Government Operations committee  That's really an area that's a bit out of my--

Government Operations committee  As a result of renewing real property, we propose to save the government $1 billion over five years. We intend to achieve this at a lower cost to the government by reducing the size of our investment fund. The study is in the works right now, and we expect to have the information from it before the end of the calendar year.

Government Operations committee  The fund has not yet been allocated to PWGSC. It's been set aside in the fiscal framework of the Government of Canada. It's intended to be used to improve the methods and management practices of the department. We are looking to spend a large portion of it on reinvestment in the IM and IT strategy for real property management.

Government Operations committee  The $2.4 million was a very small grant program. As a matter of fact, it is our only grant program at this point in time. We had no intention to implement it. We had no direction to implement it. And we had no other use for the funds in the grants vote of this department. So when the request came to add different initiatives to this program, it was a very easy one for us, because we had no intention to make payments from those grants.

Government Operations committee  That's correct. It's a government-wide initiative to renew the methods and measurement practices relating to procurement to save the government a significant amount of money, to the tune of almost $2.5 billion over a five-year process. We have launched it, and we are now two-thirds of the way through the second year of the program.

Government Operations committee  I'll give you the definition, and then I'll try to make it more pertinent to the questions. A revolving fund is a continuing, non-lapsing authority by Parliament to spend funds for a particular purpose. It allows us to make program delivery payments out of the consolidated revenue fund for working capital, cash advances, and capital.

Government Operations committee  We have had good management over the years. In delivering services to our customers, we have been able to take advantage of economies of scale and constrain our overhead costs relative to our throughput costs. I think four of the revolving funds we operate had a surplus, and that's where we went to set aside the funds for this reduction.

Government Operations committee  Good morning, Madam Chair. My name is Mike Hawkes. I'm the chief financial officer of Public Works and Government Services Canada. I'm here to discuss how the Department of Public Works and Government Services has contributed to the expenditure restraint initiative recently announced by the President of the Treasury Board.

Government Operations committee  They would have been covered under what we call corporate services in the budgets of the previous years. As a result of the implementation of the new program activity architecture, there has been a decision to charge the full costs of operating programs to the program, so whereas several years ago in the estimates you would have seen a line for finance, for human resources, for IT management for the department, this year we have allocated all of those costs against the programs to demonstrate the full cost of operating--the cost of the acquisition, of the real estate, or any other program.