Government Operations Committee on Nov. 26th, 2013

[Bill Matthews]

The actual advice...some of the initiatives we were looking for under the deficit reduction action plan were transformational in nature, so the thought was that some outsiders in terms of private-sector practices, other government, would actually be useful in benchmarking that.

In terms of our ongoing day-to-day work, do we use management consultants in my work? The only bit we use is from time to time we contract a third party to do a wage comparison analysis. If we're heading into collective agreements, we want to see what the private sector pays for a similar function, we may consult with a third party to do that sort of study. As a rule, we use them infrequently in terms of our exercises.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Somebody is using them a lot at $459 million a year.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you, Mr. Martin.

We'll now go to Mr. Hawn for five minutes.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you for being here.

I'd just like to pick up on that for a second because I was part of that deficit reduction action plan.

The $20 million sounds like a large amount of money, but when you look at $20 million divided by the $5.2 billion that was identified, that's less than four-tenths of 1%.

Would that fall in line with sort of consulting fees or common practice in other parts of the economy?

[Bill Matthews]

I'm not sure what the private sector would spend on consultants. I would say that in the private sector, they typically tend to offer large dollar-value contracts, big items. My experience, and it's more anecdotal than anything, is governments tend to use more small-dollar, individual contracts. But we don't have a formal ratio.

If you did go back in time, I think as far back as probably even the mid-nineties when those large cuts took place, you would have seen a drop in personnel spending and a corresponding increase in professional and special services. Of those two things, one went down and one went up. In recent years we've seen spending and professional special services level off and start to drop. I have not yet looked at the 2012-13 numbers to see what the trend was there, but, really, departments are free to make use of whatever resources they think they best need to deliver programs. If that involves personnel dollars, that's fine. If from time to time they think they need some outside help, that's fine too. They have operating dollars to do that.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

In your view, that $20 million was money well spent?

[Bill Matthews]

It was through a competitive process. It was $20 million. We got some advice. The final decisions were decisions for ministers. There were certain issues the government was facing where it was useful to have an outside perspective, yes.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I have just a couple of quick questions. The $120 million that we set aside for Foreign Affairs' responses to major international crises, do they normally use that every year?

[Bill Matthews]

They did not. They do not always use it; it's there as a safeguard, because if there is a crisis—let's be honest—to get supplementary estimates prepared and through Parliament takes some time. It's nice for them to have some quick funding that they can access if needed.

In the previous fiscal year, they lapsed a good portion of that money because it wasn't needed—which is a good news story.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

That's a good thing.

You talked about the increase in statutory spending because of OAS and so on—the increase was about $1.8 billion. I assume we're planning for that to accelerate, if anything, because of the aging population.

[Bill Matthews]

The projections that Finance uses are longer-term in nature, and yes, they're aware of the demographics of our population. From time to time, there are also increases in the amounts, and those would be factored in.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

And maybe I misunderstood, but when you mentioned supplementary estimates (C) you talked about...did you say needing a mechanism for departments to prove that they needed more? Do you have that mechanism?

[Bill Matthews]

That was more by way of advice to ourselves. If there's one thing we could do better, it's asking questions. Supplementary estimates (C) are typically very small. The reason for that is that they come late in the year. We need to do a really thorough job of challenging and making sure that the money can be spent in the fiscal year for which they need it.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

But do you have that mechanism?

[Bill Matthews]

We have the mechanism; it's okay.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Talking about red tape, the departmental performance report said some nice things, of course—I'm talking about the “one for one” rule. The President of the Treasury Board said it could save Canadian businesses about $20 million in administrative costs, representing a 98,000-hour saving of time in dealing with regulatory red tape.

How do you measure the success of the red tape reduction plan? And what is the cost of the ongoing monitoring of it?

[Bill Matthews]

I'm going to take a small break and hopefully turn to my colleague to answer that question.

[Christine Walker]

The cost of the ongoing monitoring of the implementation of the regulatory reforms is about $425,000. In addition to the monitoring and the central oversight activities, it also includes TBS support services to the President's regulatory advisory committee, members of which serve on a pro bono, voluntary basis. So there is a fair amount of monitoring going on.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

We haven't had an annual scorecard yet, have we?

[Christine Walker]

No, not yet.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

How is that going to be published, so that the public can see what has been done?

[Christine Walker]

Annually. Each department's compliance with the requirements will be assessed and will be published in an annual scorecard starting in early 2014.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Okay.

There must be other countries doing this around the world. Do we compare ourselves with them? Are we learning from their processes? How do we compare with them?

[Bill Matthews]

There are other countries doing this. I know that the “one for one” rule was implemented in some provinces. I'm going from memory here; it may have been in British Columbia. They have contemplated similar things in the U.K. as well. The red tape commission work itself was very much done, at least as a starting point, by consulting with other jurisdictions, because Canada is not the only country facing this issue.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

How do you ensure that the departments bring that in? Is there a mechanism for ensuring that they are actually following that reduction in regulations?