Yes, I will be very brief.
Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I thank you for this opportunity to speak to you today about the Treasury Board Secretariat's response to the May 2007 Report of the Auditor General of Canada.
Among many other recommendations that have been reviewed by Mr. Edwards, the Auditor General asked that the Treasury Board Secretariat, with the full participation of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and other departments and agencies, do a couple of things.
First, it was required to lead a comprehensive review of the challenges in posting employees abroad and ensure that mechanisms are in place to allow departments and agencies to respond to changing circumstances affecting assignment to staff around the world.
The Treasury Board Secretariat and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade both agreed with the recommendation and committed to first, establishing a partnership of key departments and agencies and second, developing and implementing a plan of action.
I am pleased to report that this partnership has been established. We have created an interdepartmental committee for the review of the public service abroad, co-chaired by the Treasury Board Secretariat and by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Membership also includes representation from the four major departments with employees abroad: Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the Canadian International Development Agency, the Department of National Defence and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
I'd like to take this opportunity on behalf of the Treasury Board Secretariat to thank the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade for its tremendous cooperation in all aspects of the establishment of this committee.
The terms of reference of the interdepartmental committee have been developed and agreed upon. Members of the committee have received a copy of these terms of reference, and work has started. The interdepartmental committee has already met twice, and I am pleased to report on the progress it is already making in mapping out the activities it will be conducting and the direction it will take.
The committee has set up two working groups: one on workforce demographics, chaired by the Treasury Board Secretariat; and one on business needs, chaired by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
At the end of January, over 1,570 Canadian public servants of the core public administration were working outside Canada. About a third of these employees are not working for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Every year at least $100 million dollars are spent in payments to address the special needs of employees who serve Canada abroad.
The working group on demographics will be tasked to gather data on public servants who serve the country outside Canada, whether they are employees who are posted abroad on single assignments or employees who have made the foreign service their career. The committee will also study the issues faced by employees' dependants, including spouses. At this point most of the information we have is, unfortunately, anecdotal; hence the reason we need to collect data. The data collected will be the crucial starting point in providing good and sustainable solutions, which we are committed to achieving.
The second working group, the working group on business needs, will examine immediate and future business needs abroad. Its work will include an assessment of how the foreign service directives, the FSDs, are addressing the needs of public servants eligible for international assignments, with the objective of identifying opportunities to respond to changing or urgent needs.
Again, to take proper decisions, good information is needed, and this working group should provide a solid ground towards sustainable solutions.
We believe that the work of the interdepartmental committee has been an important first step towards achieving a long-term solution. It will also provide us with an important opportunity to gather the data we need to analyze the situation properly and find sustainable solutions to address the challenges faced by departments and agencies in staffing Canada's positions abroad.
The interdepartmental committee is first focusing on establishing the building blocks to allow for evidence-based decision-making for current and future issues.
It should be noted that the foreign service directives are currently being reviewed. The foreign service directives are co-developed by the employer and bargaining agents through the National Joint Council and are deemed part of collective agreements.
The main focus of the current review is to realign the FSDs to better meet the changing demographics. Other priorities are to increase responsiveness of the FSDs and to streamline and simplify the language to ensure consistency in application across the various places where they are applied. We hope this review will be completed sometime in the spring. We're targeting June 2008. Improved FSDs are part of the long-term sustainable solution, and we think we are on the right track to achieve good progress with this current review.
Mr. Chair, this concludes my remarks. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.