Government Operations committee  Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Madam Chair. I am pleased to appear before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates today. I am accompanied by Mr. Yvan Roy, Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet, Legislation and House Planning and Machinery of Government, and

Government Operations committee  Last year there were approximately 1.7 million pieces of correspondence that came in, either by postal mail or through e-mail, and we do have certain practices. We have 35 people who are involved in actually reviewing correspondence. It is divided into categories. It's basically

Government Operations committee  Yes, there is a Prime Minister's correspondence unit, so all of the correspondence that moves from PCO, our executive correspondence unit, goes directly there.

Government Operations committee  For anything that we were going to forward to the PMO, that is where we would forward it to.

Government Operations committee  No, I'm sorry, I don't have that information. I did take note of it when you asked it when Treasury Board was here, but I would have to go back to the department to get that information. I think it's held in the estimates of other departments, and I don't have the composite figur

Government Operations committee  We will check with the clerk to make sure we have the actual questions.

Government Operations committee  I think I probably would defer that to a colleague who actually works in senior personnel, if I could. Mr. Marc O'Sullivan is the assistant secretary for senior personnel, so he can talk to you a little bit more authoritatively.

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'm Marilyn MacPherson, and I'm the assistant deputy minster for corporate services for the Privy Council Office. I have with me Marc O'Sullivan, assistant secretary for senior personnel and special projects. I'll start with my statement. Good

Government Operations committee  PCO's last appearance before this committee was in November 2007, regarding the 2007-2008 supplementary estimates. The mandate of the Privy Council Office is to serve Canada and Canadians by providing the best professional, non-partisan advice and support to the Prime Minister,

Government Operations committee  There are actually individuals now working in the secretariat. For a period of time there was no one in the secretariat. We now have two individuals who are employed and working in the secretariat. The estimates are based on the expectation that there will be someone appointed as

Government Operations committee  Maybe I will rephrase. I haven't been told we're not getting one, so therefore it continues to be an estimates item.

Government Operations committee  I certainly can. For salaries and wages, the amount is $700,000. That's $697,000 exactly, and that would be for 4 FTEs, which is what we're estimating.

Government Operations committee  No, this is just the secretariat itself. It's the four people who would be in the secretariat.

Government Operations committee  One thing that could possibly happen here, too, is if there's a commissioner actually appointed and the secretariat needs to get into operational mode very quickly, in the fact there are four FTEs, and you could actually hire, for example, eight people for the last part of the ye

Government Operations committee  No.