Government Operations Committee on April 24th, 2013

[Bill Matthews]

Yes, 9,300 have been due, so far, to attrition.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Can you give me a sense of the definition of “attrition” that you're using?

[Bill Matthews]

Attrition refers basically to someone leaving the public service and not having to take advantage of a workforce transition measure—a severance package, etc. Attrition could be by retirement; it could be by people leaving the public service on their own and deciding to pursue a different career; it could be the elimination of temporary or casual positions. In some cases, the positions that were being eliminated had no person occupying them. There is no workplace adjustment cost there either.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Can you confirm for me that there has indeed been a 24% reduction in HRSDC, that is, that 5,700 positions have been eliminated?

[Bill Matthews]

I'm not aware that the reduction has been that significant at all, so I cannot confirm it.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Can you give me figures on what the reduction is?

[Bill Matthews]

If you'll bear with me for one moment, I can. We provided, I think, through an order paper response, the number of reductions by portfolio.

Of the 19,200, the Human Resources and Skills Development portfolio's share was 2,008. I believe this information has already been tabled as a response to an order paper question. So it's not the 5,000 that I'm hearing here.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I'm afraid your time is up, Mr. Ravignat. Thank you very much.

Next is Kelly Block, for the Conservatives.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to welcome our guests here today as well.

I will be sharing my time with my colleague Mr. Trottier. I'm going to focus my questions on the reports on plans and priorities.

One of the first things I noticed when I looked at the report on plans and priorities for the Treasury Board is that the president is certainly committed to advancing a range of transformative initiatives to contain costs and ensure value for tax dollars. These initiatives focus on modernizing and simplifying the administrative systems of government as well as promoting productivity, innovation, and excellence in public service. I think, as has been alluded to earlier, that the response to many of the recommendations that were made by this committee, I think in the hopes of accomplishing some of those goals, would certainly demonstrate that commitment.

We know that the reports on plans and priorities now look back three years and three years forward, as a result of a recommendation made in the OGGO report. Could you walk us through the way the reports on plans and priorities this year include an explanation of any changes in planned spending over the next year? Will they include an explanation of the reason for the changes, or simply give us a description of the changes?

[Bill Matthews]

I'll answer the question at the theoretical level. Then I may turn to my chief financial officer for Treasury Board Secretariat to speak specifically to disclosure related to the Treasury Board Secretariat.

The idea is that the three years of history show actual spending. In addition, you'll see three years forward; this shows both forecasted and planned spending. The idea is to get a sense of trends.

But the numbers themselves are not very meaningful without an explanation. The idea for departments is to actually explain what's happening, and if their plans have changed they're supposed to explain the variance. That's the guidance that has gone out to departments.

This is their first year of doing this, so I suspect it will get even better as we go, but we're quite pleased with the results we've seen so far, because you get a good explanation of some of the differences.

As plans change, there will be an explanation as to why planned spending actually differs from one year to the next as well.

I'll ask Ms. Walker whether she wants to add anything specific about Treasury Board Secretariat as a department.

[Christine Walker]

We used exactly that. Where there were variances or changes in a program, we tried to explain them to the best of our ability in the report on plans and priorities so that it would be easy for the readers to understand.

It is new, and putting it in English—we're all accountants—is the other challenge.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you.

I'll turn it over to Mr. Trottier.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for once again coming before the committee. I know that you were very involved in the study of the estimates process.

I share with Mr. McCallum enthusiasm about this shift to a program activity view of government. I think it's more meaningful and will lead to better scrutiny of the supply process.

I want to ask some clarifying questions about programs and activities. In an average department, how many programs would there be, roughly? Are we talking about 10, about 100, about fewer than five? This question is for the sake of Canadians' understanding what this might look like going forward.

[Bill Matthews]

I'll start and then ask my colleague Sally to chime in—if I can find the stats that I usually have with me.

Before you get into programs, you have to think about strategic outcomes, because that's the highest level. Going from memory, most departments would have three or four strategic outcomes.

Programs are an explosion of those strategic outcomes. Your average department would have many more programs than strategic outcomes.

Sally, can you add up how many programs we have compared with strategic outcomes?

[Sally Thornton, Executive Director, Expenditure Strategies and Estimates, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat]

Overall, there are over 130 organizations, I think. We'll have to confirm it, but we're running at about 1,900 strategic outcomes and nearer to 3,000 in terms of program activities at the highest level.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

When it comes to an estimates review, I know there's a wide range—some departments might only have one program, and some departments might have dozens and dozens—but what does the range look like? I'm trying to get a sense of the amount of information that parliamentarians can look at, and ultimately Canadians, if they want to search the new database. What order of magnitude are they looking at, in terms of the number of programs? I don't need an exact number.

[Sally Thornton]

One of the best ways, if you think of any organization, is this. If you go into the main estimates, you will see that for each organization we've set out their expenditures by strategic outcome and program. For example, if you were to pick Treasury Board Secretariat....

That's not a good one because of the central vote. So let's pick Foreign Affairs, on page 153. Basically, on the third page in, you'll notice that right up front they identify four strategic outcomes and six programs. The comparator, though, is that they have five votes.

[Bill Matthews]

I'd like to add to that. As a rule of thumb on average, it looks as if for an average department, bigger ones especially, you're probably looking at about 10 to 12 programs.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Okay, it's a manageable number.

I have one final question. When we talk about the cost estimates to do the transition to that program activity architecture, does that include a date on migration of the historical data into a program activity format, or is it just the case that, going forward, the estimates would be in the program activity format?

[Bill Matthews]

The data already exist historically. I need to be really clear about this. Parliament already gets information by program already, and it's been improving over the years and becoming an increasing theme, but we already have the data so the real change is in transitioning the estimates to a program basis. So there is some history you need to take care of, but there's no need or no intent to go back and recast what the votes might have looked like going backwards by using a different vote structure.

If a change were made to program-based voting, we would certainly need to keep the history that we have. But I want to reiterate that the debate about the program structure is how much detail is too low, and there is a concern about inundating Parliament with too many votes—certainly many more than we have now.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Bernard.

John McCallum, it's your turn.

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

Thank you.

My first question is a simple point. As an economist or a person, I always think of the word “attrition” as meaning that nobody involuntarily has to lose their job, but I think I heard you say, Mr. Matthews, that if temporary or part-time or casual workers are fired, they are part of attrition. Did I mishear you?

[Bill Matthews]

No, if you're firing people that's clearly not attrition. But if you had a temporary position that was coming to an end—if it were a six-month contract and the six months were up and it's not renewed—we would view that as being in the attrition category.

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

I see, because there was no guarantee it would go beyond the six months.

[Bill Matthews]

Correct.