Thank you.
PWGSC remains focused on fiscal prudence and ensuring that taxpayers' dollars are used as efficiently and effectively as possible.
In Budget 2012, PWGSC committed to $177.6 million of reductions over seven years as part of the deficit reduction action plan. Most of the savings are from the modernization of government workspaces.
PWGSC has shown leadership in the area of sound financial management and has instilled a culture of budget management excellence throughout the various program branches. The department's forecasting accuracy between December 31 and year-end for the last two years exceeded 99%. This demonstrates a level of financial management discipline that goes beyond government and industry standards.
In addition, we have strengthened our oversight role in all financial matters. Rigorous practices have yielded economies and resulted in moneys returned to the fiscal framework. We have in place a number of strong policies, processes, and procedures to support fair, open, and transparent business practices. This is a continuous approach to ensure the highest level of accountability in the Government of Canada's procurement and real property systems.
We introduced in July an integrity framework to ensure we are doing business with organizations and individuals that respect the law. This is another step to increase our due diligence, reduce the opportunity for fraud, and better manage the reputational risk to the procurement and real property system.
Internally, we have a strong audit and evaluation function, and we launched a PWGSC Code of Conduct in April 2012, concurrent with the release of the new Values and Ethics Code for the Public Sector.
I'm pleased to say that we have accomplished all of this while providing comprehensive support to our employees as we reduce the size of our workforce. Our department totalled around 12,200 employees in 2011-12. We experience considerable mobility, including some 500 of our employees who retire each year. Overall some 95% of the employees affected by the first and second year of the strategic review have secured alternate employment or have left the public service, typically for retirement. For the employees affected by the April 2012 implementation of the deficit reduction action plan, some 88% have already been placed or have left the public service, typically for retirement.
We have accomplished this largely through the efforts of our departmental priority placement process.
Thank you for your attention. My colleagues and I would be very happy to answer your questions.