Government Operations committee  In the 500,000, yes.

Government Operations committee  The total number of federal government employees, the total universe, yes.

Government Operations committee  I think the main point is that the operating budgets will be frozen. That will be done within their votes, what's voted to them by Parliament. That is what will be controlled. It allows individual departments to then determine how they're going to meet that budget freeze. I thi

Government Operations committee  We will, of course, be ensuring that they meet their operating budget freezes, and they in turn will be demonstrating that they're meeting service levels, because they'll want to do so.

Government Operations committee  The key is that they're the ones who are accountable for meeting the freeze and maintaining the service levels.

Government Operations committee  On management consulting, I'd have to return to the committee. My purview is more that of public servants.

Government Operations committee  Well, we undertook in 2008 a public service employee survey of all public service employees. We asked them a range of questions that related to their engagement in the workplace, to leadership and to values and ethics and other issues, which other organizations had been using as

Government Operations committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. That is a good question. Indeed, right now about 10% of the public service would be considered visible minorities, as one employment equity group. That would be about 2% under a comparable measure of workforce availability. We recognize that there is a g

Government Operations committee  I think, Madam Chair, the budgets of individual departments are voted by Parliament. They're brought here, and ultimately are the purview of Parliament. They therefore are things on which you can have a view.

Government Operations committee  I'd like to comment in terms of the scorecard or the means of measuring performance when it comes to HR management, which is my purview. You've made reference to employment insurance. There are other issues that would be more the purview of Service Canada, and I won't answer to

Government Operations committee  My impression would be that they do, because, as I mentioned, the rate of attrition for factors other than retirement is very low.

Government Operations committee  We've done some work. It's not completed. Clearly, with the focus on pensions and comparability, we are looking at other organizations and trying to get a view as to how we're benchmarked in terms of pension and benefits generally.

Government Operations committee  I think the fact that we have a defined benefit pension puts us in a leading group--comparable to other governments...but yes.

Government Operations committee  In relation to the freeze announced in the budget on operating budgets, it is a freeze on operating budgets, not on individual line items within operating budgets. That's the approach that was chosen, so looking at individual expenditures within that is not really particularly re

Government Operations committee  I think, Madam Chair, the main control point for the freeze was on departmental budgets. They're accountable for their use and for their control. Then from a system point of view we want to ensure that they do remain within their operating budgets. That's what was frozen. But we'