Good morning, Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen.
I'm Neil Yeates, Deputy Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, as the chair has noted. I'm joined by Elizabeth Ruddick, who is the director general of research and evaluation at CIC.
I would like to thank the committee for inviting me back to speak today. Today I will focus my brief remarks on chapter 1 of the Auditor General's report, and afterwards, we will be happy to answer any questions you have.
With its focus on results and accountability, the government has emphasized the importance of the evaluation function in assessing the effectiveness of federal policies, programs and services.
Our Evaluation Division leads the evaluation function, and has developed an action plan, tabled here today, to respond to the Auditor General's recommendations.
I'd like to highlight progress we've made over the five-year period between 2004 and 2009. CIC initiated significant changes to the evaluation function with the creation of the research and evaluation branch and the establishment of an evaluation committee, as well as the implementation of a formal evaluation policy. Funding for the function increased from about $650,000 in 2004-05 to about $2 million in 2008-09. That's along with an increase in the number of professional staff, from three full-time equivalents in that initial year to 13 in 2008-09.
In the past the focus was on evaluating grants and contributions to meet the requirements of the Treasury Board and the Federal Accountability Act. This growth in resources has allowed us to increase the coverage of departmental programs and the rigour and quality of the evaluations themselves. With more and better studies, the results and conclusions of CIC evaluations are increasingly used by senior managers to inform program and policy decisions. As a result, under the management accountability framework, the evaluation function--initially assessed as unacceptable in 2006--reached a rating of acceptable in 2008, showing steady improvement over a relatively short period of time.
The department agrees with the OAG's findings, Mr. Chairman. We have developed an action plan that includes the renewal of the comprehensive departmental performance measurement framework and program activity architecture, and will further the integration of the framework into our business planning process. This will improve the availability of performance information for evaluations.
CIC is also adding an external evaluation expert to the department evaluation committee. We are currently identifying a list of potential candidates and developing terms of reference for such an expert.
A process is now also under way for soliciting client feedback at the end of evaluations. We are finalizing an internal client survey and we will carry out the survey this year. The survey will be administered to senior managers of programs that have recently been evaluated, as well as to members of the evaluation committee.
Mr. Chairman, the Auditor General's report observed that my department's coverage of spending was low, particularly for grants and contributions. This is due largely to the renewal cycle of CIC's grants and contributions and the fact that about 88% are concentrated in only two programs. I'm happy to report that between fiscal year 2009-10 and this fiscal year we will have evaluated these two large programs, accounting for this large proportion of our grants and contributions budget. The other programs are much smaller in comparison, but all will be evaluated over the five-year cycle.
Recognizing the need for more comprehensive evaluations and a broader coverage, CIC has increased the non-salary evaluation budget by $500,000 this fiscal year, 2010-11. We will add an additional $500,000 in 2011-12, for a total non-salary budget of $1.5 million in 2010-11 and $2 million in 2011-12 and ongoing. As well, by the end of this fiscal year the FTE complement will reach 20 persons devoted to this function.
Mr. Chairman, over the past several years some evaluations have had to be postponed or rescheduled for various reasons, including a lack of available performance data, which has created challenges for completing those and other evaluations in a timely manner.
To avoid similar problems in the future, the Evaluation Division is working closely with CIC staff to develop more robust data collection strategies and tools, to ensure that data collected through our administrative systems will be available in the format required at the time any program is being evaluated.
These are just some of the ways we are working to address the Auditor General's concerns in a timely fashion. We are ready for your questions now.
Thank you very much.