Information & Ethics committee  Salaries account for about 85% of our budget, so we start from that. The non-salary budget is not that high. Basically, I meet with every director. We look at our strategic plan for the upcoming year just to see what's required, what's in the plan. We also go from the expenses

Information & Ethics committee  In terms of some examples, because a lot of our non-salary budget goes towards service agreements that we have with outside providers, we'll look and analyze that. That's why, in the past year, we've actually brought back our financial services internally, just to make sure that

Information & Ethics committee  —the year before.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, next year we're looking at updating the information on our website.

Information & Ethics committee  There are 11 people.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, your office.

Information & Ethics committee  For next year, we have our strategic plan. We really want to improve customer service. When it comes to our website, we want to update the information. The rest of it really has more to do with internal operations. We are trying to figure out how we can do more with less. I must

Information & Ethics committee  The $600,000 lapse was a result of the $400,000 reserve that we had, and the extra $200,000 lapse was basically due to the vacant positions during the year. In terms of the corporate management, it went down a little. As was mentioned earlier in the speaking notes, we decreased s

Information & Ethics committee  Sorry, could you repeat that?

Information & Ethics committee  The fluctuation here is on the employee benefits plan.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, we have no say in it. The percentage that the employer has to pay is determined by the Treasury Board. That's why we see a fluctuation. Basically, in the main estimates we're asking for the same operational budget.

Information & Ethics committee  We brought in the compensation services and the financial services, not the information technology.

Information & Ethics committee  For cybersecurity, we have an agreement with the House of Commons IT department, which takes care of that for us.

Information & Ethics committee  In the past, there was a surplus every year. We didn't use all the funding we received. However, as Mr. Dion mentioned, last year, our surplus totalled just under 2%. We've used almost all of the funding that was allocated to us. The maturity of the Office must also be highlight

Information & Ethics committee  First off, I'd like to thank you for inviting us to appear before you today to talk about the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner's achievements over the past year as well as its plans for the upcoming year. My name is Sandy Tremblay and I'm director of co