Public Accounts Committee on May 13th, 2015

[Bill Matthews]

Mr. Scott-Douglas may have some general comments, but what I will say is that there is a policy in place around privacy protection that basically applies across the board.

Treasury Board Secretariat does not actually get involved in the proactive disclosure postings. Those are departmental responsibilities. The key controls around ensuring protection of this information rests with departments and their deputy heads as accounting officers.

Treasury Board Secretariat is not reviewing this information before it gets posted. We put the policy in place, and it's up to departments to put in place processes to respect the privacy of this type of information.

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

I have nothing to add to that.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

The OAG noted that while the secretariat makes some accommodation for organizational size and reporting requirements, small organizations still face a significant reporting burden. This is under paragraphs 2.41 and 2.42. The OAG recommended that the secretariat “adjust required reporting on the basis of the sizes and mandates of reporting organizations”. This is in paragraph 2.44.

What steps will the secretariat take to reduce the reporting burden on small organizations?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

Thank you very much for that question.

This was alluded to a little bit earlier as a very important issue generally. I might just point out, looking at the reports that the Auditor General selected to report on, that two of them do already have built into them aspects that touch on the need to scale appropriately for different-sized departments.

Bill mentioned earlier in his remarks that the department investment plan has been fine-tuned to ensure that small departments and agencies have less burden in the preparation of theirs, and as it's noted on the official languages annual review as well, it varies by entity and there are some particular accommodations made there; some report every three years and some every year. That process is already built in.

A lot more can be done, and it's been alluded to already in a couple of other questions about this particular burden.

Through the policy reset, all Treasury Board policies, not just their reporting requirements, but other aspects of risk mitigation that might be included in their requirements, are being put through a sieve, if I can put it that way. One of the things needs to be to ensure that the principle of proportionality is in play, that the requirements and the burden of complying with those requirements is proportionate to the risk, and where there's accommodation that needs to be made for small departments and agencies, that will be part of the challenge function in the renewal of the suite.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

That was bang on. Well done.

We're moving over now to Mr. Simms.

It's good to have you with us, sir. You now have the floor.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Sir, it is always a pleasure, and that's not an understatement. Thank you.

My question is for the Treasury Board. I want to turn to paragraph 2.51 of the report.

It mentions consultations that occurred with the Treasury Board in 2012 whereby federal organizations requested an inventory of reporting that would help them coordinate deadlines and allocate resources to meet the reporting requirements. You found that this has not taken place.

Why did the Treasury Board hold consultations four years ago and not address the important feedback they received from these federal organizations?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

Thank you very much for that question.

The issue of reporting burden has been with us for some time, as I mentioned, and we felt it was important to not just have our own opinion; we did consult with departments and agencies. In 2012 we brought together about eight departments and agencies specifically to talk about this issue. There were some large departments and agencies and some small departments and agencies, and we looked at that issue.

That work will be built into our go-forward plan to address this issue. I think it's safe to say that we have some improvements to make in this regard, and we're going to make them.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Are you accepting of the recommendations put forward then?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

Most definitely. We accept the recommendation of the Auditor General, and we'll move on that recommendation.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

It says here, “The Secretariat will make this inventory publicly available on its website by spring 2016”.

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

Yes. That's at the very latest. We're going to try to get it up before, but do it in a way that is as rich as possible so that it's as useful as possible.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

That addresses the next part of my question. I'll move on.

Referring to paragraph 2.45, what reasons has the Treasury Board provided for not maintaining a comprehensive up-to-date listing and schedule of its reporting requirements for sharing internally with other federal organizations and with the public at large?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

That's something we feel we should be doing as well, and we will be doing that. I did mention, and indeed it's reported in the Auditor General's report, that all of the reporting requirements are stated in policy, and I think the audit does make clear that there are clear timelines stated as well in policy.

What we haven't done, which we will do and we should do, is to bring that all together into one place. I think one of the key principles of reducing reporting burden is predictability, and to the degree to which people understand what they're expected to do and when they're expected to do it, we're going to help reduce the burden.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Sorry, I don't mean to be moving around like this, but we don't have a lot of speaking slots so I want to get through this.

Paragraph 2.32 discusses the Treasury Board's targeted review from 2011 to 2013 and mentions that the federal organizations consulted on this expressed “concerns about capacity resulting from government-wide deficit reduction initiatives”.

Can you expand on what the concerns expressed were and whether the government addresses the capacity concerns?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

The groups that are largely responsible for undertaking the reporting activities within departments fall generally within back-office operations, as we call them. The government cost-containment initiatives tried to ensure that service to Canadians was not affected and that a majority of the cuts were made to government operations. That was the source of that concern, that the capacity to do this reporting was put under more stress as a result.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

That was from 2011 to 2013 inclusive. Okay.

Once again, I have a question for the Treasury Board. I apologize, I don't mean to stay on you exclusively here.

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

No, it's a pleasure. We'll do whatever we can to help.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Can you explain what has been happening over the last year and a half with the policy reset launched in 2014?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

That work is just being launched and is under way.

In 2006 there was a very major review of the suite of Treasury Board policies. At that time we had about 180 Treasury Board policies. The Federal Accountability Act cut that number by at least half. Through that, we've brought about a great deal of clarity in identifying the right accountabilities and responsibilities.

Notwithstanding that important work—

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Can you give an example of that?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

In each policy, there is now a clear architecture against the policy. It identifies what the deputy head of an organization is responsible for in any particular area.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Oh, I see.

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

Underneath that we have standards and directives that address requirements that the senior officials, for instance, the chief audit executive, the chief financial officer, and the chief information officer, might have in their particular areas of responsibility. We also have a whole series of guidelines that are put out, and some of those have been alluded to already, for instance, guidelines on an investment plan. We've been working on that.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you very much. Time has expired.

Mr. Falk, you have the floor, sir.