Mr. Speaker, in response to (a), Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, AAFC, closely monitored all operating expenses and reported on them monthly to the senior management of the department.
Budget 2010 announced two significant actions to reduce the rate of growth in operating expenditures. First, any salary and wage increases set in the Expenditure Restraint Act and in collective agreements for fiscal year 2010-11 until the end of fiscal year 2012-13 are to be absorbed by organizations. No moneys were provided to AAFC to fund the 1.5 % increase in annual wages for the federal public administration. AAFC is required to reallocate the resources from its operating budgets to fund these increases. Funding that was already provided in the department’s reference levels for these increases was returned to Treasury Board Secretariat through supplementary estimates.
The department has a staffing realignment board that reviews and approves all external staffing requests to ensure that people are matched to priorities within available financial resources. Salaries are monitored monthly by each branch against established maximum salary budgets.
Second, operating budgets for fiscal year 2011-12 have been frozen at the 2010-11 levels. A subsequent freeze of operating budgets at those same levels is anticipated for fiscal year 2012-13.
To this end, additional measures were instituted that focused on travel, hospitality and conferences. Employees have been advised of best practices related to travel in an effort to reduce the associated costs, e.g., encouraging the use of video conferencing, using the online booking tool, booking travel well in advance to take advantage of reduced rate tickets.
In response to (b), 483 indeterminate employees, 462 full-time and 21 part-time, were lost to attrition at AAFC during the 2010-2011 fiscal year.
In response to (c), no employees were laid off at AAFC during the 2010-11 fiscal year.
In response to (d), 467 indeterminate employees (465 full-time and 2 part-time) were hired at AAFC during the 2010-11 fiscal year.
In response to (e), fiscal restraint and reduced hiring across the public service is expected to reduce the number of departures to other government departments. AAFC does not forecast attrition more than two years into the future because there are a number of unknown factors that make such forecasts unreliable.
At present, the expected attrition rate is forecast to be 450 in 2011-12, 7.2% of total employees, in the current fiscal year; 430 in 2012-2013, 6.9% of total employees; and 445 in 2013-14, 7.1% of total employees.
Attrition is defined as the departure of employees due to retirements or resignations, transfers to other government departments, departments or other...