Yes. Since the minister's announcement in June, women's program staff have implemented the new process for developing and assessing applications to the women's program. The staff provide advice and professional assistance to groups throughout the proposal development stage, including providing feedback on project ideas at an early stage of development.
Program officers can also assist groups and make suggestions about other partners in the community who may be interested in working with the applicant to ensure sustainability and ongoing impact. The main change there has been on the focus on the regional resources in helping the groups develop their proposals. The assessment process is now being managed at the centre in headquarters.
The first big change was that we removed the call for proposal, the one date per year that organizations had to apply by. It is a continuous intake. When I appeared here in May, I believe Madame Demers raised a comment about taking so much time to get back to organizations. The new process allows us to immediately get back to the organization, to work with them, to further develop the application if it's not complete, and it also provides us the opportunity to do the assessment process immediately and render decisions. We're very pleased to say we already have decisions in this current year that have been made on proposals. The front-line resources, the regional resources, are working with the organizations to develop the proposal.
The second big change is that we've invited departmental resources from across the federal family who would have an expertise or an interest in the area that is being pursued in a proposal. For example, if it's a proposal that is addressing issues of violence, we would ensure we have representation from Public Safety and the Department of Justice, so that we get both their expertise and input into the assessment, but also possibly get them interested in working with our organizations and ensure that a cross-pollination and cross-awareness are being built around women's issues in communities.