Government Operations Committee on March 24th, 2009

[Richard Botham]

The scope for the next year is the four departments listed in the budget bill.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

Just as a clarification, when you're talking about the sale of assets and crown corporations, is there a focus on the sale of the corporations themselves outright, or is it more a focus on those crown corporations to divest themselves of assets within their activities?

[Richard Botham]

Going back to my initial remarks on the process of the review, it would be a variety of outcomes. It could be proposals regarding the governance of a crown corporation, the governance of a subset of its activities. By the same token, it could include the corporation as a whole in terms of something that would have more value created if it were run by the private sector or a subset of its activities.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Okay, so the range, then.

[Richard Botham]

Yes.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Okay. Mr. Chair, I'm assuming I've gone past.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Not by much.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

We're fine.

Monsieur Gourde, for five minutes.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm not sure which witness could answer my question.

Strategic reviews happen regularly. Why are strategic reviews carried out every three or four years? Could they not be done rather every five or ten years?

[Alister Smith]

That's a very good question.

We determined that we would like to try to cover all direct program spending over a four-year period. But you're right, it could have been over a five- or six-year period, which would mean departments would come up once every five or six years.

We did think a four-year cycle made a great deal of sense, but it is really somewhat arbitrary. Once every four years is a reasonable approach for strategic reviews, to put a department through a review once every four years. Once every five or six years may just seem to be too far along. Too many things could change in the department over six years for that to be as useful as a four-year cycle.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Are these departmental strategic reviews done by government employees or are private firms hired for this purpose? How does the procedure work?

[Alister Smith]

First of all, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, reviews are owned by ministers. That's important. They put their own personal.... They devote quite a bit of their own personal time to this. They are assisted by the departments, by the deputy heads of the departments and by departmental officials, but also by external advisers. The external advisers, in many cases, as one might expect, are experts in the area. They may have been former deputies in provinces or from other walks of life. But they assist the department and the minister in coming to a view on the proposals.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Some programs have been in place for 10, 15, 20 or 30 years. Is it possible that the old programs that are still in existence may be changed so that they can be improved or completely abandoned because the initial objectives are no longer being achieved or we simply don't need them anymore? Are these things that may happen? What process do you use to eliminate a program that is still in effect?

[Alister Smith]

Indeed, this is one procedure of the strategic review to assess whether programs continue to be relevant and continue to be well-performing. Indeed, there are many programs that have been around for a long time.

We are trying to evaluate all programs, again, on a five-year cycle, so that a program will not go unevaluated for a long period of time. Those evaluations are also publicly posted.

There are ways of trying to deal with the problem of programs that have outlived their usefulness. Sometimes programs do overlap. New programs may be doing the job more effectively than an old program, and it may be time to be replaced or wound down altogether. These strategic reviews are the first effective mechanism we have for trying to deal with that problem.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

I have one final question, Mr. Chairman.

When you talk about duplication between old and new programs, do you offer any support to the people concerned? Every time a program is eliminated, people are affected. Is there some way of helping these people, either by providing them with the information or by establishing a new way to proceed?

[Alister Smith]

The department that undertakes a strategic review does an impact analysis of who would be affected by a program proposal put forward for reallocation. The mitigation of the risk involved in that is considered in the analysis. In some cases a program that overlaps with another program may result in a revised new program that can pick up some of the clientele from the old program. So there's a variety of possible outcomes there. But impacts on recipients or stakeholders are considered by the department.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Thank you.

Madame Bourgeois.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Smith, in my opinion, the whole issue of strategic review planning is the cornerstone of your work. I will therefore ask you questions in order to have a good understanding of the way you operate.

Normally, the Treasury Board Secretariat is supposed to provide assistance to departments that want to or will be called upon to do planning work for a given program. Is that correct?

[Alister Smith]

We provide assistance to departments in their reports on plans and priorities. We provide guidance to departments when they plan overall for their priorities and when they report back to Parliament on the results they've achieved with their programs, but we don't specifically tell them how to plan a particular program. In some cases we provide advice on project planning and a variety of other areas that could help them, but I don't think we precisely provide strategic planning advice for programs.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

All right. In that case, even if you do not provide advice as to how to set up a given program, the fact does remain that if a department wishes to design a support program, regardless of what it may be, you will help. Perhaps you will not help set up the program, but you will provide assistance in dealing with time indicators and performance, so that the department itself can take charge and say, two or four years after the program has been running, that it has fulfilled its objectives with respect to timelines and performance. Is that accurate?

[Alister Smith]

That's correct. We provide guidance, best-practice guides, and all the rest of it to help departments develop good performance indicators for their programs. We encourage them to use best practices from around government. We are there to assist in that sense, absolutely, as well as provide guidance for the other reporting back to Parliament through the RPPs and DPRs.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

So, that means that the strategic review that you will need to undertake for a program that you have already worked on should not be so difficult. I do not want to minimize your work, but this should be easier to do than if you had not worked on the program whatsoever.

[Alister Smith]

Absolutely. I think that's correct. For the management, resources, and results structure policy, we've asked departments to establish clear outcomes and develop their programs in the form of a program activity architecture that is linked to the overall objectives of what they're to achieve. We report not only through RPPs and DPRs, but through Canada's performance report that we table here on how well they may be achieving those outcomes. So we provide a fair amount of guidance in all of those respects for departments.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Do all of the departments currently comply with this directive?