I think that the entire system of timekeeping underlies the evaluation of cost-effectiveness. That would tell us how the lawyers are spending their time. As the system was not in place throughout the department, this information on human resources, which clearly are the department's greatest expense, was not fully available.
As the deputy minister pointed out, it is important for people to know that analyzing this information can determine whether there are trends, can identify the type of case that costs the most, can point out if there are other ways of delivering these services and other ways of handling the cases. As Mr. Sims also mentioned, when a certain kind of case is identified as a trend, we can decide if the legislation should be changed. This is the kind of analysis that we feel is necessary for the department to be well managed. Since they started with no data on how time was used and what different projects cost, management was difficult, by and large.