers of Parliament. It is a panel that is advisory to the Speaker of the House. We met with the panel just this past November, and we appeared with the Treasury Board Secretariat.
The Treasury Board Secretariat obviously conducts the usual analysis of the funding requests and submission. They were in agreement with the submission and recommended the submission we put forward. But the parliamentary panel also reviewed it and recommended it to the Speaker. The Speaker then transmitted that recommendation to the President of the Treasury Board. It does not have the force of automatic application; it's a recommendation.
All the officers of Parliament are in agreement with this mechanism. There's a two-year pilot, and we're hopeful that it will continue and give us a little more independence and parliamentary oversight.
Of course, the office also appears before the public accounts committee—in fact I just appeared on Monday. We review our report on plans and priorities and the departmental performance report with that committee as well.