Public Accounts Committee on May 28th, 2007

[Sheila Fraser]

This is a recommendation that goes back, I believe, to our 2000 audit. We had initially recommended that there be a quality management process put in place. That was done. We had a couple of comments on the process now. First--and I'll go back to one of the comments by one of the members--it was not peer-reviewed. I think it would have given it more robustness if that quality management process had been peer-reviewed at the time it was put in. When the problems of the automated system were not identified in that quality management system, it made us question how effective it really is. A peer review of the system might be something the RCMP would want to consider going forward. Again, I think comparisons and benchmarks with others is always a good practice.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

Deputy Commissioner Martin, did you want to comment on that?

[D/Commr Peter Martin]

Yes. Thank you, Chair.

We are in the process of negotiating with a technology firm to do a peer review. We're in a contract negotiation situation right now. We have asked to see the names of the people they suggest do the review. This is a very small community. We want to make sure they have no association with the RCMP and that it's a complete arm's-length review of the science and the technology.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

As an observation, if you're talking about process, the private sector, as Mr. Williams mentioned, relies heavily on ISO certification and standards and so on. It occurs to me that this would lend itself quite well to that kind of a process.

[A/Commr Joe Buckle]

Sir, if I may respond, we do have an ISO accreditation now. It's under 17025. We are in fact approaching the Standards Council of Canada, based upon the recommendation from the Auditor General that we put a little more robustness around the management part of it. They're going to be coming in very soon to look at a corporate accreditation, as opposed to a laboratory accreditation.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

Right. If I understand this continuous improvement that comes out of quality management, there never is an end to the pipe; you can constantly improve the process. It's a never-ending exercise, so there's no finish line here.

I'll turn it over to Mr. Rota.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Commissioner Busson or Deputy Commissioner Martin.

I have a report in front of me that forensic science and identification services put out. It's called “Meeting the Need”. I was going through it and I noticed that one of the areas covered is a biology service directorate that was established on April 1, 2007. It committed up to $5 million to enhance equipment and human resources. There's a progression chart in place. I was wondering if you can update us on the phase one staffing and how that's coming along--the number that should be hired and the actual number that has been hired.

[D/Commr Peter Martin]

I'm going to pass that question on, but I'd like to make a comment first. I neglected to mention that DNA was an activity within the biology science of the forensic laboratory services within the RCMP. We have broken that out now. DNA biology is a self-standing activity inside the FLS of the RCMP. It will have its own accountability framework. It's not part of all the other biology activities, so it gives it much more visibility within the management side.

With respect to the details around hiring, I'm not current on that. I will ask either John or Joe to respond.

[Dr. John Bowen]

In mid-April of this year we hired nine new employees. Since then we've added two more employees, so we've actually hit eleven now.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

What was the total that you wanted to hire?

[Dr. John Bowen]

We wanted to hire ten in phase one.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

I guess the training should be taking place right now. How is that coming along?

[Dr. John Bowen]

It's coming along very well. The trainees are for the search component as well as the analyst group. They should be completing their training on schedule.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Okay. Are renovations on schedule as well?

[Dr. John Bowen]

We're working on the renovations. The necessary renovations for the first phase have been completed and things are in place.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Now I'd go to phase two, on the same page. Staffing should have begun as well. How's that coming along?

[Dr. John Bowen]

We are on target for hiring additional staff. We haven't staffed them yet. We hope to have people on board in August of 2007 in order to prepare them for the second phase.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

And what is the exact number there?

[Dr. John Bowen]

Right now, we're looking at 28 new staff. We've modified the phases slightly in order to accommodate the needs for instructors and operations support.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

The number 70 came up. Where would I have seen that? Is there an explanation on that?

[Dr. John Bowen]

If you add the numbers up, there are the 10 for phase one, 34 for phase two, and 25 in phase three, plus 14 new support staff.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Okay, very good. So everything is on line and the capacity is expanding as expected, or is about to expand as expected.

[Dr. John Bowen]

It should expand as expected. Obviously, these people are still in training and they won't complete their training until the end of September or early October. Then we should expect to see an increase in our capability.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Very good.

I'm going to move a bit to something that's happened in the past with the Auditor General's report, paragraph 7.4. The audit states that new staff members were assigned to the evidence recovery unit. I find it interesting that the bottleneck was actually at the analysis unit. Why were additional staff assigned to the evidence recovery unit and not the analysis unit where the bottleneck was?

I'm just wondering if I could get some clarification on that.

[Dr. John Bowen]

The strategy was to increase our capability at the front end because we were working on the automated process for the analysis, thereby expecting to see a two to threefold increase in capacity with the staff that we had in place. Therefore, in order to feed the analysis, we needed to have upfront capacity to search the exhibits and process them so that they could provide samples for analysis. As well, when you're in transition from one process to another, it's not a good time to be bringing people in. You want to train them in the new technology, as opposed to the previous technology. So it made more sense to us to do it that way.