Thank you very much.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I hope I can be of some assistance in addressing questions with respect to the committee's study of vote 1 funding for the Office of the Auditor General.
As you noted, the deputy minister could not be here today due to a scheduling conflict.
I would begin by clarifying that while the Auditor General is an officer of Parliament, his office is part of the executive branch. It is listed in Schedule I.1 of the Financial Administration Act and, therefore, falls within the definition of a department in that act, as do the Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners, the Commissioner of Lobbying, the Commissioner of Official Languages, and the director of public prosecutions.
While all of these officers are functionally independent of government, their offices are treated as government departments. As such, they are governed by the same funding framework as other government departments and agencies.
That framework requires that a funding request be submitted to the Minister of Finance, typically in the context of the annual budget process. Requests for new funding must be supported by a business case.
The staff of the Department of Finance analyze incoming funding requests and their supporting business cases. Advice is then provided to the Minister of Finance based on the department's analysis, which, in turn, informs the decision. If a decision is taken to provide additional funding, the department or agency is appropriated approved funding through the estimates process and appropriation bills.
The advice provided to the Minister of Finance on specific funding requests and the rationale for decisions taken are confidences of the Queen's Privy Council. I have no authority to disclose them, as I trust the committee will understand.
However, I can shed some light on the analytical process undertaken by the Department of Finance.
The department assesses funding requests from two main perspectives.
The first is from a vertical organizational perspective. Through this lens, the department examines the resource needs and business priorities of the organization; the detailed elements of the funding proposal and the strength of the supporting business case; and benchmarks and other metrics to help understand and evaluate the proposal's merits. At the same time, the department considers the organization's ability to reallocate and absorb cost pressures within its existing funding levels and to implement a significant increase in its resource base.
The second is from a horizontal, all-of-government perspective. Through this lens, the department assesses an organization's request against other competing priorities across government. In this context, the request is competing for limited new resources against other social and economic priorities.
In his initial request, the Auditor General asked for a 31% increase in the operating base for his office, a significant increase from the two perspectives outlined above. Recognizing the importance of the work of the OAG, through budget 2018, the office received a 16% increase in funding relative to the 2015-16 fiscal year.
In July 2018, the Auditor General submitted another funding request in the context of budget 2019. The committee has been provided with a copy of this request, which was supported by the same business case as the previous year's request.
The government remains committed to working with the Office of the Auditor General to ensure that the office is able to continue to provide Parliament with objective information and sound advice with respect to the performance of government programs and activities.
Also, under the Auditor General Act, the Auditor General is able to make a special report to the House of Commons in the event that the amounts provided for his office in the estimates submitted to Parliament are, in his opinion, inadequate to fulfill his responsibilities.
Finally, I would note that previous parliamentary committee studies and pilots have been undertaken since 2005 to propose and test new processes for the budget-determination mechanism for officers of Parliament. Their purpose was to ensure the independence of the officers of Parliament from the executive while providing the appropriate measure of accountability for their spending and performances.
Thanks for the opportunity to be here today.