Public Accounts committee  Thank you. Merci. That would be the approach. We would want to outline our implementation plan very clearly in order to ensure that we have an effective expenditure management system in place. This will take time, as I said in my opening statement. Clearly there is going to be a need to invest in the evaluation function.

Public Accounts committee  Again, it depends on the timeframe we're looking at in order to—

Public Accounts committee  That's what we're working on right now as part of our overall implementation plan: do we in fact need to provide any further training within the system and the kind of outside recruitment we need to have these people in place? That's very much a part of the overall expenditure management system renewal.

Public Accounts committee  Under our new MRRS policy, each department is now basically required to align both financial and non-financial resources—HR resources, for example—to the various outcomes that they must identify for their department. First and foremost, they must outline the outcomes that they're going to achieve.

Public Accounts committee  I don't have every single recommendation before me, but I would argue that the majority of those recommendations are ones that we accept. We feel they are quite appropriate in terms of where we need to go.

Public Accounts committee  I'm sorry, the cost of—?

Public Accounts committee  EMIS is essentially a system by which we are able to gather the information from departments, so that we're able to bring together the various pieces of financial information that go into the supplementary estimates and into the main estimates. There are six or seven legacy systems that we have.

Public Accounts committee  Again, that was part of our preliminary project approval, so it was in the very early days of the project. During that period of time, this was an estimate that we had. As well, we did expand the project considerably when we moved to looking at how we need to bring in a new system.

Public Accounts committee  We're quite far advanced, as I noted in my opening comments. In budget 2006, the government made a commitment to review the overall expenditure management system. That review is very far advanced. We have a set of proposals now that the minister is discussing with his cabinet colleagues, and we expect those proposals to go forward to cabinet in the weeks ahead.

Public Accounts committee  Good afternoon. I thank you for your invitation to appear before your committee to discuss the Auditor General's findings on the government's expenditure management system. As you pointed out, joining me today is Mr. David Moloney, Senior Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat.

Government Operations committee  As part of the new expenditure management system, we are working with departments to develop a number of tools, because to move to this new system, we really have to look at new tools or implementing further some of the tools that we have. One of them is a policy that requires departments first to articulate the strategic objectives of that department, and then to be able to allocate its resources, both financial and non-financial, to those strategic objectives, down to a number of different levels.

Government Operations committee  I think in the government's procurement policy it sets out the conditions by which we undertake procurement, which are that it should be competitive, except in areas where for security reasons or whatever, or the size of the contract, there may be only one competitor. As well, the government has built into procurement policy provisions to achieve other objectives for the government, for example, ensuring that aboriginals have a certain percentage of overall procurement, or ensuring that the procurement we undertake meets certain environmental standards, what we call green procurement conditions.

Government Operations committee  For the implementation of the Federal Accountability Act, the government, in the 2006 budget, set aside basically $60 million a year to bring in the various provisions of the act. Now that the act is passed, of course, those estimates are being refined, and individual departments will need to bring forward their detailed proposals to the Treasury Board Secretariat for approval.

Government Operations committee  As the minister said, the principle is that the procurement should be competitively undertaken. There are exceptions to that. For anything under $25,000 or any engineering-related work under $100,000, one can use sole-source. As well, from time to time, due to the specifications of a particular commodity or good that is to be procured, it is found that, through the exercise of laying out the specifications, there is in fact only one firm that qualifies to meet those specifications.

Government Operations committee  Again, at the end of the day, deputy heads or accounting officers are appointed by the Prime Minister and supporting ministers. So the Prime Minister at any point in time could make a decision vis-à-vis his deputy head, based on the advice of a minister or the clerk or otherwise.