The question of today is at what level should Parliament vote money. We have put strategic outcome out there as the proposed model.
It is true that departmental information in RPPs already includes information on strategic outcomes. The advantage to moving to a new model is that you can more easily tie the money you're voting on under strategic outcomes to RPPs. If there is a program that is of interest, you can then drill down and see what the performance objectives of a program were. Is the program performing? That's a question of efficiency and effectiveness. If you're really captivated, program evaluations are posted online, so you can actually review an evaluation of the program to see whether it is meeting its objectives.
All of that information exists right now. The question is whether Parliament is better served by tying the vote on strategic outcome or some other level to all of the information that already exists. The reason the answer could be yes is that parliamentarians think of departments more along the lines of strategic outcomes, programs, and those types of things than of capital, operating, and Gs and Cs. That's the question at play.
I spoke about modernizing the accounting system. There is already work ongoing that pushes departments to move to fewer financial systems. It's just a more efficient model to have one, two, or three financial systems in departments rather than have each one operating its own.
If we were to pursue such a change, the most opportune time would be when they're redoing the financial system. That's the reason there is a very strong link. If we are changing the financial systems of departments and we want to change the control structure, now is the time.