With regard to deputy minister accountabilities and attention given to human resources, I would be remiss if I did not mention that one of the follow-on elements of the PSMA, if I can put it this way, has been the clerk's public service renewal program or initiative, because there we have started to synthesize some of the core elements that we need to continue to pay attention to and to refine: the areas that are essential to human resource management and the meeting of the PSMA objectives, but more importantly to an ongoing and solid performance on the part of human resource management.
I would say that of the four pillars we have in the PSMA, the most critical element, frankly, is integrated planning. It sounds just about as exciting as I can make it, but it's a critical element. We used to do, for a long time, a human resource plan and a business plan, and the two never matched, never met, were never discussed in the same room. We are now—I know it may sound amazing—matching and doing integrated human resource and business planning. It's integral to being able to have a staffing plan. If you don't know what you need in order to perform your business in three years' and five years' time, it's a little hard to have a staffing plan that says, here are the competencies, here are the areas that I need, here is the learning and development that I need to build into my organization or get the school to deliver for me in order for me to be able to meet the objectives that I have for two or three years out.
That integrated planning focus, I would say, has probably been the most important of all of the elements to which deputy heads are paying attention. It drives the managers, because the business plan is developed by managers, and it drives the human resource plan at the same time.
I'm sorry, I'm probably running on in my enthusiasm for integrated planning.