Public Accounts Committee on May 13th, 2015

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

I'd like to direct a few questions to the Treasury Board officials. I first want to thank all the witnesses for appearing here this afternoon.

For a report like the official languages annual report, can you walk me through the process of collecting the information and compiling it, and tell me who reviews it and what all of that looks like?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

Thank you very much for that. I'll do my best, though it's not my particular area of responsibility. I hope, in doing so, to explain a little bit of some of the pertinent features of reporting.

Like all of our reports, the requirement derives from the policy that the deputy heads are obligated to keep and maintain the right kinds of systems and to track information on official languages in their departments. The chief information officer at the Treasury Board Secretariat is the responsible agent for that. They're asked to produce a review every three years on that, and in some cases annually, where it's felt to be more important. They try to ensure that—and this is an important lesson generally for reporting—the same kinds of questions are asked in the review and reported on so that they're able to get timeline analysis and trends, and they can see where gaps are changing or not. That's an important feature in bringing about that predictability.

The second important feature is that each year, a draft of those questions is put out to departments so that they know what results they're expected to have and they provide comments on those kinds of things. That ensures that the reporting information is useful to them as well as to the chief information officer. That's another feature.

The final request for questions comes out in May and then they are reported back in. This is the kind of cycle against the official languages review.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Would there be some information that's gathered on an annual basis, consistently, the same information?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

Correct.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Then you can do that timeline referencing that you like to do.

Is there also information that's gathered periodically outside of the scope of what's requested for annually?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

Yes, indeed. Nancy Cheng did mention ad hoc reporting. That's what we call ad hoc reporting. That does happen. That wasn't the subject of this audit, but that does happen, and it happens in a number of instances where there's an important initiative that the government wants to undertake, for example, and they need to have some information about it, so we ask departments to report on that. We try to do it as little as possible because anything that comes out of the cycle or is not prepared for adds to the reporting burden of departments.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Okay. Would the departments get a heads-up on something like that, or would it just be sprung on them?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

Certainly the last thing we'd want to do is spring anything on anybody. It isn't a predicted thing that we know we're going to do in advance, and there's always the effort to try to work with departments to ensure there's clarity about what it is they're being asked to report on. We always try to use the process in the least burdensome way as possible.

One example I might be able to give you is that we rely on the central systems of reporting, drawing information off that rather than having to go out and ask departments to collect new information. We try to take it off the central systems that are in place already to reduce that burden.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Referring to the AG's report, in the conclusion, paragraph 2.103, it says that reporting efficiency did not receive enough attention, and that there needs to be more attention paid to the whole concept of reporting efficiency.

Can you expand a little bit on how you interpret that? What does that mean to you? It's not a recommendation; it's just part of the conclusion.

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

You're right in identifying a very important thing. I think the Auditor General defines it as a “reporting requirement that can be demonstrated to have served its intended purpose without unnecessary effort, burden, or duplication”. The word I'd underline is “unnecessary”. There's always going to be something that has to be done, and the art, if I can put it that way, is to make sure that you reduce, to a degree, and do only what is necessary and not what is unnecessary in driving that forward. That's the principle we're trying to bring into play.

The second important thing against that is it's not just the efficiency of the reporting that's important, but it's also the utility. You want to make sure you have a balance between the lowest cost required for that reporting for the highest value in the information that you get out. It's that relationship between not just cost, but cost and utility that we really want to work with in going forward.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you.

Mr. Giguère, you have the floor again, sir.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Chair, I think that all of the witnesses are aware of how subcontracting in the federal government has changed.

In that respect, my question is as follows. Does it not increase the risk to replace public servants with private contractors, especially during a time of fiscal restraint? Hiring subcontractors to help us complete a task is one thing. However, if the public service loses the knowledge needed to complete a task, it will be completely dependent on subcontractors, who will then be fulfilling an entire government function.

Can you tell me what risks are involved and what corrective measures can be taken in that respect?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

Nancy might want to speak to this as well, but there was nothing in this particular audit that dealt specifically with that issue, I'm afraid. I don't really have anything to report directly on in this context. I would say more generally, though, we do have reports on the workforce of the public service—we do track those kinds of things, generally—but there's nothing specifically on that issue in this audit, I'm afraid.

[Christine Donoghue]

PSC contractors do not carry out any staffing-related tasks. The departments report on part-time jobs and we take that into account. There are policies in place for that type of position.

Subcontracting does not necessarily fall under the PSC's jurisdiction. As I said, subcontractors are often paid out of a budget that is not related to the salary budget.

[Nancy Cheng]

Mr. Chair, the member is raising a very important question. Unfortunately, it is not within the scope of the audit, so we're not in a position to comment.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

We spoke earlier about how information technology is evolving and the security challenges that that poses for the departments. It is a matter of knowing how much budget cuts have affected security upgrades within the departments. A lot of money went into such upgrades in the past, but despite all that, security is still at risk.

Can we expect that situation to quickly improve?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

There is nothing specifically in the audit about that, I'm afraid, so I don't have a direct answer to that.

I would say generally, though, that under the government policy on security, and in the departments' security plans we spoke about a little bit earlier in the meeting, one of the things they would be wanting each department to look at is their general risks to ensure that they would be doing whatever is necessary to try to mitigate those risks.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Obviously, we want to avoid this sort of thing as much as possible, but if wrongdoing is committed and the department does not have the resources to remedy or even recognize it, are there people in your units who can be contacted and who can help to fix this problem?

[Christine Donoghue]

That is a service that the PSC offers and that has been used a number of times. In the past, we have identified problems through audits, sometimes even before an audit is completed. In such cases, we work with groups of experts from the departments to solve these problems.

As I was saying earlier, authority is delegated to the deputy ministers of the departments by the PSC. The PSC also has the power to withdraw or attach conditions to that delegated authority. That has happened only a few times because we have excellent managers. On several occasions, the PSC has taken back the authority in order to help an organization acting on its behalf deal with a situation. That does not happen very often, but the PSC now offers that type of assistance more and more. It is called prevention. We intervene when we can collectively determine that a problem may arise with a process or in the system within a given department.

[Bill Matthews]

I have three things I would like to add about the management of finances.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Really quickly, please. We're well over time.

[Bill Matthews]

Okay, I'll be really quick.

There are three key things. One, informally, chief financial officers and chief audit executives have a direct line to me and to my organization for any advice. Two, the policy on internal control requires disclosure of internal controls. Three, on the internal audit policy, each department has its proper external audit committee that it can go to for advice and discussion as well.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Very good, thank you.

That takes us back to Mr. Albas. You have the floor again, sir.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

I'd like to direct my questions to Mr. Matthews.

Mr. Matthews, on the point you just raised that every deputy minister has a direct line to your office as far as dealing with things is concerned, that was brought in under the Federal Accountability Act. Is that correct?

[Bill Matthews]

Well, we always had the informal relationships. The unique feature of the accountability act was that if there is any suspicion or uneasiness in terms of something that's being asked of a chief financial officer, they actually have the right to write to the Secretary of the Treasury Board to let her know about the issue that's on their mind. That's purely from a financial management perspective, and that was brought in under the reforms of the Federal Accountability Act.