Government Operations Committee on May 22nd, 2018

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the committee meeting.

In today's meeting, we're resuming the study of the estimates process. In the first hour, we'll have the departmental results framework.

We have, from the Treasury Board, Mr. Brian Pagan.

Welcome again.

We also have Mr. Derek Armstrong, who is the Executive Director, Results Division.

Mr. Pagan, do you have any opening remarks?

[Brian Pagan, Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat]

I do, Madam Chair. In fact, I've got a very brief presentation that I'll project here. There are eight slides that will basically provide an overview and a foundational understanding of the policy on results in the department of results frameworks. We'll take questions on that and then turn to a demo on InfoBase.

I'm also joined at the table by my colleagues from expenditure management sector, Chantal Clow and Andrew Gibson. They'll be aiding in the presentation today.

If I may, in the presentation in front of you, slide 2 simply provides some context in terms of the government's results agenda. There are really three pieces that serve as important background here. First is changes at the cabinet level, the creation by the Prime Minister of a new cabinet committee, known as the agenda, results, and communications committee. This brings a focus to results discussions that is a key part of the results agenda going forward.

Second, we have some machinery changes. In late 2015 or early 2016, thePrime Minister announced the creation of a new central unit in the Privy Council Office, known as the results and delivery unit, to provide central oversight of the results agenda and to support his cabinet committee.

Third, we have a new Treasury Board policy that came into effect on July 1, 2016. The policy on results provides a framework for a whole-of-government view of reporting and results, including articulating core responsibilities and key results expectations, identifying a program inventory that departments report on in part III of the estimates, and then making adjustments to ongoing performance measurement and evaluation of programs.

So that is a brief overview of what is behind our new policy. I will now highlight the key elements.

Slide 3 presents in visual form the key elements of the policy. A starting point is the articulation by departments of what we call departmental results frameworks. These are developed by departments, and they are presented by ministers to ministers. The responsible minister will come to the Treasury Board table identifying his or her departmental results framework, which includes the core responsibilities of the department, the key results that they expect to achieve in support of those core responsibilities, and then an explanation of the performance indicators that departments will assess throughout the year to determine whether they're on track.

The program inventories are the mass of programs within a department that support the core responsibilities. This can be anything from, using CRA as an example, a program aimed at audit of large tax filers. In our case, at the Treasury Board Secretariat, we have a program related to our responsibilities as the employer, so there's a program related to collective bargaining.

The performance information profiles are the information holdings of the department. The key metrics of the program in terms of the budget are the number of FTEs—again, some very important performance information—and then plans in terms of how performance will be assessed over the year.

Finally, a key part of the policy was a renewed focus on evaluation. Prior to 2016, there was a requirement for all government departments to evaluate all programming on a five-year basis, so big or small, all programs had to be evaluated on a five-year basis. We found this, in consultation with both departments and our colleagues in other central agencies, to be out of sync with the real needs of both departments and central agencies.

As an example, in a world in which it was mandatory to evaluate a program, the cycle would unfold and we would be in the fifth year, and so a department would have to evaluate program x or y. In some cases it could be a long-standing program that had been evaluated several times in the past, that was of relatively low dollar value, with no changes foreseen. A mandatory evaluation of that program might have displaced something that might have been more critical for the department or the government in terms of future decision points—whether a program was sunsetting, whether it was being considered for significant adjustments as a result of requirements from stakeholders or of discussions with provinces, etc.

The renewed policy and evaluation introduces more flexibility to departments to adopt a risk approach and a needs-based approach to evaluation so that they can have pertinent information at the time of decisions rather than at a set time mandated by a mandatory requirement.

Slide 4 explains a couple of key pillars of this policy, with particular emphasis on governance structures and people. Key in our formulation of the governance of the policy was the designation of certain officials within departments for responsibility in the creation of new monitoring and decision-making bodies in departments.

For example, there is the centralized performance measurement and evaluation committee. It's a new committee.

It didn't exist before the policy. It's led by a deputy minister or associate and has the responsibility to monitor the performance and evaluation work of the department and make sure that such information is considered as part of the ongoing management and resource allocation decisions of the department.

The policy also designated within each department a lead for performance measurement and evaluation. In some cases, departments have chosen to make those positions one and the same; in others, they have a separate evaluation function and a separate head of performance measurement.

The policy also made clear that it's not the head of performance measurement or some other official in the department who is responsible for a specific program. It is the functional lead of that program who is responsible for performance measurement and achieving the objectives.

As a final point to note on governance, Treasury Board approves programs through Treasury Board submissions. In the past they have contained bits and pieces of results information that justify the program expenditure and set out what the organization is trying to do. As a result of the policy, we made this a very clear requirement moving forward. There is a results annex in each and every Treasury Board submission that clearly lays out objectives over the short, medium, and long term, with measures of success in the indicators, and the deputy head of the organization signs off on that results annex.

Turning to slide 5, here are some advantages of this new approach. It's a more systematic way of presenting information and of more explicitly tying resource allocation to the results that departments are trying to achieve.

Slide 6 presents this in visual form. You have your core responsibility, your results expectations and indicators, and then the program underneath.

Slide 7 is a visual representation of a very real example of this. This is for the Canada Revenue Agency, which has identified core responsibilities related to tax, benefits, and its ombudsman role. That layer across the top is your core responsibilities, then underneath, you have your results and expectations, and then the performance indicators.

Madam Chair, that was a brief overview of our policy.

After your questions, we will turn things over to Andrew Gibson, who will demonstrate the Government of Canada's InfoBase system, or GC InfoBase.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

The second half of this presentation will be on InfoBase, so we will go with the first round of questions.

Mr. Drouin, you have seven minutes.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thanks to the witnesses for being here today.

I want to start by trying to understand the point of all this, so that my constituents can understand why we go through this exercise and why the departments go through this exercise. As parliamentarians, why do we need better information to understand that?

Could you explain to us the previous policy on departmental plans and results? I'm assuming you were about to explain the advantages, but we ran out of time. Perhaps you could also explain the differences.

[Brian Pagan]

The Government of Canada has been involved in performance budgeting or results-based management, in some form or another, since the 1970s. This focus on results and performance measurement is something that seized governments across the western world in the seventies to take what, some would say, is a more business-like approach or prescribed approach to understanding value for money and what we were aspiring to achieve through resource allocation.

The policy that existed prior to the policy on results was known as the management, resources, and results structure and that dates from 2005, I believe. That policy replaced a previous iteration known as the planning, reporting, and accountability structure. In each case, adjustments or refinements to the policies have been based on inputs and feedback from stakeholders, like the Office of the Auditor General, the PBO, and other departments. We look comparatively at what's happening in other jurisdictions. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development shares lessons on performance budgeting and results-based management.

In 2016, the refinement of the policy took inputs and feedback from those stakeholders that I mentioned and reflected the priorities of the new government, where there is a mandate to adopt evidence-based decision-making and, specifically through the mandate of the President of the Treasury Board, to improve reporting to Parliament. The policy was very much designed with those two mandates in mind to develop clearer evidence and clearer linkages between resource allocation decisions and the results that we're trying to achieve, and to improve reporting. The improved reporting has taken two forms: adjustments to part III of the estimates to make them better organized and more streamlined and, as we'll see in the second half, making all of this information more readily accessible through online tools, such as TBS InfoBase.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

You've mentioned that reporting was, I assume, the goal of the DRPs at the time to allow parliamentarians to have better information and accountability. I'm reading here that one of the advantages is that information is used by departments to make decisions. Are we now seeing real-time information that departments can use to move forward, if they're not meeting objective A, B, or C, and that this information is useful to them as well?

[Brian Pagan]

That's right. That takes two forms. Departments are being quite explicit now in their Treasury Board submissions with the results that they hope to achieve from the resource allocation decision. We have also created these performance measurement and evaluation committees with departments. Within a department, that body will look at all of the programs in the department and the specific results desired for each program and they will provide a forum for ongoing monitoring throughout the year, so that departmental management has an eye on their progress, with respect to performance measurement in the department. They can direct the evaluation process, so that they're getting additional information as well. They can then take that information and make sure that it is considered as part of their ongoing program adjustments throughout the year and their future resource allocation decisions.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Something wasn't clear to me. You mentioned that the people doing the evaluation would not be the people involved in certain projects aimed at attaining those objectives. Is that correct?

[Brian Pagan]

That's correct. By design, the evaluation function is at a distance from the actual program management. It provides a more objective lens. The policy does make clear that it's not the evaluator or the head of performance measurement who is responsible for achieving program objectives; it is a senior official responsible for that program. Every program has been identified by the department in its program inventory profiles, and when you identify a program, you identify the functional lead for that program. If you have a fisheries program, the director general responsible for that particular fisheries program will be responsible and accountable for the results.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

But the person doing the evaluation still reports to the same deputy head as the person leading the project?

[Brian Pagan]

That's right.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

What would you tell Canadians who might say you're still reporting to the same deputy head, so we may not have confidence because it truly is not a third party. What other mechanism exists in government to ensure there is that third party verification, whether or not the objectives were reached?

[Brian Pagan]

That's a very appropriate question.

There are a number of mechanisms. First of all, the evaluation function resident in a department can and often does avail itself of third party expertise, so they will arrange for professional services to help with evaluations. There are also arm's-length organizations, such as the Office of the Auditor General, that provide completely independent views on value for money and the functioning of programs.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Great, thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

We'll move to Mr. McCauley for seven minutes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Good morning. We've run into some issues with the departments when we asked them about what their allotments were for—to explain them, describe them, give us backup on what their planned results are—and we don't get an answer, and they don't show up in the departmental plans.

If the funding has been requested by the departments, why isn't there an explanation of what the program is meant for, and why aren't the planned results shown in the DPs, the departmental plans?

[Brian Pagan]

I'm not sure I caught all the question. You mentioned something about allotments?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I meant the vote 40 items. Why are they not showing up in the departmental plans? What backup are they using to request this money? We've asked several departments, and one of the departments got back to us and said, we should ask Treasury Board; they were told to put it in for their own department. They couldn't even describe their own department's money. Public service, procurement, they shrugged about what the money was for.

[Brian Pagan]

That may be a two-part question.

When programs have been presented and approved by Treasury Board, those programs are presented in departmental plans in the tabled version. In the very near future, we intend to supplement the information in the tabled document with some additional—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

That was my next question. When will we see that? This government is asking us to pre-approve $7.4 billion, but when we've asked the department, the departments haven't got—and I'm going to be blunt—a bloody clue in the world what that money is for.

[Brian Pagan]

Just to be clear, Mr. McCauley, what we'll present online is additional detail for information that's—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

You can't say “additional detail". There's no detail with respect to what's in the vote 40. We asked about the $300 million in procurement—

[Brian Pagan]

I'm not talking about vote 40 yet. I'm talking about the items in the departmental plan. We'll be doing—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm asking when will we see a backup and explanation for the money in vote 40.

[Brian Pagan]

I'm describing what's in the departmental plans and the additional detail that will be available in InfoBase. That's occurring in the very near future. We're just doing a Q and A on information to be able to post it.

We've had this discussion previously. Most of the items in vote 40, as you know, have not yet been presented and approved by Treasury Board. We are now meeting regularly and we're seeing items and they will be posted on a monthly basis on both the online site that already exists—