—you would hope.
Finance Services provides policy advice to the board, makes payments of members' claims after verifying compliance with policy and regulation, provides support and advice to members through training and communication initiatives directed towards members and their employees, provides access to financial tools, tracks all member expenses of public funds, and regularly discloses these according to the format that's approved by the board.
We have put in place a rigorous pre and post-payment verification process. The U.K. through IPSA is only now attempting to put in place such a regime.
If we review the following measures of performance indicators for the House finance function, we can appreciate the conditions under which this model is applied at the House: over 70,000 member payments on average in the fiscal year; 20,000 calls and e-mails received by Finance Services in a year; and 4,365 regret letters sent to members advising them of a modification to an amount claimed—some of you will be familiar with those letters and you probably typically don't like to receive them. But this is where we've made an adjustment to claims, and we advise you. We conveniently call them “regret letters”, rather than something else.
Only seven requests for exemption were made to the board in the fiscal year, and there were 11 situations raised with the Speaker that were dealt with directly without having to involve the Board of Internal Economy. Finally, 21 staff members were involved in the adjudication of member expense claims.
Despite complaints made by members of the requirements or services provided by Finance Services, members are generally supportive of the regime currently in place at the House. There have been numerous public comments made by members about the robustness of Finance Services at the House. In the most recent Office of the Auditor General report on the audit of the House administration, the AG indicated that the administration had in place appropriate policies and control systems to govern the proper expenditure of funds in accordance with the bylaws, policies, and directives of the board. The AG found no instances of significant non-compliance.
Our external auditors, KPMG, once again have issued a clean opinion on the financial statements prepared by the House administration. Further, they did not find any areas that needed to be addressed through a management letter as a result of their audit. That's probably as good as it gets in terms of audit-speak. In our view, the House can claim that it is transparent and accountable for the resources that are expended.
Mr. Chair, now turning to the independence issue, while the board is not an arm's-length agency, we have made significant inroads on the independence front as an institution. In terms of human resources, the finance function that is contained within the administration of the House is functioning well and is supported in its role by the Board of Internal Economy.
A high number of staff have professional designations and adhere to strong codes of ethics as a result of their memberships in these professional bodies.
Salaries for members are determined independently; they are not decided upon by the Board of Internal Economy. A formula contained in the Parliament of Canada Act, which ties increases to those achieved through collective bargaining in the private sector, assures this. Pension entitlements for members are debated in the House and administered by the Treasury Board with the assistance of the Chief Actuary of Canada.
If there were a desire to add an additional layer of independence in decision-making, external expertise could be added to the existing structure, as is often the case on corporate boards and audit committees. External advisers or independent directors supplement the existing structures to provide additional perspective on issues. The committee may wish to explore these models, which, in our view, could achieve the objective of independence while continuing to leverage the investments that have been made in the existing regime, which in our view is robust and sufficient.
Of course, such a model would avoid the duplication of committees that we find in the U.K.—you'll recall the Speaker's committee on IPSA, the Speaker's administration committees, and the informal House-IPSA liaison committee—and could be pursued without incurring significant additional cost and delays.
Mr. Chair, thank you for your patience. I would now like to return the podium to the Clerk for final comments.