Chair, I'll give a bit of context to explain. We've been a bit deficient, perhaps.
The audits are tabled in the House of Commons. The committee agrees to discuss how it will deal with them. Members choose, and we then plan a course of action on which audits will be studied.
Typically, the departments that are to have a hearing here will give an action plan, but the action plan is one thing. There's usually an opening statement as well, and that opening statement almost always addresses each recommendation and how they are going to proceed. The action plans are typically used by the analysts in drafting the report.
The key components, then, are the audit, the testimony at the hearing, and then the action plan. We present it in the draft report along with a recommendation for each OAG recommendation. The committee then gets to debate and discuss it.
The analysts will be taking a look at the action plans a bit more thoroughly. Then the committee adopts the report, it's tabled and the government has 120 days to respond to us. We might give them a longer time, depending on the report.
That is the general sequence of the work.
Then the analysts, as Michel said earlier, follow up. The department says they will fix this bridge by that date. We then examine all the progress reports from that department to make sure that they report that the bridge has been fixed. That's the series of how we work.
The action plan is only one element that the committee will use in its proceedings. The report has already been tabled by the OAG; there will be an opening statement that will be provided, as well as the action plan. All of that comprehensively forms part of the report.