Government Operations Committee on May 18th, 2017

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

Thank you, Minister, and thank you for your question.

As the minister mentioned, under the new results policy, departments are now providing us with the indicators and results expectations for their program activities, their departmental results frameworks. Those have been compiled individually by departments and provided to us. We have loaded those in our online reporting tool called TBS InfoBase. It's available to the committee, and to Canadians, to access indicators by department or for the whole of government. It will take some time for us to turn that back into an Excel spreadsheet, but we can do that and report back. It is available to you online, though, through TBS InfoBase.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I think we may be on different pages here. As I understand it, there is currently an Excel spreadsheet.

[Yaprak Baltacioglu, Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat]

I think you're asking for the whole results of the departmental results frameworks. The departments have until next November to prepare them. They're not fully done.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

No. I'm looking for the indicators and results for 2015-16, 2016-17. I'm told that such a document does exist.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I'm glad to have the conversation with Mr. Nater, but the new results policy was introduced a little less than a year ago. As to the previous years, we'll provide you with what information we can.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Okay, we'd appreciate that.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

We'll do the best we can.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Could you do that within two weeks or so?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Let's make sure we're providing what you need.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

If we can follow up on that—

[Brian Pagan]

Do you mean for 2015-16 or for 2017-18?

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I meant 2015-16 and 2016-17.

[Brian Pagan]

Do you want the indicators or the actual results?

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I'd like the indicators and the results.

[Brian Pagan]

Okay.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Some of that would have been under the previous regime's framework.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Certainly.

Moving on, then, I want to talk a bit about performance targets. Is there a policy you could share with the committee on how those are established? I'm sure it's evidence-based. Could you share a little bit of that, of how you establish performance targets?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Each department is now developing indicators, some of which are qualitative. For most, though, the objective is to quantify, with indicators, the objectives as well as the results.

In the U.S., under the Obama administration, there's a website named performance.gov. I am very inspired by that kind of public reportage, which the U.K. has done as well. It is our desire to do more public reportage, not just to parliamentarians but also to Canadians.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Is there a policy framework in place now that helps...?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Yes. In fact, what I'd like to do sometime, if you'd like, Madam Chair and committee members, is to come back and talk about the results policy, which I think is something that's probably overdue. We've had some overviews of it, but I'd like to come back sometime and actually go through the results policy. It is something that intends to drive better results and more public reporting.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

In the meantime, could you elaborate on what happens when a program fails to meet a performance target? What's undertaken by Treasury Board or by the secretariat?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

We work very closely—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Actually, you've run out of time.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

If I may, Madam Chair, I'd like to come back sometime and talk about this because it's something that's important to all members of Parliament and to Canadians. If a department or agency is falling short of its objectives, I think there's merit—and you'll see this in the U.K. and the U.S. models—in public reportage of this.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Mr. Weir.