Government Operations Committee on Nov. 19th, 2009

[Simon Kennedy]

Thank you very much for the question.

Mr. Chair, I'd like to reserve the right to come back if the answer I give needs further clarification.

My understanding of the process and the way it's typically done is that a standing offer process is in place with Public Works. A roster of firms go through a competitive process, and we generally draw firms from that process.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Is that the process we use now?

[Simon Kennedy]

My understanding is that it is certainly the process we used here. If there was anything different, I would certainly get back to the committee. My experience in all the various activities we've been involved is that we've used the typical standing offer competitive process to go through it.

You mentioned a specific case of this one contract. I don't know whether we went through an open competitive process or through the standing offer, which essentially is a competitive process, but a roster is available and you pre-select from the roster. We would have used one of those two processes.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Let me be clear about this. In the $3.9 million to support the implementation and coordination of a government-wide communications strategy, a tender went out, and it may be a standing offer? Which process was used for both the polling and the communications? How many firms would have been hired? Are they two separate firms or did one company do the entire communication package?

[Simon Kennedy]

Thank you for the question.

Mr. Chair, to answer the member's question, it might be helpful to step back very briefly and talk about the big blocks involved in terms of this amount of money.

A certain amount of funding was for corporate services support--

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

How much?

[Simon Kennedy]

I'll just look.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

It's in your presentation on page 3 and 4. Can you break them down?

[Simon Kennedy]

Yes, I can give a rough breakdown. I think it'll be very helpful in the conversation.

A certain amount of money for corporate overhead would have gone to Marilyn MacPherson's group at the Privy Council Office. It's the fit-up of rooms and extra money for translation services. That is associated with any new staff person who walks through the door. An automatic amount is assigned to corporate services for a computer, for the security guards, and so on for anybody who walks through the door.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

What percentage would that be?

[Simon Kennedy]

That would have been about....

[Marilyn MacPherson]

We have a one-time set-up fee and we go through a fairly complicated set of calculations. It's not just the one-size-fits-all; we look at all the services required. If someone is fitting up a space, we take into account if space is already available, if it has already been fit up to secret, how many computers, because we run off at least--

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

I understand that, but given that I only have eight minutes, what's the biggest chunk that's been spent of the $3.9 million?

[Marilyn MacPherson]

About $1 million of the $3.9 million, or $974,000, is for corporate.

[Simon Kennedy]

Of the remaining moneys, roughly $1.6 million is for the website, and that's not taking it down to the last dollar. That's divided between the people who generate the content and the people who maintain the system. Then there is about $1.3 million for the various other activities I described earlier. Those include things such as the work with departments for coordinating announcements and that sort of thing. In total there's roughly $1 million for overhead, $1.3 million for other coordination activities, and roughly $1.6 million for the website.

I should note as well, particularly in the case of the website, that a very large portion of the funding is for staff to be brought in on a temporary basis to help manage the site. There's very little in the way of direct operating costs; it's mostly staff--salary.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Of this $3.9 million, the majority of those funds is in-house, it's managed by you, and you're not contracting it to a polling company, an ad-buy company, or a communications firm. Am I correct in that understanding?

[Simon Kennedy]

That's correct, yes.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

These are one-time-only dollars, and after this communication strategy is over, these overheads or the staff will end because they're on contract.

[Simon Kennedy]

I can't speak for all staff in corporate services, but certainly the staff who work for me on the website are people we have seconded from other government departments. So they are on a short-term basis. And indeed, I have authority under this submission. We would hire up to eight employees. At the moment, I have actually only four employees working on this, and they are people who are on secondment from other government departments. At the end of the two-year period, they will presumably go back to their home departments.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Is there a polling firm? I see you're doing public opinion research on the branding strategy. Is there a polling company that's been hired to do this communication strategy?

[Simon Kennedy]

In our budget, according to the figures I have handy, we have about $200,000 of the total $3.9 million dedicated to what you would roughly call a public opinion research type of activity. And I would have to get back to you with the specifics of which particular firm that $200,000 might go to.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Would you be able to provide us with the name of the firms at the next meeting? It shouldn't be very difficult.

[Simon Kennedy]

Mr. Chair, I think I have a commitment to get back on this question.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

This is the...?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Your time.