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.