Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Williams, for your kind words about the CCAF. Mr. Chairman, just to get back to your question about some of the concrete suggestions that were enclosed, I want to draw you back to the householder idea. That was one of them, and the other was an idea—and it's not mine, but an idea that has been discussed before—about the committee, prior to a hearing, deciding which members of the committee or which parties will pursue which lines of questioning.

Public Accounts committee  That's very kind of you.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Fitzpatrick, for your comments. As I recollect from my university days, when it comes to a comparison between the private sector and the public sector in terms of accountability, people say that in the private sector you can make 10% mistakes but turn a profit and be okay, whereas if you try that in the public sector, getting 90% right and 10% wrong, you're in deep trouble.

Public Accounts committee  I was just browsing through the best practices research we did. It's about four pages long, so there's not a whole lot there. I'm not seeing anything in the area of follow-up. We have something on exercising leadership, building and sustaining capacity, and achieving and demonstrating results, but I'm not seeing much in the area of follow-up.

Public Accounts committee  Over the course of my presentation, I tried to very subtly...although probably it would have been useful if I'd had a list of them. I mentioned the survey, which didn't go over too well; that's okay. I'd have to go back over my notes. In my presentation I tried to drop in a few suggestions.

Public Accounts committee  I'd be delighted to. I appreciate the question because we have a project right now at CCAF. As I mentioned, we put out this report recently, called Users and Uses, which concluded in essence that the intended users of performance reports, namely the media, the members of Parliament or legislators, and private organizations or NGOs are not using those reports.

Public Accounts committee  It's interesting, because in some of the meetings I've had where we've talked about departmental performance reports and getting members to read them, often the response has been that in fact it's the staff who need the reports to be readable. They have to break down the reports and brief their members on them.

Public Accounts committee  For your first time on the committee, that's a zinger of a question.

Public Accounts committee  I want to make a couple of observations before I weigh in on that question. Obviously I understand that as part of the Federal Accountability Act there is a parliamentary budget office, and I think it's still under discussion as to what role that office will play in supporting the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

Public Accounts committee  Can I respond?

Public Accounts committee  I do have some comments.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you very much for your comments, Mr. Williams. There are a couple of issues I want to address. You mentioned non-partisanship, and Mr. Laforest mentioned the same issue, which is that it can never be divorced from a parliamentary system. I tried to make the same point. There's no naiveté in proposing that members of Parliament should check their coats at the door when they walk in; however, I think one of the things we're starting to see is that with public accounts committees, in a sense, there's no bubble when MPs walk in.

Public Accounts committee  I'm not sure I understand your question.

Public Accounts committee  Once again, that's a very interesting question. On pages 14 through 18 of the guide I alluded to earlier, a small study was done of other countries. I believe Australia and Great Britain were the target countries. In both cases, no answer was found, but this is something we could possibly look into.

Public Accounts committee  That's also a very interesting suggestion. It ties in with what we were discussing. Witnesses are part of the solution, not part of the problem. Earlier, I mentioned the survey conducted by the Senate of witnesses who had appeared before a Senate committee. If the committee were to conduct a similar survey, it could put the same kind of questions to witnesses.