NRGO Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES AND GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DES RESSOURCES NATURELLES ET DES OPÉRATIONS GOUVERNEMENTALES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, November 27, 1997

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[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Brent St. Denis (Algoma—Manitoulin, Lib.)): Order. We'll open the meeting.

I would like to welcome David Miller, assistant secretary of the expenditure management section of the Treasury Board Secretariat, and Martin Ulrich, director of results measurement and accountability.

In this meeting we're continuing a series of briefings we had earlier in November. We have invited Mr. Miller and Mr. Ulrich to talk to us about the improved reporting to Parliament project. Specifically they will talk to us about the Treasury Board's performance report for the period ending March 31, 1997.

With that, we invite either Mr. Miller or Mr. Ulrich to make a statement of 10 to 12 minutes, give or take. Then we'll invite members to ask a few questions. Please proceed.

Mr. David W. Miller (Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before this committee. It is something I have had the opportunity to do for several of the standing committees.

The context of my remarks at the beginning will look at the overall system we're using in terms of trying to improve the information to Parliament and also how it fits into the other planning aspects of the government's normal cycle.

I have a deck, which I believe is being circulated, that I would like to go through. It actually may take more than 10 minutes to do that, but I think it's important to understand the context for our overall project.

I would also like to mention that with us today is Professor John Wanna from Griffith University in Australia. He is visiting us in a comparative study of both the expenditure management system and the process of approving supply. I thought the committee might want to ask him some questions in terms of his understanding of comparisons, or of how things operate in Australia.

The Chairman: We are pleased to have you here, Professor. We're glad we can have this interparliamentary cooperation.

Professor John Wanna (School of Politics and Public Policy, Griffith University): Thank you very much.

Mr. David Miller: If you can open the deck to the second page, I would like to start by trying to give a context for the kinds of changes that were started in the previous Parliament and have continued into this year.

First of all, there were several commitments concerning the role of Parliament and its committees and changes to the standing orders to increase the role of the standing committees in relation to their review of future plans. Secondly, because of the change necessitated by the program review exercise in the previous parliament, we also thought it was important to provide information on the extent of the changes that resulted for various government programs.

Within the expenditure management system itself, we therefore introduced what we would call “phase one”, a series of business planning documents that would come from departments to the Treasury Board, and also an outlook document that was introduced in the previous parliament. Unfortunately, for reasons I won't get into now, it was very seldom used by standing committees in their review of government expenditures or their performance information.

What we are trying to do in phase two of the reporting project is to have a much better focus on results, an understanding of the kinds of trade-offs that go into the planning process of departments and in fact the eventual performance information that will be reported to parliament.

We have also had the president's report on review, the third report. It was tabled in the House on November 6 of this year. Further, in the last Parliament there was a review of the supply process by a subcommittee of the procedure and House affairs committee.

It is important to understand the differences between these. Our process focused in on the actual documents and the level of information that would be provided to parliament. The subcommittee focused in on the procedures and the process with which Parliament would review expenditures in total and in detail.

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In fact, I met with that subcommittee on several occasions. The two of them were very closely linked, but there was no attempt on our part to change the process. We were merely dealing with the information that we were providing to Parliament within the current rules structure and current procedures.

On the next page you will see that in order to support the expanded role of the parliamentary committees, we again talk about integrating the planning and reporting functions, which involve almost 50 or 60 different documents that departments deal with. In some cases there are as many as 400 annual reports required by legislation. Through this process we are hoping to eventually integrate a lot of that information for parliamentarians in a way that makes it understandable. Obviously, when you deal with that many separate documents and that much paper, it's very difficult for anyone to get a good idea of exactly what is being undertaken.

In addition to coordinating and streamlining, we have also asked departments to look at the way in which they manage themselves, and we've called this our “planning, reporting and accountability structure”. And with the main estimates which will be tabled next February, members may notice a difference in several departments in the ways in which they describe their activities and their objectives.

This is a periodic change. We're just reinforcing this. Because of the evolution of management and the way departments deal with it, every 10 or 12 years we ask departments to reassess and re-establish just how they would like to portray themselves and in fact be held accountable for their results and for the things that they have achieved.

The other thing that we did was to put a greater emphasis on performance reporting. I'll speak about that a little bit later and allow Mr. Ulrich to talk about that as well.

With respect to the last two items, the first one deals with using technology. We are amazed at the advances that have been made over the last few years and we hope this project will take advantage of those changes. I'll describe that briefly.

And finally, for the Treasury Board Secretariat, we want to be able to allow the secretariat to focus on strategic matters, not on detailed controls at the departmental level.

The next slide is the key to understanding the evolution of what we have underway. We have two important periods within the course of a fiscal year, spring plans and fall performance reports. And with the budget and the main estimates of February 1998, we will, for the first time, have all departments and agencies reporting under this process. We've had a series of pilot documents that were before the House, but this represents the first full year for all departments and agencies to be using this process.

The next thing we were hoping to accomplish is to link the timing of the reviews in Parliament to the cabinet decision processes. Obviously I can't vouch for the information done in committee work actually being reflected in that, but it's the first time we've had the opportunity to allow these documents to be reviewed, and from a perspective of what happens during the year, it's the first time we'll be able to feed that information and those decisions and recommendations into the planning process throughout the year.

Certainly what we were trying to do is focus on future year directions—not comment on the kinds of details that were effectively in the main estimates—in order for parliamentarians to have a much broader understanding of exactly what direction the departments were taking over time and what kinds of priorities the government is looking at over the next few years.

Of course, on the other side, we were hoping to focus on results, making them strategic, understandable and less accounting-oriented.

I have just a brief word about the spring planning. As I mentioned, it provides an opportunity to feed into the cabinet priority-setting process. It is interesting in that it provides time for departments to reflect budget shifts and plans, and here I should comment on a problem that I've traditionally had with our process. By convention, our budget comes out one or two days prior to the main estimates, and the timing of the main estimates is set by the standing orders of the House. And every year, because of budget secrecy and because of the amount of work associated with producing essentially 12 million pages of information on our estimates, there was no opportunity for departments to reflect any changes associated with the budget.

So we would have the budget, and two days later we would table the main estimates. The first question we always had was “Where do these initiatives or changes from the budget show up in departmental spending?” We would always have to answer, “Next year you'll be able to see that, because we weren't able to split that information or build it into the plans of departments simply because of timing.”

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In a motion approved by the House last April, we now have the ability to separate the main estimates themselves from those departmental documents that will provide the details by about a month. The intention is that the main estimates, which are technically the part II or blue book, as we've always called it, which is in support of the supply, will be done within the Standing Orders, but under the motion there will be a few weeks time to allow departments to adjust their plans and to reflect the budget priorities before those detailed documents are tabled in the House as well.

That is a major change. It will result in a slight shift in the timing of the documents being presented to Parliament. Again, it is a pilot and it is only for this particular fiscal year, meaning moving into 1998-99.

The other one is to help to align the information we provide to Parliament with a business planning process of departments. Since we will be dealing with forecasts of up to three years, the outlook document that was produced will be an integral part of those reports on plans and priorities that come out. Again, it will include the summaries and the commitments that were done in terms of performance. Those were reflected in the president's report this fall simply because we did not have the opportunity to present them to Parliament through the other documents.

In terms of the fall performance, these documents were tabled for the first time in November 1997. They provide a separate window in the fall for performance reporting. In the past we have had documents, the traditional part III of the estimates, which covered several fiscal years into the past and into the future. Planning being what it is, quite often when someone questioned the trend over a number of years, departments would rightfully say, “Don't worry about what has happened in the past. Look at where we're going in the future and you'll see all those changes and all those new things you expected in those future year plans and priorities.”

It was difficult to get a real handle on performance. By splitting those documents out as separate, we are able to focus in on actual performance achieved. We are also able to provide that performance information literally six months earlier to Parliament by tabling them in November rather than waiting until next March or February in order to do it under our previous cycle. As soon as the books of the government are closed, when the information is out exactly on the totals of expenditure for the previous year, we can then report on the performance.

I would then move to a series of circular diagrams. I apologize to the committee, these work much better as slides and overheads than they do as photocopies. But I will go through this quickly simply to indicate how all these documents fit together.

The first one is intended to show the three major important elements in terms of those participating, with the departments at the centre, cabinet on the first circle, and Parliament represented on the third circle, on the outside. The timing is throughout the calendar year.

We can see that in normal times we would expect a cabinet review of priorities in the summer and the cabinet budget decisions that take place in the winter time, as well as both the Parliament during the estimates review during the spring and a review of the performance information and others going into the budget consultation in the late fall.

In the next slide we have added in the specific elements of departmental planning. They would provide a report on planned priorities in March, as I mentioned. That would allow the committees then to review these in going through review of estimates and their report on estimates in time to at least be a consideration in cabinet's review. Also, the business plans are the major document with which departments come into the Treasury Board for other elements of their business planning cycle.

The next slide then adds in what we would call the performance information, where we have departments providing not only the public accounts, which are a very detailed listing of transactions.... These public accounts often relate to inputs. By that I mean how much money departments have spent on professional services, or particular grants or contributions. But these are looked at from an input basis.

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It's very difficult to understand what departments have actually achieved with those several billions of dollars based on the public accounts, so by having a performance report at that time, it then allows people to understand what we got as a result of spending that money, what we were trying to do in terms of targets, and how that fed through into actual results that are measurable.

In many cases, government programs take several years—it may be 10, 15, or even 20 years—to be able to assess advances in change.

Consider some items. One of the examples I use is education for aboriginal children. In appearing in front of the committee last spring, Indian Affairs put forward one of their measures as being the percentage of aboriginal children who were in secondary school. One of the committee members said that this was well and good, but that a better indicator would be how many children actually finished high school. The department had that information, so they were able to modify it and say that they could give this to the committee.

It's just a question of working with the committee to understand the kinds and levels of information that would be most useful for them in looking at results and achievements. Again, in many cases, it covers a 15- or 20-year period in order to understand the impact these programs have had. So then the committees actually have an opportunity to review these documents and report again in the sense of perhaps leading into information into the budget-consultation process.

Again, cabinet budget decisions occur normally in January. The budget itself is tabled at the end of February. Then we have the report on plans and priorities falling out of that in March.

So that's the completion of the cycle. I hope it effectively explains all the various elements.

Just on the next page, I have three very quick points to make. The first one is that, as I mentioned, we produced 12 million pages of information two years ago. I don't think any individual read them all. I know I certainly didn't. This is the total production in paper. A single volume of the main estimates weighed more than 50 pounds.

Somehow we have to take all of that data and turn it into useful information for parliamentarians. We expect, through the use of access on the Internet, to be able to allow parliamentarians to access specific pieces. This gets into our improved search capability as well of using the information that's available electronically to sort through and pick out details or particular initiatives that may even cross departments, agencies, or organizational structures and be able to compile that information.

This is something that has been extremely difficult to do in the past, and we think that it will be inevitable in the future. So it's a major change we're going through, and I'm happy to report that all of the documents for the last 12 months that we have produced are available on the Internet.

The third item is to reduce the printing and handling. Through having those documents on the Internet, we were able to reduce the amount of printed material by one-third, or four million pages, without suffering any loss in accessibility, not only to parliamentarians, but to Canadians in general. We have a very good network with libraries and other research institutions whereby they can now extract this information directly off the Internet.

So that concludes my presentation on the overall cycle. Perhaps Mr. Ulrich has something to add on the performance reporting process.

Mr. Martin Ulrich (Director, Results Measurement and Accountability, Treasury Board Secretariat): Thank you. I also have a document that begins with fall performance reporting. I have just a few words on the documents that were tabled in Parliament on November 6.

All these documents, I know, were available to members of Parliament. I'm not sure you will have them here, but just to give them a little imagery, the government-wide report has the title “Accounting for Results”, and the departmental reports are of a somewhat similar colour. I just happen to have the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada one here to illustrate it.

There are 78 departments and agencies that have prepared a report of this kind on performance. As far as the government-wide report is concerned, the government initiated this report three years ago in response to a recommendation from the public accounts committee. This is now the third one that has been tabled.

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If you go to the next page, I thought it would be useful to describe a little bit about why we're doing this, as David did with regard to the various parts of the expenditure management system. It is certainly to be accountable and to enhance openness to Canadians and to members of Parliament, but I think there are two other things that we try to keep in mind in having departments prepare these reports.

The first one is the government's initiative in getting government right, focused a lot on making sure that we are responding to the kinds of expectations that Canadians have. One of the ways in which this is reflected in the documents is this: When departments write their results commitments, something that's documented in both the departmental performance reports and also in an annex B to the government-wide report, they try to do this in a way describing what it is they are delivering for Canadians, rather than describing what it is they're doing from inside the department and agency. We tend to call that an outside-in perspective, and we think that's an important distinction that should be kept in mind.

Another way that focusing on results is seen as very important is in the idea of trying to make sure departments and agencies are cooperating where they're contributing to results or might be conflicting in some ways. By focusing on results in this way, we believe we're increasing the odds of getting better cooperation.

Turning to the next page, we think it's important to indicate that the Government of Canada is not unique in this in a long way. There are certainly a number of interesting initiatives in our provinces. In many ways, Alberta and Nova Scotia are the leaders within Canada in doing this kind of thing. I think we do keep pretty close contact with them, so that when we are initiating things like this, we're doing it from a base of knowledge and experience. We're not just trying something new without learning from others.

There's also an awful lot of experience in this in the United States. Even though the political systems are perhaps different, some of these things are similar. Oregon, Texas, Minnesota and Florida are obvious cases of really quite interesting work. And Australia is another place that has done a lot of things in this area, with some similarities to the Canadian federal government, and we are tracking that.

It's probably a little bit optimistic, but I think the last point is also true that most of the public reactions to these initiatives have been positive to date. We think it's not just an interesting thing to do, it is something that seems to....

The final two pages focus more broadly on how the federal government is approaching this whole initiative. One of the terms we talk about is a “federal results strategy”, so that the reporting complements the planning—as you've heard—in the broader expenditure management system, so that it works its way into the actual management of the departments and agencies. It's not just something that a few people in departments and agencies spend a week and a half at, or a month and a half at, at a certain time of year. This is integrated right into their management, planning and reporting processes within departments.

We think it—and I'd say this is one of the big lessons we've learned from other jurisdictions—seems to be important in doing this not necessarily to try to get it perfect the first time, but to start doing it and to then improve and learn as one goes along. That's very much the strategy, and one of the reasons why we went all the way to 78 performance reports. I think it's fair to say not all of those 78 departments have the best performance reports that one could hope for, but we believe doing it once and learning from others is a good strategy to follow, and that is the one the government is following. The improvement of reporting is ideally part of that.

In the government-wide report, the one that's called “Accounting for Results”, there is an explicit action plan that has three broad areas of work that the government is going to undertake in the next year in order to improve performance reporting. You'll see that the first item under that is “Monitor usage and Parliamentarians' reactions”. Obviously this is part of that process.

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On improving performance reporting, I don't think it's just a technical job. There's a lot of stuff we can do as technical experts in the area, but we're only going to improve performance reporting in the sense of results if the various users, such as parliamentary committees, find the information useful or suggest how these things can be made more useful. So the monitoring of parliamentary reactions is a huge part of the government's action plan for this. We are looking for all those reactions and we'll be monitoring very generally how parliamentary committees do this.

The other two initiatives are beyond the individual departments and agencies. There are a lot of priorities that are shared, not just between federal departments and agencies but, as in the Speech from the Throne, with other levels of government and jurisdictions. In those initiatives we're trying to make sure there is a clear articulation of results, there is a process for measuring them in some credible way, and that information is reported publicly.

The last item is a little more experimental, although a number of other jurisdictions have done this. We will pursue what are called societal indicators but what might be called Canada indicators on how Canada is doing and then look back to see how the various governments are contributing to that.

That is the approach we have used to these. There are 78 department and agency reports available and there is the government-wide report as well. Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Ulrich and Mr. Miller. We will proceed with questions from Mr. Williams.

Mr. John Williams (St. Albert, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to start by thanking Mr. Miller and his staff for the diligent work they have done in this particular area. I have had the privilege of working with Mr. Miller in the development of the improved reporting to Parliament and also on the subcommittee on the business of supply. There's no doubt in my mind that the Treasury Board wishes to move this issue forward and improve the reporting to Parliament and all Canadians. I think we've made a very good start here, but as the witnesses have said, we're not there yet. However, the intention is extremely honourable.

On the annual report to Parliament, which is a simple overview, I have more of a comment, because I had the opportunity to use this document. When we talked about improved reporting to Parliament we talked about the concept in modern technology of the cascade.

If somebody wants a brief overview of all the programming of Parliament they can refer to the annual report and open it to any department. If they want more information they can refer to the new performance reports for each department. However, when I open the annual report I don't know where to go next. I might see something that catches my eye that I would like the Treasury Board to consider.

I just opened the report on page 53, for example, at the Department of Foreign Affairs, where it talks about passport services. If I require more information on that and there is a publication or web site that deals with that particular issue, could the name of the document or web site be put in there if it happens to be an annual document that's being produced? Would that be possible?

Mr. David Miller: Yes. In fact, I'd be surprised if there aren't references to it. Perhaps Martin, who was more involved in the production of that, can explain how you would access that.

Mr. John Williams: I'm just asking, for those documents that come out on an annual basis, that reference be made to the fact that those detailed reports are accessible or a web site is accessible.

Mr. Martin Ulrich: It is our intention to identify in next year's report the departmental performance reports right on the page where we have this documentation. The reporting electronically is a lot simpler than the reporting on paper. This is already done electronically. If one is working from this report electronically, one can go directly from this page to the departmental performance report.

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In terms of the departmental performance report, it's not perfect this year. There isn't a direct correspondence between the items listed here and all the departmental performance reports, but for many of them it is. You can go directly from that to the section in the departmental report in which the departments tells, to the best of its ability, what it has achieved regarding the words that are here.

In addition to that, again electronically, one can go from that documentation to individual reviews, individual studies and individual reports that give further information. The electronic version is the easier one, and that we've achieved.

On the documentation on paper, I think we can go to that next step of identifying clearly the name of the document and how to access it, as well identifying the electronic address of that. We cannot easily, but it is possible in another annex, preceding this one. It lists those major reviews that have been done. Those are also identifiable in this one.

Mr. John Williams: Thank you, Mr. Ulrich. I'm glad to hear you're moving in that direction. I wouldn't want to have it in an annex; just have it on the same page, or an address where publications can be achieved.

On a more negative note, unfortunately, these improved performance reports I think still have a way to go, and perhaps a long way to go. I think of the tax situation in Atlantic Canada, where the Auditor General found opportunity to write three whole chapters on it recently. It seems to be a program that's handled by Human Resources Development.

I want to take a look at the HRD report. It says:

During 1996-97, we focused primarily on providing income support to eligible fishers and plant workers, as adjustment programming under TAGS was not available after August 1, 1996.

That raises a question in my mind, Mr. Chairman. I do know the reason it wasn't available was that there was no money available. The budget ran out. Does it tell us the problems? No. It's an administrative problem that they have conveniently ignored, just saying the program wasn't available.

Now, improved reporting, Mr. Miller, means we have the answers to the questions. Do you think we can see a more up-front attitude by the departments when they have to report negative news as well as positive stuff?

Mr. David Miller: Human nature being what it is, certainly it is difficult to get people to actually fully display the implications of bad news, perhaps, or a project that didn't proceed as understood.

I think the important element here is that by having sufficient detail and by having an understanding that members interested in that can relate to that, and obviously pick up on a point—for instance, that this wasn't the whole story, there must be more to it—they can follow that particular train of logic. I doubt if these documents would ever evolve to a point where they're a completely balanced process of saying, here's all the wonderful things we did, and here, with equal weight, is all the things that didn't go quite that well.

I do think, however, by having performance targets set out in the planning documents, which we haven't yet done for all departments and agencies because we're simply moving into that part of the process, and then having a performance report that clearly relates back to those targets that were established it will become clear exactly which ones didn't achieve what was expected and which ones did.

Mr. John Williams: I'll stay on that topic for a second. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which is intimately involved in TAGS, found that they could devote only three lines to the program—three lines—and Human Resources Development Canada, which administers the program, have two half-pages on the program.

Now, this is a program that now spends billions of dollars, directly and intimately affects the lives of thousands of people on the east coast, and is a major initiative by this particular government, yet we find that the improved reporting designates two half-pages and three lines.

Mr. Miller, I would like you to take that point back to the appropriate departments and say that improved reporting has to improve a lot more. Will you do that for me?

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Mr. David Miller: I would be very happy to do that, Mr. Williams. Again, providing that balanced approach is something we're working with departments on.

Mr. John Williams: Moving to a different subject, which is the Alberta experience, Mr. Ulrich mentioned that Alberta and Nova Scotia are leaders on this. I happened to hear a presentation by Mr. Goodkey from the finance department of the Government of Alberta, who talked about setting out clear, identifiable benchmarks for each department. That's how the Government of Alberta has done it.

While the situation has evolved, their experience has grown and they found that their benchmarks could be more precisely determined, they made a decision to stay with their original benchmarks, because if a target keeps moving you never know how close you're getting. If you stay with the same target you can see performance much better. You can see whether you're getting closer to it or moving further away.

That type of issue where it's not so much important that you meet the targets.... They are important in themselves, but they motivate the departments to move in a specific direction towards achieving that fundamental goal. Can we look forward to benchmarks being developed, standardized and maintained in a rather simple way so that it can be comprehended by the general public when we say what the government is trying to do? And every annual report would show progress in that direction.

Mr. David Miller: This has been the subject of a lot of review and study within the Treasury Board Secretariat and in the context of other departments. I must admit I'm on the side that says we should evolve these benchmarks in light of events that have occurred, and I'll explain one of our dilemmas.

In a department like agriculture, which has several different functions that aren't related...and here we could point to food inspection, to research, to sustainability on the prairies or to several other programs. Within each one there may actually be several hundred measures or benchmarks that the managers use to assess their own programs with respect to how they are doing in relation to their expectations and objectives.

And for an organization like the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which is newly created, if we are trying to say which one or two of those would more accurately or best reflect exactly what they're doing as an agency, we immediately run into a problem. From a consumer's point of view, the food agency is there for health and safety reasons. From a producer's point of view, the food agency is there for trade reasons, to ensure access to foreign markets and to ensure even access to markets within Canada.

And if you add in the other factors such as research and how you measure that or some of the other programs like marketing, it becomes very difficult for a complex organization to come down to even 10 or 15 indicators that clearly identify what they're trying to do and how they're trying to do it. What they do provide is not just the numbers or the actual change from year to year but, as you said, an opportunity to explain what has evolved, what has changed, why they had plans that had to be modified and what events led to that, because when you think of the time lag between setting up a plan and actually reporting on performance, it's over two years, and a whole series of events, natural and otherwise, have occurred to affect those plans.

I think most departments would feel comfortable being held to account for their actual results if they have the opportunity to explain why their original targets have evolved.

But I'm not sure that within the federal government.... And I'll wait to see how Alberta evolves, because some of their benchmarks are, to my mind, a level above that which is useful in really assessing why they're spending money in that area. I think this is a learning process, one that's evolving and one that we're working with departments to improve. It gives them that opportunity: they are truly accountable, but that means they must have an opportunity to explain the differences as they proceed and allow parliamentarians to then comment on either why those changes were done or what the impact of those changes was.

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Mr. John Williams: I have one comment, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr. John Williams: I do hope you realize there are two schools of thought and that you compare them both as we move forward.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Williams. Mr. Cullen.

Mr. Roy Cullen (Etobicoke North, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Miller and Mr. Ulrich, for your presentation, and welcome to our guest from Australia.

I'd like to congratulate you for moving toward a performance-based, results-based monitoring and reporting system. I think the key line for me is in Mr. Ulrich's slide two, where he says “leads to better services for Canadians”. It seems to me that's the focus we should be placing on this, because too often departments, bureaucrats, and politicians become activity-based and we fail often to ask the tough question of what this is doing for Canadians. So I congratulate you for moving in that direction.

I had a couple of questions in terms of your presentation. The member obviously talked about benchmarks, and we often use these terms quite loosely. In my experience in the private sector, benchmarks are really referring to best practices and best practices in a global context. In the private sector they moved from MBO—management by objectives—to management for results, and the reason for that was to build in more flexibility in terms of the planning process. The world changes quickly and you need some flexibility to change.

In the context of your system—the focus on results—I think there are two components: to look at more measurable outputs or performance measures, but also to provide more flexibility. Could you comment on that in the context of the public sector and how you achieve those goals within your own system?

Mr. Ulrich touched on looking at other jurisdictions, and I think it was exploring societal indicators. I'm wondering if that thinking is evolving in terms of looking at best practices and benchmarks worldwide so we can compare our results, our targets, in relation to the best practices in the world.

Mr. Martin Ulrich: An important part of your first question involves the business planning process, which has a lot of consideration given to alternative service delivery, alternative instruments such as should regulation be used, such as other things. Mr. Miller may want to comment on that, since his group manages that process.

As far as the benchmarks are concerned, it is quite right that the approach the federal government chose in this was not to explicitly go for an approach that emphasizes numerical measurement in all cases. The reason, I believe, that this selection was made is the feeling—and this has been observed in a number of other jurisdictions—that if everything is overly emphasizing numbers sometimes the service to Canadians actually falls.

This is a really big issue, as Mr. Williams said, and there are a lot of schools of thought on it. What we did try to do in doing this is in the Annex B, which says here's what the commitments are, and the right-hand side of those pages says “to be demonstrated by”. What the departments and agencies are doing or saying is how we will show that we have or have not achieved this. And I think the departments and agencies are looking for reactions from parliamentarians about whether this is convincing information to help you judge whether that result is there.

So if you use the term “benchmarks” very loosely, these are in a sense benchmarks. I certainly understand they're not benchmarks as traditionally or usually used in the private sector, but they do provide a basis for comparison; they do provide a way of judging. The real concern with performance information is that it's not just open-ended, because without a basis of comparison you simply can't learn anything from the process.

In regard to your first question, we certainly are looking at all of the other jurisdictions. I would say most of them actually do go for the kind of benchmarking approach Mr. Williams has identified. They do go for the specific targets. But what I'm gathering from the contacts I've had with people working in those jurisdictions is there's the beginning of a reconsideration process about whether that hasn't caused more negatives than are necessary, as Mr. Miller's response earlier indicated.

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The societal indicators are an area in which there's an enormous amount of work. There are just a lot of jurisdictions doing it. I would say more importantly that there are a lot of different organizations doing it. The Conference Board of Canada—I just happen to be reading their report that was released some time ago—certainly got some press regarding its productivity information. That is looking at the full array of Canada indicators, perhaps with an economic preoccupation, but there are a number of organizations such as that.

We are tracking many of those developments, but certainly not all of them. We're looking at how the various provinces are working on this. There is a kind of informal network with all of the provinces and our office in order to keep track of all of those kinds of developments. We've made commitments in this report to make this one of the government's priorities, so you should see quite a bit on that in next year's report.

The Chairman: Is that it for now? We can come back to you.

We'll go to Madame Girard-Bujold, then Mr. Pickard, and then over to Angela.

[Translation]

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold (Jonquière, BQ): I am very pleased to meet you, Mr. Miller and Mr. Ulrich. I have a down-to-earth question for you.

Over the past two years the Canadian government has been asking the public service to provide improved services to the public. With the almost magical emergence of voice mail in the federal and Quebec public service, we members of Parliament have been receiving in recent years an enormous number of complaints about this system.

I don't know how long voice mail has been used in the Canadian government or how much this system, which is being implemented quickly, costs. I would appreciate it if you could give me an approximate figure of the cost of installing it in all departments. Treasury Board monitors budget expenditures of every department. So can you please tell me how much it costs to install these voice mail systems?

As regards quality of service to the public, you will appreciate that Canadians have less and less access to the public service, which should however meet their needs.

I would like to know whether you have seen this in the information you have compiled from within departments, and what you're going to do to correct the situation.

[English]

Mr. David Miller: Unfortunately, I do not have that information available here, or probably at any location within the Treasury Board.

I think one of the things that has changed over the last three or four years in the entire telephone system is the ability to not only deal with voice messaging, but the forwarding of calls and relaying of information. I know almost all departments that have a focus that relates to citizens phoning in, that have an expectation that people will phone in order to get information, have used this electronic capability to divert calls in order to make sure someone is actually answering.

The second element deals with something that is also in the private sector. My understanding from a body like Revenue Canada is that if people call in with a question, they will go through a series of steps, questions and answers, and press numbers on the telephone so that they can get much closer to their exact issue. It works very well in some cases, but it doesn't work very well in others, which a lot of people find frustrating.

It's not unique to the federal government or the provincial governments. It is a factor of doing business. I know that at Revenue Canada they've been able to double the number of accurate responses to people's questions with no increase in resources, simply by using this electronic information rather than having people phone in, rather than having people there to answer all the phone calls. The basic questions can be answered and people are therefore satisfied. If it's a more complicated response, they then always have the opportunity to get hold of a person by pressing zero, or whatever appropriate number.

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But we must remember that an organization like Revenue Canada receives 30 million phone calls during the tax-filing season. It's extremely difficult to be geared up to answer all of those during that period of time and have people on the other end of the phone to not only answer but who are trained to ensure that citizens receive the correct response. So by having many of these calls routed through automatic procedures, we're actually able to achieve a better level of service.

[Translation]

Ms. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: I am very disappointed by your answer because that is not the real situation. Canadians find it difficult to access every government department, not just Revenue Canada. There is Bell Canada and all the other organizations selling the kind of monstrosities you have purchased.

In the past, Canadians didn't have so many problems in accessing government departments. At present, there are twice and even three times as many problems. When you say that you need competent people to answer, I presume that everybody was confident before the introduction of these voice mail systems. It is not voice mail which makes public servants more competent. In any event, people whether young or old, can never reach them.

I think it is a disaster and that if you want to meet the government requirement to provide quality service to Canadians, a change in policy is needed and there must be someone there to answer directly and personally to people calling. Thank you.

[English]

The Chairman: Mr. Pickard, and then over to Ms. Vautour.

Mr. Jerry Pickard (Kent—Essex, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I have to say I totally agree with the feeling about voice mail used in the federal government. As a matter of fact, I would say that voice mail used in industry and big business is getting to a point now where it's a screening system, and it's very unfortunate.

I can call a department person; I can pick up the telephone right now. I phoned someone two hours ago and got a voice mail: I'm not in the office but I will be here today, so leave a message and I'll get back. Immediately after I left the message who I am, I got a telephone call back. That's a screening system.

I'll bet if you check through the systems in the federal government you'll find 50% of the telephone calls you make are screening systems, not voice mail answers. It's unfortunate, but we've done that. How that affects me and all of my colleagues is people get really ticked off with the system, so they phone and blast my staff because of the inadequacy we have in the system.

They may be right; they may be able to answer a large number of concerns accurately. But I think the number of people they keep hanging on that telephone for 10 minutes or 20 minutes, or whatever time period it takes to do it, is getting to be unreasonable. My view of it is it's not good.

However, that's not what I was going to deal with. I have some real concerns about our reporting system and my role as a member of Parliament in what's happening with regard to the estimates and with regard to the process, with regard to what's going on.

My view is, over time—and it may have taken 25 or 50 years, or whatever the time period is, for the process to evolve—we've come through a system where we have legislation that is passed and sets rules and sets direction for the Canadian government. However, more and more the legislation is becoming vague, and the end result is that the regulations are kicking in and making all the decisions. As we go, members of Parliament are often the last to know what's going on because of the regulatory system we've structured in the whole process.

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Now, my difficulty, clearly, is that I can pick up your estimates and go through them, but I certainly cannot go through your eight million or twelve million pages. All of that information on program specifics isn't as clear, in my book.

I certainly don't have the time to research and go through the detail, so it's usually through the back door that I find out the changes in the regulations. Through the back door I'm told by my constituency, “Look what they're doing to me today; look what they did to me yesterday”, which, quite frankly, is getting to be more and more of a problem for me.

The reporting system, the targeting, all of the things you're talking about aren't hellish relevant in my operation when it comes down to certain questions: Why did they take this service away? What did they do over here? What's happening with the licensing on this issue? What's happening over here?

The legislation covers very scanty parts of what we have to deal with on a daily basis. It's being changed—or evolved, as Mr. Ulrich said—through the regulations, and I have some problem knowing where we're going, what problems I'm going to be facing next. I have some problems about understanding what each department is doing.

Quite frankly, you have to be an expert within the departments to have a grasp about what's happening. Even at that there are many experts in each one of the fields in the departments that have the answers. Most times, ministers have to be briefed in order for them to understand specific problems, but we, as members of Parliament, are almost on the outside looking in. In many instances, I don't think we should be.

What has happened to our system and what can be done with our system to improve the understanding, I guess, of where we're going in an operation as vast as the Canadian government is what I have some concerns about.

The Chairman: Volunteers?

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

Mr. David Miller: Two points. First of all, on the regulatory process and the necessity of having regulations pursuant to the legislation, not only to clarify but also to allow the government to adjust plans and other things on a shorter-term basis than what would be required through a change in legislation, is of concern to the Treasury Board Secretariat as well. Because of the complexity and because of the inter-relationship of many regulatory changes it is extremely difficult, as you've mentioned, to be able to understand how all of these things impact and what the end result will be.

We have in the past tried to produce annual reports that indicate all of the regulatory changes to be undertaken and to highlight those that, again, would be of most interest to members of Parliament in developing that idea of general direction. This report was several hundred pages, with several entries per page. It was impossible for any individual to sit down and analyse that. We're taking another look at how we not necessarily change the regulatory process but communicate the implications of that to people in a way that is comprehensible.

We hope, for example, in terms of the reports on plans and priorities, which I was speaking about today, that when departments identify the future directions they will do it in a way that makes clear there will be a change. It may not refer to the regulation that will be changed, but it will be clear to the reader that in area A, something is going to happen, and we should be aware of that and understand the implications.

So I don't know how many regulatory changes there are a year. There are several thousand. A lot of them are very important for understanding the direction of government. All of them are very important to the people impacted by the individual change. It's extremely difficult to communicate that, but we are trying to make an effort on that.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: The problem I'm seeing is that we're moving more out of.... The legislators in this country have a lot less to say than they did 50 years ago. It's becoming minimal, what's in the legislation, and it's tremendous what's in the regulations. And even if we pass a bill here, we don't know how the regulations are going to be applied and how that affects each one of us. When you get down to the nitty-gritty, we don't have a hell of a lot of control any more. It has been taken out of the hands of the legislators and put in the hands of the administration in cabinet.

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Quite frankly, I've got some concern about the degree to which we're going there. It's a major, major movement. Look at where we were 50 years ago and where we are today. We're talking about your performance rating. It's how your performance rates about informing members of Parliament on what the hell you're going to do two years from today in those directions. I don't see it happening.

In the estimates, that's kind of a done deal. How does that estimate affect me? Well, you've taken out this part of my budget or this part of the people in my riding, but it's a done deal by the time I get it.

Mr. David Miller: Just a comment, and perhaps Mr. Ulrich would like to talk about this some more.

The ruling the Speaker made this week in terms of the direction and content of the estimates and the ability of the government to talk about plans, as distinct from legislation in place, was very important. Here is what that did for us in terms of our interpretation of it. Although I haven't had an opportunity—I watched it—to review the actual words of the Speaker's ruling, he clearly stated that the wording of the votes, the actual authority that will become legislation through an appropriation act, is the part the government should be very concerned about, and that it should adhere to the long-standing tradition of not introducing legislative amendments through that.

But, as I think the Speaker said, events change plans. The report on plans and priorities will now be able to clearly state the intentions of the government in the future. It won't necessarily be for the estimate's year, but over those two or three years that are also included in these documents so as to give those general directions.

So when a committee is reviewing the documents of a particular department or agency, it should be clear to them that they planned a change in the regulatory process or a specific regulation that will have an impact on the clients or group that this department is there to service. And they can question that in a time period that is well in advance of that regulation actually coming through.

This was interesting for me. In the last session, members were not aware that the documents we produce are for them. These are only for members of Parliament. If they're not happy with the contents or the level of detail, then it's up to the members to tell departments that.

In my experience as a senior financial officer in a department, it was wonderful to have committees come back to say that we're not doing a good enough job telling them about this or that we're not explaining these things to them well enough. A lot of the emphasis, we hope, will come from those kinds of questions, as related to a specific program, department, or agency, so we can improve the kinds of displays there are.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: The devil is always in the detail, but it's not always there.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Pickard. Mrs. Vautour, and then over to Mr. Provenzano.

[Translation]

Ms. Angela Vautour (Beauséjour—Petitcodiac, NDP): Good morning.

[English]

I guess I just want to make two points, and then I'll be asking a specific question. One, I want to briefly mention TAGS, as I think it was very much needed, especially in the Atlantic. I think it meant the government recognized that it did have quite a responsibility for the fish for this to fall the way it did. I think preservation and conservation is still a problem today, and there hasn't been enough of that. I still believe today that this is why we ended up with TAGS, but unfortunately, as usual, we have a government that does not plan ahead. I do believe TAGS was necessary, but certainly, if there had been long-term planning with TAGS, it would have been a whole lot better than what we have now.

As for ASD, I think we have to start thinking of the regions where there's a lot of seasonal work, because 55% of $12 is a whole lot better than 55% of $5.50, and that's what we end up with through ASD. I'm very much concerned, being from a rural community where there are a lot of seasonal jobs in every category.

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The last one is pay equity. Having been a single mom from 1987 to 1994 and being in the CER group for most of that time, I'm very much concerned that has not been settled yet. I'd like to know what has been done and what will be done. When we can start telling the women of this country, who we know have been underpaid for the last 13 years, when they're going to get justice?

Mr. David Miller: Perhaps I can start with the last question first, which is dealing with pay equity. I'm sure you're familiar with the statements the president has made in relation to that program. My understanding is that the government is certainly attempting to negotiate an agreement with the unions and has, over the last several months, moved its position in terms of the ability to pay and how much that settlement would represent, while at the same time the characterization is perhaps that the unions haven't moved at all.

It's certainly a priority of the President of the Treasury Board to reach a settlement, and it's certainly a priority of the government to ensure this is done in an equitable manner that represents the problem. To date, over $800 million have already been paid out and further amounts are being negotiated with a particular union. It's been a very difficult process, not only for pay equity, but for the implications of collective bargaining, which is also under way at the same time.

I know that a lot of individual public servants who will be affected by the decision and the settlement feel the same way and want to know what they can do in order to move this ahead. Because the tribunal has now moved its decision back by several months into next spring, it should be time to sit down and seriously negotiate again.

Without being an expert in the area, I think both parties expected the tribunal to reach its decision and whatever that would mean in the next few weeks, but now the tribunal, because of illness of the members, has had to delay that by several months. Quite clearly that's an area where, without defending the policy, there has been a fair amount of work and activity in trying to reach that settlement.

Ms. Angela Vautour: Do you have the amount of dollars that has been spent by the government in order to stop this payment and delay it? I mean all these arguments and all the lawyers the taxpayers have been paying. Have you done a calculation of how much money has been spent to delay this?

Mr. David Miller: I don't think there was ever any intention of the government to delay the payment. In fact the liability associated with that has been recognized within the government's financial statements for a number of years. The question is the order of magnitude. I believe I'm quoting the President of the Treasury Board—it's not my view, but I'm using what I've read in the press and my understanding of the issue—and he's indicated several times in the House that he certainly wants to reach a settlement. Money was spent in trying to negotiate an agreement, but there was no money spent to delay it or anything like that. It's just the way the budgeting works.

Ms. Angela Vautour: I guess the question is how many dollars have been spent in court and in trying to settle. I think $1.3 billion out of $2.8 billion is certainly not something.... It's probably not the right point to say yes it is or it isn't, but I think most women in this country would agree that $1.3 billion is certainly not close to $2.8 billion. So I do feel there has been a lot of money spent trying to delay this.

The Chairman: Thank you, Ms. Vautour. Mr. Provenzano, please.

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Mr. Carmen Provenzano (Sault Ste. Marie, Lib.): My comment is on the voice mail. I would concur with the comments that have been made, but I would also make the comment that everyone is sort of abusing voice mail, and those comments that have been made apply to every sector of our economy and society. With respect to the government, on balance I think voice mail is probably used in a way that's counter-productive to effective communication—and that's really important from a government standpoint.

If a business chooses to use voice mail, presumably there's a way in which that business will either get the message or will suffer somehow. In government's case, however, I think we should perhaps be looking at leading the way in terms of maintaining effective communication. That's where I see the problem—and it's not just at one level of government, it's right through our society. From that standpoint, perhaps we could lead a bit.

My question, though: I was really interested to learn about the manner in which the new information technology can be utilized to reduce the paper burden on, for example, business. Anything that's done in that area is a positive.

I'm a new MP, so you'll know where I'm coming from in a minute here.

I'm wondering whether it's within your bailiwick to review the conventional methods. It's fine to take the new technology and to then reduce the paper burden as a result of utilizing that technology. But we have conventional methods of delivering information to, for example, MPs.

I don't know whether this is in your bailiwick, but let me give you an example. I looked at this presentation—and please, this is not to put anybody on the spot or to raise anything that would embarrass—and this is a conventional format for reporting. The text of both of these comprises twelve or thirteen pages. I can tell you that I've counted the words, and it would be no challenge for all of the text to be reproduced in a very presentable way on two pages instead of thirteen.

With the graphs, you could make the argument that this is how bit the graph should be. I can tell you that as an MP, I've found that it's accepted that once you've been here for awhile, this is the way things are done. As a new MP, though, I look at this stuff and I say, “Well, I'm only a foot away. I don't have perfect vision, but my glasses are fine. I can read this stuff probably from the back of the room.” We don't need that. Just by looking at the conventional manner in which we deliver information to MPs, to ourselves, we could probably reduce paper by more than the one-third that you mentioned.

Now as I said, I don't know if that's in your bailiwick, but if it is—and I looked to see whether there was some initiative to do that—I couldn't find it. I'm hoping you're going to say it is in your bailiwick, and that you are looking at that. Start here, because you can't even store this stuff. For the stuff I'm interested in, I don't want to put five pages away somewhere in my office when I can put one page away.

Mr. David Miller: I very much appreciate those comments. In fact, this presentation was intended to be done as a series of slides in order to be able to allow members to have a better understanding. That kind of presentation is normally accompanied by a handout of those slides, and that's really what this was set up for.

I certainly recognize the problem with the volume of paper. Many people would agree that the deck, as we call the format, leads to not enough information in general that you can refer back to. It simply kind of touches on the high points. But, particularly in this morning's, we were supposed to bring sort of an up-to-date look at the general overview. It was not intended to be a detailed review. There are other documents that can do that. Certainly the proliferation of these kinds of formats and the use of electronic information through power-point presentations is a problem as well.

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Mr. Carmen Provenzano: We get this all the time.

Mr. David Miller: No, I appreciate that.

Our focus within government has been on paper burden for industry and for citizens as they interact with the government. There has been a major study involving several different departments in order to review that.

I'm in the process of changing positions. I'm moving over as the assistant deputy minister of assessment and collections in Revenue, which of course has the largest interaction with Canadians through all of the tax forms and all the client services, and that's an obvious concern. Our longer-term objective is to be able to simplify that to the point where people can, for example, submit their taxes electronically through having a program on their home computer that they would then file. There are reasons of security and other things that make that awkward, but it's certainly a longer-term objective once the technical areas are overcome.

In terms of the voice mail, I have a preference. I answer my own phone. If I'm not there, then I have a secretary who could answer the phone for me. But if my line is tied up, then rather than not having any ability to communicate, someone can leave a message. I know it's awkward if you can't get through to people all the time, but in many cases it's the ability to leave a 10-second message, not to say phone me back but to say here's my issue and get back to me on it, that allows things to progress.

I think we have to be very careful in that. Obviously, as employees of Canadians we have to be very aware of what kind of message that leaves. So no, I hate getting caught in voice mail myself, but I think if you can use it to move your conversation forward, then there is some benefit. But again, we have to be careful of misuse.

Martin, is there anything you want to add?

Mr. Martin Ulrich: One of the things that's very difficult for us is to find the best means of conveying information well. There are a lot of people, as you can imagine, in government departments and agencies who are technologically extremely literate, and the encouragement of making almost all documentation electronic is extremely powerful.

In the project we're talking about, the improved reporting to Parliament, we are worrying about one part of that, which is the members of Parliament. We've actually been in contact with the staff that handles information technology here to find ways of getting the information in a way that is convenient for that. At the same time, whenever we do that with a little bit too much energy, we do run into the problem of people wanting to read documents on airplanes and people wanting to not have to stare at screens. So it is a difficulty finding the right balance or the right mixture on this. But certainly a part of the project is to reduce the amount of paper.

As we have spring plans on priorities, you'll find some information is the same as in a fall performance report. This does seem wasteful, but finding the right balance is not easy.

Mr. Carmen Provenzano: As a parting comment, the point I would like to make to you gentlemen is that there are ways of controlling the amount of information that anyone wants to digest or try to digest, but there's no way to control the amount of paper. Paper overload is not manageable. Information can become an overload, depending how you approach it.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Provenzano.

We'll give the last word to Mr. Cullen.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Given the hour, I'll be very brief.

I think what the meeting demonstrates, as least to me, is the size of government and the overwhelming challenge of trying to comprehend how all the pieces fit together.

I had thought about asking a question about systems conversion in the year 2000 and then realized suddenly that it's not in your bailiwick—correct me if I'm wrong—the year 2000, the double zero. So I'll move off that for the moment. You probably have peripheral involvement. I'm very concerned about making that conversion as a government.

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I want to talk about this issue of quantifiable measures versus qualitative measures. I am a CA myself, so I like to measure everything, but I've been around long enough to know that there are some things you can't measure. There's a balance here, because the softer measures are easier to wiggle out of. We have a lot of examples of measuring quantitatively and missing on the qualitative side. So I'm glad to hear that, but I hope you'll strike the careful balance as we move forward.

I forget the Australian gentleman's name, but if he is here, what strikes me is that we are implicitly looking at best practices as that relates to performance reporting and measurement. I'm wondering what we're learning from Australia and what Australia is learning from us in terms of best practices. Are there things that we can adapt from Australian practice and are there things that Australia can adapt from us in terms of the whole area of your responsibility? Maybe all of you could comment on this.

Prof. John Wanna: Thank you.

I suppose I'm actually here learning the best practice from the Canadians. I think the initiative that Mr. Miller outlined is in many ways at the cutting edge of OECD experience, not just in the performance information or in the plans or the reporting back on performance, but particularly in the way in which it's integrated into the parliamentary process. I think that is a very germane and significant point.

We have performance reporting in Australia, but it's not integrated anywhere near as well into the parliamentary process. It's starting to become a little more so with a more independent Senate now, which is holding our representatives more to account as it's started to exercise its political arm. It's not controlled by the same parties as the government and the lower house.

I urge you to sort of, in innocence, nurture that part of it. If information's a problem—and a number of members here have mentioned that—it can be explored in different ways. We're talking about different processes here. For example, if you're looking at estimates and at performance in relation to those estimates, it may be that performance hearings with people from departments are a different way to do it, an extension of that process. In New South Wales, the estimates hearing now is starting to take performance into account. We have estimates with 60 or 100 departmental staff there and a pre-organizing of the agenda so that departments will know who to take along if a program or a region or something is looked at.

There's another example, which picks up on Mr. Provenzano's comments. A major regional authority in Australia, the largest one, did a series of quality reports with its ratepayers. The one thing they found people were most dissatisfied with was being put off the phone, losing contact or not getting an answer, the breakdown in the information transmission process.

They then reoriented their budget allocations and employed between 12 and 20 people who were like a one-stop service delivery unit. They now have performance indicators, which they have put through the culture of the organization, and we get performance reports attached to our rates. We get them on a semi-annual basis. Ninety-eight percent of calls coming in have to be answered before four rings, and you must have an answer to your question within speaking to three people. They monitor that. They've had that in place now for three years. The CEO of the authority goes around and challenges people to ring in. It's not hidden. There's an overt attempt to get people to try to test them. They've exceeded their performance targets for each of those three years, on a semi-annual reporting basis.

Now, it has diverted some resources. If you talk to an engineer he'd say there used to be an extra day person in engineering and now there's someone in the service reporting area instead. But that's what people wanted. An authority with a $1 billion budget has diverted resources in that way. If that's the kind of thing that members want to see, then departments are going to respond through their performance reporting and performance targets.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Mr. Chairman, since voice mail is of such interest in regard to how it works effectively and efficiently, and since we're responsible for government operations, it might be a topic we want to review in more depth. Maybe we will want to look at the Australian experience.

As my parting comment, what are we learning from Australia? Anything?

Mr. Martin Ulrich: I have one point that I think is very relevant to this. I don't know how wonderfully well it is working, but I know it is very interesting. There are institutions in Australia where the state and the federal government worked together on estimating how well they were serving the public in an area where both jurisdictions have a role to play. That has gone on for about three or four years. I've heard different reports about it. We have people looking at it.

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There are beginnings of initiatives in Canada. In the Ontario government, for example in the transportation area, they are worrying about how does the municipal level, which controls the quality of the road surfaces, work with the provincial level and with the federal government, which also has a level. So there are people looking at ways of evaluating how we can work together, not just evaluating what each one contributes, and one of the things I think Australia has some leadership in is trying to do that. I don't know at the moment how successful it has been. But that is I think an extremely important area and one in which I don't think we have a lot of experience in Canada.

Mr. Roy Cullen: It sounds like they have some good ideas on voice mail that we should look at, too.

Prof. John Wanna: Horizontal and intergovernmental reporting are probably the two sorts of mixed initiatives in Australia. A lot of the intergovernmental one has been addressed by new bodies, which are national bodies, national meaning they're both a combination of Commonwealth and states, and that's usually on a performance indicator basis.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Good. Thank you very much.

The Chairman: Mr. Bernier.

Mr. Gilles Bernier (Tobique—Mactaquac, PC): I understand that you have 78 departments and agencies, 12 million pages in your report and it weighed 50 pounds. I'd rather that it's you than me. But I'm not sure I heard it right when you talked about the main estimates and the budget. You work on the budget, and after that you work on the main estimates?

Mr. David Miller: I should explain that departments are provided what we call reference levels, which are the funds necessary for ongoing, approved programs. Those they have for three years into the future, the main estimates year being the first year and then two additional years. Each year is a rolling review, and we add in, in this case, 1999-2000. That's what they base their detailed plans on, which would appear on our report on plans and priorities.

In the budget process, the government may decide that here is a new initiative. We could pick one of the items out of the Speech from the Throne, such as youth, and what they're saying is that we will have some new programming directed at youth. Two days later, the government then presents its main estimates and its future year plans, for which there hasn't been an opportunity to integrate what it means with the announcement in the budget, because there is in most of the budget initiatives a certain degree of secrecy.

Certainly in the last couple of years there hasn't been that kind of surprise, but we would like to add one month between knowing what's in the budget and being able to reflect that in terms of the detailed plans over the next three years of departments and agencies, because by definition if there's something in the budget, then it will not have been reflected in those ongoing approved levels of programs and projects. So it's just the timing whereby it would be very unusual for an item to be in the budget where departments had enough planning time to actually integrate it into their detailed plans.

Mr. Gilles Bernier: Then it would be a lot easier to work with your main estimates.

Mr. David Miller: That is correct.

Mr. Gilles Bernier: It's like a contract. I'm talking about contracts because I'm in the construction industry, and every household is an example. If you want to make renovations somewhere in your house, you will make yourself an estimate first. Then you will go check in your budget to make sure that the money is there. That would be my way. As a contractor, you've been on the job, and if you want to know how much the job is going to cost you need an estimate. You have to estimate so you can work on a budget and work on the main estimate after the budget?

Mr. David Miller: I see.

Mr. Gilles Bernier: That's the part I don't understand.

Mr. David Miller: It's just terminology. For us the estimates are a detailed reflection of the ongoing programs and projects of departments, and as I said, departments have detailed numbers for the next three years. That is about $50 billion, and each department and agency can tell you exactly how much money the Treasury Board is going to allow them to spend in the coming years—not on what, but within a particular agency or department. So it's a planning number.

In the budget, it's the opportunity for the government to reflect their new initiatives. This may be increased priorities, in terms of new spending for something that was clearly a priority of the government, or it may be a reduction in spending, such as we had a few years ago.

In some cases, and I'll use program review as an example, the budget of 1995 reflected some serious reductions in the levels of departments and agencies. Departments did not know in detail what those implications would be until the budget came out. So it sets the overall framework.

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Then they say, oh, now I understand; I'm going to have to change my plans because of those new initiatives that were in the budget. So the budget had always assumed that $50 billion of ongoing programming. What it does is change things not at the margin but for new adjustments as they implement new things. It provides that framework overall.

So departments can go and do their planning, do their project management, on the basis of understanding how much money they have over the next three years. If something happens in the budget, that would normally be the document where the government's priorities are reflected and they would therefore have to change their plans.

In the past, although not for the last couple of years, there's been a level of secrecy around those changes in the budget. It was as much a surprise to the departments as it was to others in the initial reading. Over the last few years most of the items in the budget have been publicly announced before the budget was actually brought down.

So it's just terminology in that sense. They do have planning in there.

The Chairman: Thank you, Gilles.

On behalf of all members, I thank you, Mr. Miller, Mr. Ulrich, and Professor Wanna, for being here. I think you've again demonstrated that Canada has a very capable public service and public servants who really want to serve the public, as we do, as best we can. We're all working toward finding better ways to do that. We look forward to, in the months ahead, further discussions.

We'll adjourn until Tuesday at 11 a.m.