The other services did not exist before this report. It may be up to them to decide whether it is useful to add anything else. However, as I said in response to Mr. Christopherson, on behalf of the department, I take responsibility for past flaws and mistakes.
I would indicate that the reason we have these audits is to go right to the heart of programs and bring the spotlight to bear on what is not working in those programs.
As I indicated, in many of our areas we are labouring under the legacy of old systems. This is too much a paper-based system, which adds to the time lapse in making decisions. Actually managing the paper constitutes a significant delay in the process.
We are moving off that kind of system progressively. We have known for some time in our business planning in the department that a modern service to Canadians requires moving to electronic systems progressively. We have been doing that—for example, in the employment insurance area—but it frankly takes time and it takes resources for that to work its way progressively through the system.
The delays in the old system were due partly to the multiplicity of tribunals. The proposal to move to the Social Security Tribunal was intended to make that more efficient and expedite decisions. We've talked about the planning process, which was deficient, but you asked about the situation before the fact.
That was all part of an effort to improve that service. Between these legacy systems, I assure—