Our report states that the department manages to reflect the appropriations it is awarded. It has kept its spending within authorized funding limits. What we are suggesting here is that the department should adopt a more sophisticated system of financial management, given the complexity of its operations and the fairly sizable increase in its budget that we have witnessed over the past few years, a trend that is not likely to be reversed.
Choices therefore have to be made, and priorities established, with regard to resource allocation. We need more sophisticated systems. The secretariat's decision to award the department a satisfactory rating is not inconsistent with our report.