We were very aware, in coming before the Board of Internal Economy, given the economic situation and the difficulties being faced worldwide, that we had to be extremely frugal in our requests.
I think our priorities would be in two areas.
On the one hand, our priority would be that we continue to invest in the maintenance and development of the infrastructure technology, which is serving members extremely well, and for which a lot of the front-end money for investment has come from a long-term vision and plan. Over time, it is going to require considerable investment to maintain the very high standard that we've now achieved, which allows us to continue to serve members with the best tools available. In that respect, we've been very fortunate in that the board has been sympathetic to the various constraints we have suggested. We need a consistent approach in which the support services offered to members for their technological issues is very robust. That would be on the technological side.
On the other side, one of the things that we're going to have to start looking at is the retention of our new hires. We have already started preparing a strategy for succession planning and leadership development. A lot of new hires come in, particularly on the corporate side of things, in human resources or finance. Often very well qualified, they'll take a junior post, occupy it for a year or 18 months, and then, armed with this work experience, look for jobs in the public service where, by virtue of sheer size, there's more room for accelerated advancement. This is already posing some retention difficulties for us.
One of the things that works well for us in this respect in, say, procedural services, is the possibility of having people rotate through different jobs. Over time, you can actually have quite a varied career here. We do various things like the family-friendly flexible time, maternity leave, and parental leave. These things are very attractive to young people. But in coming years, I think we are going to have to pay some serious attention to how we compare with the public service in retention and compensation.