Government Operations Committee on June 1st, 2006

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Yes.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

I appreciate that very much. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

I'm going to allow Mr. Kramp to have one last question before we terminate.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Marshall, you can only make intelligent decisions if you have proper information. The Auditor General has reported that basically your department spends $50 million a year on system information and management material, and yet it's cumbersome. It does not give you the information that you need to be able to adequately perform your duty.

I see that you have undertaken some efforts for improvements, but this, to me, appears just to be tinkering. Why has your department--and this has been an ongoing problem for years--not really had achievable results with this? Have you not had the budget to make the proper changes to a system of reporting so your managers can make good decisions? Or has it been an in-house decision that it's just not a priority?

[David Marshall]

No, Madam Chair, honourable members. I should say that it's not a void. I mean, we have information. The fact that we don't, for example, capture the expenses that a department puts into their fit-ups as part of our system is because they're part of their budget and so forth. These are the kinds of improvements we want to make.

You just heard from a representative of the Auditor General's office that we do have an approval process for when we increase expenditures on a particular project, but we don't the track the original budget to it and so forth. We are now discussing improvements that will help to manage expenses as a whole and look at trends and so forth.

Certainly whenever we look at a specific investment, there's very intensive work undertaken. I think everybody would recognize that we do a very thorough job of that.

So it's not black and white, but--

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Perhaps I could interrupt you just for a second and slip back to the Auditor General.

You appear to be semi-comfortable with the status of your information system, and yet the Auditor General in a report basically says the systems do not provide the information or allow the input that would enable managers to make well-informed decisions.

We can't have it both ways. You can't be semi-satisfied, and the Auditor General can't basically say you don't have the information to make intelligent, capable decisions. Where's the saw-off here?

[David Marshall]

Well, Madam Chair, I'm not going to say that our systems are perfect. I will definitely accept that we're going to have to do a lot more to get better and--

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Is it budget, though, or is lack of budget to do it?

[David Marshall]

It's not really lack of budget, no. It's a need, first, to properly understand what we need. There is so much going on. There are leases, improvements, outsourcings, and on and on. And so--

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Are there models in other jurisdictions? As an example, I can recall being in small business many years ago. I needed a system. It was going to cost me $120,000 to design a system to suit my business needs. Instead, I went out and bought one off the shelf for $25,000 that just did a wonderful job. Are there other jurisdictions or other administrations that you could take a look at, that you could sample, instead of spending--we saw what happened with the gun registry, with systems that we try to evolve and develop. Is there nothing out there in the rest of this world that is working really well that you could possibly emulate?

[David Marshall]

There certainly is. And what you will find shortly is that we will be going out with a request for proposals to identify just that. We are--

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Thank you very kindly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you very much for attending and for your good answers that contribute to the understanding of what happens with Public Works, which is a tremendously large department.

To the committee, next Tuesday morning we will be having the Canadian Union of Postal Workers; and on Thursday, a week from today, Mr. Fortier is coming at 8 o'clock.

Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.