Government Operations Committee on Nov. 20th, 2012

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Time goes by so fast when you're having fun.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Yes, indeed.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thanks.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Next, for the Liberals, we have John McCallum.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you to all for being here.

In your supplementary estimates, you talk about “savings identified as part of the Budget 2012 Spending Review”.

I wonder if, in the context of that spending review, you could tell us which program activities have been cut, and by how much.

[Bill Matthews]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll say a couple of things on that question, because it's more complicated than it sounds.

Parliament votes, as we know, by capital and operating and grants and contributions, in most cases, so when we bring supplementary estimates forward, if there's additional funding being requested and we have some money available that basically they're unable to spend, we do an offset. Those are the offsets that are referred to in the question. In these supplementary estimates, you will find roughly $485 million in offsets because of Budget 2012.

The question then turns to which program activities have been reduced as a result of Budget 2012. We don't have that information in these supplementary estimates, because that's not how Parliament votes, but each department, I believe, has now posted on their website a breakdown by program activity of what's been reduced. It's not here, but it is on each department's website. I believe if you go to the Treasury Board Secretariat website, you can see a consolidated link of all those reductions.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Can we also get a breakdown of the cuts by sub-activities? Is that available?

[Bill Matthews]

Sub-activity is an interesting one. We do not have sub-activity at the centre. It's not information we would request.

Would a department have the information of reductions by sub-activity? I think you would see a mix. I'm not certain they would, but I can't say one way or the other. It's not information that we would use at the centre, so I can't say for certain if departments would have that level of detail.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

My next question is about vote 5 transfers. I understand that vote 5 is the government contingencies fund, which is meant for urgent or unforeseen spending requirements that can't wait until the next round of estimates. I think there are two cases: $38 million for the Canadian Museum of Human Rights and $29 million for Industry Canada to pay an out-of-court settlement.

What was this money used for, exactly, and what was “urgent or unforeseen” about these expenditures?

[Bill Matthews]

There were two cases mentioned, Mr. Chair. The first one, around the museum, is not actually new funding. What's happened with the Museum of Human Rights is that it's funded by a mix of various levels of government. There were some issues around timing of receipt of funds to actually make sure the museum could continue its construction.

What's happened here is that basically a federal contribution from a future year has been advanced to allow that museum's construction to continue on schedule. It's actually not any new, additional money for the museum in terms of what was originally committed, but there was a change in the profile. There was an urgent need on that part.

On the second one, the out-of-court settlement, sometimes when you have settlements there's a legal requirement to make a payment on a certain date. Because of the timing of estimates, the department couldn't wait for supplementary estimates (B) to actually comply with what had been agreed to.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Okay.

Do I have time for one more?

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

You have about a minute and a half, John.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Okay.

In your report on plans and priorities, you said that the secretariat “will also pursue greater efficiency and effectiveness in its own operations, including streamlining and automating its internal business processes”. Have you delivered on that, and if so, in what form have you delivered on it?

[Alister Smith]

Let me start, and then I'll turn to Christine.

We have indeed been working on streamlining our internal processes and making efficiencies in a number of areas, including the expenditure management sector and corporate services, which Christine represents.

One example of a streamlined process, I think, is a common human resources business process, which we've implemented and are implementing across government. Under this, we effectively streamline staffing, classification, and whole other areas of HR. We are applying this across government. We are, of course, eating our own cooking and applying it within Treasury Board as well.

Christine, you may want to add something.

[Christine Walker]

In the strategic and operating review, approximately 70% of the cuts within the Treasury Board are related to what we would consider “back office”. One of the areas we are looking at is consolidating all of our administration for the corporate services sector. We're a pilot for the rest of the organization. We have changed the way we actually do administration within the sector, which is, again, the largest sector for the Treasury Board. It's a pilot, and we're well under way. Once the pilot is complete, we will look at rolling that out throughout the rest of the organization.

Another thing we have done is that the IT department has worked very closely with my colleague Sally Thornton to streamline the way the estimates are produced, and that has been going on, actually, for a number of years. Not only have we worked on streamlining and making it easier for EMS to produce the estimates, but we've also significantly changed how the software is configured, moving to more of a vanilla version of software, significantly reducing the costs of maintaining the software in the future.

These are just two examples of what we've done.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Now you're out of time, John. Thank you.

Mike Wallace is next.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank our guests for coming today. I appreciate their piece.

I'm looking forward to your presentation in a few weeks on the program piece, so I'm just going to ask you some rather basic questions. I'm still happy to read the blue books, and I have lots of notes everywhere.

I appreciate the chart on major net changes to individual votes, and then before that you have an introduction to supplementary estimates that lists major items. The major items have a bit of description. Not all the items that are on the major net changes chart are in the major items descriptions. Why wasn't everything itemized?

[Sally Thornton]

The threshold for major items is usually $100 million, so anything above $100 million we would put in major items. It's just the number, the dollar value.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Can I make a suggestion that in the future we may look at percentage change as a criterion, because even though it's $90 million or whatever it is for the National Research Council of Canada, it's a 53% change. To me it seems odd that it was a big change.

[Sally Thornton]

It is, exactly, and that is why we just introduced the major net changes, the ones on page 13. That's where we look at the vote and the percentage change. That's because a very small-dollar item for a small organization can be 100%. It can represent a big change.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

If we're going to continue these books in the future, my recommendation is that they be included in major items. I appreciate that clarification.

I'd like another clarification on horizontal items, just in general.

We have three or four pages of horizontal items. My understanding of horizontal items is that departments are working together on a project, so they're funding a project out of a bunch of different pieces. Then are the moneys listed there savings from votes? Are these all new moneys? Are you asking for little bits from different departments, but all as new money for that project? Is that correct?

[Bill Matthews]

Mr. Chair, these estimates are for new money for these horizontal projects. This is not what each department is allocating from their existing money. This is what's in these estimates that relates to horizontal projects.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

So this is all new money.

In the future, because many of these are, in my view, programs, who will make that decision to ask for $3.4 million or $2.2 million? How does that work?

[Bill Matthews]

That would start when departments begin collaborating, when they go off to cabinet with a memorandum to cabinet about how to best deliver something. Then as the proposals actually get fine-tuned, departments would land on what they need, respecting the initial overall envelope of what was allocated to the project, but that's very much a detailed costing by departments. Then there would be some back-and-forth, I'm sure, to respect whatever the set-aside was.

I'm not sure if you want to add anything, Sally, on additional reporting on horizontal database stuff.