Thank you, Mr. Chair.
In terms of the development, one of the key areas we started with, and again it may sound very basic, was to make sure that every employee had a learning and development plan. It was something that I would say was not practised on a regular basis and that is currently the case, in that every employee is to have a learning and development plan.
The next stage for us was to look at what some of the core competencies are and at whether or not we should set up learning activities or development.
I would say it's very specifically training. There are some obligations that were established. If you are a manager reaching a certain level, you have to have financial management training, people management training, and contract management training. Those are prescriptions that were brought forward in order to establish a more rigorous professionalization. Those are developments that were brought forward.
In terms of workplace renewal, for a lot of those elements we are now looking at how we can use collaborative tools—some people will call them social media—or at how we can use the next generation of Internet/Intranet to ensure that information is shared. One of the key challenges we face is demographics. We are all aging, unfortunately—it depends on your perspective, but I'll speak for myself—and there is in fact a retirement factor within the public service. We're a reflection of the demographics in the general population. We have some knowledge, some retention of knowledge and information, and we also have to integrate a new generation, and they are used to working with tools in a very different fashion.
The workplace renewal is about how to make that transition. How do you use the technological tools we have to break down some of the hierarchical barriers we still have? Can I set up a wiki in order to have a discussion on what the policy issue is today, or what the corporate structure was, and try to find someone who could actually enlighten me on this? This is what we're talking about under renewal of the workplace.