Government Operations committee  --so the net savings are fairly small. In fact it's a recycling of funds from lower-performing to higher-performing, and lower-priority to higher-priority within the department.

Government Operations committee  No. There is a process every year for determining which departments would be up for review. Over a four-year period, everybody will be up for review to cover 100% of program spending.

Government Operations committee  So it's a bit of a judgment call, because indeed you don't want to have only departments from one sector--international, heritage, culture, or economic--in one year. You want to have a bit of a mix. At the same time, there are advantages to grouping some departments, because indeed there are linkages.

Government Operations committee  I think that's correct, because, really, the deputy and the department are the ones who know their programs best. They are the ones who are responsible for ensuring that programs are effective, that performance criteria are respected, and results are achieved and outcomes are....

Government Operations committee  Absolutely, I think better planning is always better for departments. Indeed, there may be ways in which a department on its own, without the requirement of a strategic review, can achieve better outcomes and more savings in terms of resources, absolutely. And planning would be important to that.

Government Operations committee  Well, I would only add that I think it's useful to have that external process where ministers do come forward, having reviewed all their programs and determined that 5% of programs are not performing well or are not any longer as relevant as before, and bring them forward to their colleagues for consideration.

Government Operations committee  Yes, all of those dependent on appropriations do comply, certainly.

Government Operations committee  We provide assistance to departments in their reports on plans and priorities. We provide guidance to departments when they plan overall for their priorities and when they report back to Parliament on the results they've achieved with their programs, but we don't specifically tell them how to plan a particular program.

Government Operations committee  That's correct. We provide guidance, best-practice guides, and all the rest of it to help departments develop good performance indicators for their programs. We encourage them to use best practices from around government. We are there to assist in that sense, absolutely, as well as provide guidance for the other reporting back to Parliament through the RPPs and DPRs.

Government Operations committee  Absolutely. I think that's correct. For the management, resources, and results structure policy, we've asked departments to establish clear outcomes and develop their programs in the form of a program activity architecture that is linked to the overall objectives of what they're to achieve.

Government Operations committee  That's a very good question. We determined that we would like to try to cover all direct program spending over a four-year period. But you're right, it could have been over a five- or six-year period, which would mean departments would come up once every five or six years. We did think a four-year cycle made a great deal of sense, but it is really somewhat arbitrary.

Government Operations committee  First of all, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, reviews are owned by ministers. That's important. They put their own personal.... They devote quite a bit of their own personal time to this. They are assisted by the departments, by the deputy heads of the departments and by departmental officials, but also by external advisers.

Government Operations committee  Indeed, this is one procedure of the strategic review to assess whether programs continue to be relevant and continue to be well-performing. Indeed, there are many programs that have been around for a long time. We are trying to evaluate all programs, again, on a five-year cycle, so that a program will not go unevaluated for a long period of time.

Government Operations committee  The department that undertakes a strategic review does an impact analysis of who would be affected by a program proposal put forward for reallocation. The mitigation of the risk involved in that is considered in the analysis. In some cases a program that overlaps with another program may result in a revised new program that can pick up some of the clientele from the old program.

Government Operations committee  For 2009-10, I can say the savings that were identified in the budget for strategic reviews were $349 million.