Evidence of meeting #5 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 41st Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was vote.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Diane Ablonczy Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Did you consider putting a sort of tutorial in the database about how to navigate this tool and what a person could get out of it and how it could be used?
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
We considered it in the design by using tools that we thought most people would be familiar with, but I'll turn to Derek and see if there was any consideration of a tutorial itself.
Director, Expenditure Analysis, Treasury Board Secretariat
We did consider what information we would need to provide to help the average Canadian or the average user navigate through the information. For the initial installment of the expenditure database, we have taken the approach of providing quick instructions on this landing page. So a user could get a very simple idea of what information is contained within the expenditure database and follow it as they would other web pages, to follow their train of thought through the pages that they discover and the information that's there. The difficulty with presenting this type of information, and in most cases any financial information, is that sometimes it is quite difficult to digest at first glance. If you are looking for a particular thing, it's much easier to search for that item. If you are looking for a general feel, it takes more time to work through that.
We are exploring other changes and presentations, either graphically or otherwise, for accessing and working with this information so that more users can feel comfortable accessing it in different ways that fit their own specific needs.
Conservative
Diane Ablonczy Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Just a quick last question.
Do you have an idea of tracking the number of hits?
NDP
The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault
I can give you back the floor later on, if you have a specific question.
Ms. Day, you have the floor.
NDP
Anne-Marie Day NDP Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for being here today. This will help us navigate your website better, which seems to me fairly complex.
I have a few questions about the financial system. I will begin by stating the obvious. An expenditure is always forecast in a budget. Theoretically, one sees the expenditure and one can see its status. There is a commitment and what is left at the end. None of that should go beyond what was forecast for the expenditure, unless new funds are requested.
Am I in the right ballpark? Are expenditures always forecast?
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
That is correct, the budget includes an estimate of amounts that will be spent. However, before spending the money, each department must draw up a detailed plan, which must be approved by Treasury Board.
You are absolutely correct in saying you cannot exceed the amount of money that was allocated. From a legal perspective, it's at the vote level. Legally speaking, when Parliament approves the appropriation bill, they vote on capital, operating, and grants and contributions. A department cannot exceed the total voted by Parliament in those three categories. That's the legal thing that cannot be exceeded. Below that level, departments can move money between areas as they see fit.
NDP
Anne-Marie Day NDP Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
In fact, it is a bit more complicated than my first example indicates. Currently, there is no single financial system that allows us to monitor the various departments' accounting methods. True or false?
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
We have one financial system for the whole of government at a very summarized level. So if you look at the financial statements in the public accounts, there's one financial system to produce that.
There is information that is much more detailed that is contained in each department's financial system. Each department runs their own financial system, and it provides the common data necessary for the government's financial statements at a very high level, but there is additional detail in each department. So it is more complex than that, yes.
But your point does hold that if a department is looking to exceed the money voted by Parliament, it needs to come back to Parliament to get more money, and that is why we have supplementary estimates, to augment the money that was voted by Parliament in the Appropriation Act that was linked to the main estimates.
NDP
Anne-Marie Day NDP Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
What steps should the government take to set up a vote structure that is based on strategic results and to revise the format of the estimates?
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
Thank you.
In order to change the financial system, internal control would have to be re-established.
That would prevent a government from overspending its allocation. So if you think right now the controls are based on, as I mentioned earlier, capital, operating, and grants and contributions, and if a department puts a transaction into its financial system that would cause it to exceed those amounts, the system would either prevent it or set a warning to stop that from happening.
The Government of Canada has an excellent track record. Departments do not exceed their votes by Parliament because of those systems.
If we're changing the basis of control to strategic outcome, redoing the Appropriation Act for Parliament is the simple part. What has to happen behind the scenes is to reprogram the financial systems to put those controls on strategic outcomes.
Given that each department has their own financial system, more or less, you are involved in reprogramming 125 financial systems to actually make those changes.
The final point that's attached to it is right now departments estimate what they will spend on strategic outcome and program, and they make their best efforts for those estimates. If you're changing the basis of control for Parliament to be based on strategic outcome, those estimates must be extremely accurate because it's the basis for control. So we would want to give departments some time to make sure they have really developed those estimates with as much accuracy as possible, given that Parliament would then be voting on those things.
NDP
Conservative
Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks again to our committee witnesses and to our honorary committee member, Mr. Matthews. It's a great job you're doing. Thank you for the update.
Just to see this in application is very exciting. I have a couple of questions following up on Minister Ablonczy's questions. As far as informing not only members of Parliament but the public that this information is available...it's great to have information. It's like having a fantastic store but nobody knows you're open and where you're located. What are you doing to inform Canadians of this information that's accessible?
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
We haven't done anything in terms of proactively reaching out to Canadians. There was a news release. You will find anyone who is interested in the business of the government would stumble across committee reports, but I appreciate that is probably a small percentage of the population. We did things like a news release, Qs and As.
I think the biggest thing we've done to raise awareness is the open data initiative, which does get a fair amount of attention. This piece was considered a very important part that was linked to open data. Open data does get an awful lot of attention, and those who are interested in it will find their way to this website eventually. That's about as far as we've gone.
Conservative
Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Our colleague, the President of the Treasury Board, Minister Clement, is a strong advocate, obviously, and ambassador for open data and for this online access of information. I know he has been a strong champion.
With regard to the site visits or number of users, have you been able to keep track? Have you done any monitoring as far as what kind of access?
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
We tracked it early on and it was getting a fair amount of attention. What we couldn't tell was where the attention was coming from. Was it internal to government? Was it media? Was it parliamentarians? We don't have any intelligence on who was looking at it.
I don't know if Derek has updated stats or—
Director, Expenditure Analysis, Treasury Board Secretariat
At this point we have been getting a split of approximately half and half between government and public hits on the expenditure database.
November 21st, 2013 / 5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Director, Expenditure Analysis, Treasury Board Secretariat
At this point we are looking at about 1,000 hits per month in this early stage of the expenditure database.
Conservative
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
The information is exportable to a spreadsheet, but I must admit I have not done that myself. I will turn in a moment to my colleagues to explain how that is done. My understanding is that it's not done directly through this database; you actually go through open data and then export it to Excel or whatever tool you would like.
Is that correct, Derek?