Thank you, Chair.
Obviously the whole process to modernize the act had a number of objectives, one of which was to give departments more flexibilities and to better equip departments to manage the human resources they needed, rather to use the more lockstep approach that was there before, which was a very rules-based approach. Staffing was found to take a long time. I think there was a lot of frustration in the system with the process. One of the major objectives was to give the management of human resources back to deputy ministers and to get them engaged in it.
As the secretary mentioned, the legislative changes are all in place. Changing the way human resources are managed in the federal government is really a huge cultural change, and it will take time to bring those changes about. We do see indications, as we note in the report, that deputy ministers are more engaged in this area, which is an excellent thing. We do see indications that departments are beginning to use the flexibilities. As well, the labour-management committees have been established.
We did this over a year ago. It was still very early days in this process, but we do see indications that the objectives of the legislation are beginning to take hold. What we would have liked to have seen were more quantitative measures to set out what the objectives were and to track that aspect over time to make sure this initiative is successful.