There have indeed been preliminary, exploratory discussions to determine what we do, what our current mandate is and how that could be extended, especially in terms of assessing election platforms, which is quite an important mandate. That requires resources, but it also requires some discipline on the part of the political parties and the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
We were asked for an information document. We prepared it and gave it to the government. The example we used was of the parliamentary budget officer in Australia, the only PBO with a legislative mandate to assess election platforms. The PBO in the Netherlands does it, but has no legislative mandate.
In a word, there have been preliminary discussions and we have provided some information, but there have been no negotiations as such or any dialogue along those lines.